Curatorial Vision

It is planned to select 10 artworks for this project and we are mainly looking at 2D visual works i.e. prints, multimedia and video. Installation, performance and any special proposal will be received positively but are subjected approval by Keretapi Tanah Melayu Berhad – KTMB (Malayan Railway Limited) due to the complicated situation at the railway. Each invited artist/ organization may submit only 1 artwork. Organization may nominate an artist from their region to take part in this project. The work shall

1. explore the mobility of the commuter train; opening a dialogue between the space (train/ station) and the time (specific hour/ travel duration).

2. examine the evidence of time which is embodied in the physical city.

3. correspond to time-specificity and/ or site specificity in their production.

4. produce a model of sociability, which renders reality or might be conveyed in it.

Possible Display & Installation Space

Komuter train interior
and grips, overhead panels, other on board panels for printsLCD panel for screening of video works or films

Komuter train exterior
body of the carriage for train wraparound and vinyl sticker

Train stations & the surrounding grounds
Train shelter, light box and other ambient media

LAMU - MULA??

Introduction of LAMU
LAMU provides the KTM Komuter trains as the platform for artist to create art that actively engage the commuters and help bring art to people in real and mundane way. Artwork will be located both inside the train and in the stations or surrounding grounds. The commuter train service caters especially to commuters in KL and the surrounding suburb areas. It provides 248 commuter services daily, serving 41 stations along 175 route-kilometres from Rawang to Seremban and Sentul to Pelabuhan Kelang with an average of 20 mins frequency. KTM komuter is a vehicle carrying people from 1 place to another, shifting loads of passenger around the town where its cosmopolitan air projecting an unrestrained spirit of urbanization, generating a dynamic and organic flow of people in the city. The stations are serve as transitory space, where notions of borders, time and place are temporarily suspended, while the trains are bearing the citizens like constant flow of blood pumped in and out the heart of KL, through the stream of TIME, sustaining the life of KL.

So, LAMU explores the spatial and temporal distance between events happening in the train and at the stations. The prospective investigations all come down to the management of TIME and the management of CHANGE.

The artworks will be
1. Exploring the mobility of the commuter train; opening a dialogue between the space (train/ station) and the time (specific hour/ travel duration).
2. Examining the evidence of time which is embodied in the physical city.
3. Corresponding to time-specificity and/ or site specificity in their production.
4. Producing a model of sociability, which renders reality or might be conveyed in it.

Bila LAMU mula?
LAMU will be on the rail from 1st to 7th October 2007 (1 week: Monday to Sunday). Please come back later to check out the schedule of events.

Kuala Lumpur's TIME-SPACE

by Lim Kok Yoong aka. Wing

Kuala Lumpur, is coordinated at 3°8’00’’N, 101 °42’00’’E and is set at Universal Time (UTC) UTC+06:46:48. This hectic city is commonly known as ‘KL’, with the federal state’s motto “Maju dan Makmur (progress & proper)” and its cosmopolitan air project an unrestrained spirit of progress and symbolizes Malaysia’s unhesitating leap into the future.

The heart of KL is around Dataran Merdeka (Independence Square), dominated by Sultan Abdul Samad Building with it central tower holding a clock that restlessly reporting time, ever since the struck of midnight when Malaysia (then Malaya) gained Independence. The towering flagpole right opposite, commemorates the country’s independence from Britain on 31st August 1957 – the day when our ‘Jalur Gemilang’ replaced the Union Jack. Since then, the ‘heart’ is beating faster and faster, adopting the accelerando tempo. In many ways, KL marks the continuation rather than the loss of its rich past; the past is everywhere meeting with its persevering reminders of KL’s future: Wawasan 2020. It is indeed a city of delightful contrast – a combination of modern cosmopolitan, sophistication and lingering old world charm.

There is an indivisibility between the social time and activities in KL, it happened when it happens: the doing of thing and its time have become so habitual and to a certain extend, it becomes ‘natural’ and they are inseparable - the hour becomes the action & the action becomes the hour. Just as you will definitely see hawkers start pushing their mobile hawker stall to their designated spot along Petaling Street at 4:00p.m., and these activities mark the beginning of the night market. Major exits in KL start to get congested when the hour hand is approaching 5. As the hour is approaching 7, the whole city is being lit up by the urban neon and fluorescent lights. The colour of the city is the very conceptual source of KL time itself. The physical environment of KL, the place, plays a crucial role in building and supporting the image of time of every citizen. Even though, the image of time is desired to be in tune with our own biological nature, but it does not apply to the activities at the back lanes of Chow Kit street.

And, quite to the contrary, we have also lost some of the obstinate markers of time. Now there are no such thing as seasonal produce in KL. There are no more ‘Durian’ months as the fruit can be bought at Tesco supermarket all year round, so happen to mooncake, longan etc. Living in a synthetic extend-present present, are we living in the fullness or the emptiness of time? With homogenization as a key phenomenon of place today, we are also losing our place-distinctiveness and in result we get indistinct suburban same-time. Like wise, Bangsar is densed with people during happy hour and stay open later into the night in similar to the hour at London’s SOHO. Executives walking out from the Twin Towers are performing the universal gesture – stretching out the wrist and looking at the watch.

Accuracy and precision are how KL dwellers see time in modernity. Because time measurement is pre-occupying our so-called modern life, we are inevitably being timed in every inches of land in KL: Clocks on corporate buildings & hotels are blinking the date & time, CCTV times your progress along the happening Bintang Walk, Traffic lights at the Golden Triangle runs on timed schedules, the timetable at the bus stops in front of Pudu Raya tells you what time the next RapidKL shuttle will pick you up and drop you off at Sungei Wang, your flight ticket is dated and tell you what time you flight will depart from KLIA and by boarding KLIA Express from KL Central you are expected to reach KLIA in 36 minutes!

Yet, KL citizens still think that TIME is not enough and we are trying every possible way to buy more time. “Touch and go”, “Drive-through” are just some samples of ‘sped-up’ words. We have not mentioned the Marie France Bodyline giant billboards around KL which constantly reminding you that 4.5 inches can be reduced from your waist in just 4 weeks time only! You can more or less predict your future in KL even before reaching it as the digital signboard along Sungai Besi highway will alert you the bumper-to-bumper traffic condition a few miles ahead even before you have reached the doorstep of KL!