The Observatory is a stalwart and long-running member of the electronica scene here and every year, they put on Playfreely, their annual experimental/improvised music festival. This year’s edition is titled Nervous Systems – and owing to the restrictions imposed by the pandemic, the festival has been re-adapted into a full art exhibition that comprises various sound-based, multi-media installations in place of the usual line-up of live musicians. As the organisers put it, these “‘absurd times’ (no arguments there) have propelled us into reflecting the deprivation of physicality and challenge our common understanding of how music and sound are presented.”

Six works will be on show for this exhibition, all of which are informed by the spatial, site-specificity and temporal nature of our environments and common life. For example, Solar Call (charge/discharge) by Makoto Oshiro (pictured) is a solar-driven sound installation made in reaction to the 2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster. It charges electricity generated by a solar panel and produces a ‘call’ when charged electricity is released. The ‘call’ is influenced by the amount of electricity charged which differs depending on what happens in daily weather – under strong sunlight, the intervals are short and the calls are more frequent.

Check out the full line-up here.

March 12 to March 21 at Goodman Arts Centre, 90 Goodman Road, from 4pm-7pm on weekdays and 11am-7pm on weekends

Film lovers are in for a treat. Singapore Film Society, Golden Village and Park Circus (a global sales agency and distribution company representing over 25,000 films) have collaborated to screen a series of classic works at Golden Village cinemas across the island.

Kicking off this program is the critically acclaimed black comedy Fargo (1996), written and directed by the Coen Brothers. Starring Frances McDormand as Marge Gunderson, a pregnant police officer investigating roadside homicides, McDormand (pictured) would eventually go on to win her first Oscar for the role.

Titles to follow in the ensuing months include The Silence of The Lambs (1991), Jaws (1975), Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), selected James Bond films, and, marking its 60th anniversary, the legendary musical West Side Story (1961) in anticipation of the new Steven Spielberg version that’s slated to launch later this year.

Fargo will run in theatres from March 11 to March 24, while details of the other movies will be up on Golden Village and Singapore Film Society’s websites shortly.

Ongoing

Singapore-based, British-Israeli artist Chloe Manasseh is known for her beautifully lush paintings and she’s putting on a new solo exhibition titled Casa. As you might tell from the name, the exhibition explores how one’s concept of home and identity shifts over time.

Casa features wall paintings, two-sided folding screens, a tile installation and pots, all of which builds up a microcosm – an alternate Morocco dreamt up by the artist. Coming from a familial background in Morocco, Iraq, Portugal, Britain, Israel, India, and Singapore, Manasseh is interested in the imprecision of memory and the processes by which imagination can reshape perceptions of physical space.

March 20 to May 2 at Art Porters Gallery, 64 Spottiswoode Park Rd