Arjuna Neuman
Residency period
6 January – 3 April 2015
About
Arjuna Neuman was born on an airplane, that’s why he has two passports. He shows his work internationally with recent exhibitions and screenings at: Sunshinism, State of the Art, Berlin (2014); Les Recontres Internationales, Haus Der Kunst der Welt, Berlin (2014); The Museum of Immortality, Ashkal Alwan, Beirut (2014); Exposure, Beirut Art Centre (2014); Les Rencontres Internationales, Le Gaite Lyric, Paris (2014); Transpositions, Verge Gallery Sydney University (2014); Young Artist Moscow Biennale, Moscow Museum (2014); ABC : MTL, Canadian Centre for Architecture, Montreal (2012); In Our Sights, Machine Projects, Los Angeles (2012) amongst others. As a writer he has published articles in Relief Press, Into the Pines Press, The Journal for New Writing, VIA Press, Concord Press, Art Voices and e-flux.
Focus
Arjuna Neuman works towards a diagnostic of the economic, affective and ideological systems that envelop us; he uses the history of the nuclear industry and technology more generally to this end. Neuman researched Singapore as a “City within a Garden” through the concept of “Borrowed Scenery”, an ancient Chinese and Japanese garden design as it re-appears in unusual places: from an Israeli-Singaporean Military collaboration on various weapons, to the Singapore Tourism Board’s masterplan, to local gateway architecture built by foreign stars.
Public programmes
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If the procedure of hacking seeks out weaknesses so as to forcefully enter a system, then both religion and radiation could be understood as deep hacking precedents. Come and experience Arjuna Neuman’s installation Caesium Forest (2013-) an ongoing video and research project that considers the meeting points of nuclear history and contemporary religious practices. If the procedure of hacking seeks out weaknesses so as to forcefully enter a system, then both religion and radiation could be understood as deep hacking precedents.
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Multi-Cultural Dread is a collaborative event and interactive sonic experience created by Arjuna Neuman. The event will begin with a conversation-circle co-organised by Brack and moderated by Mohamed Imran – which will include prominent thinkers and artists addressing the topic of identity in relation to Singapore. The discussion will transition into a discursive-mini-rave with a set by Kiat (Metalheads/Syndicate SG), who will reconsider and re-contextualise 90s Jungle music as a mode of critical resistance.
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Caesium Forest is a feature-length video essay by artist Arjuna Neuman that visits five reverential sites of ‘big technology’. The project moves fluidly between nuclear, neoliberal and ecological histories through documenting space shuttles, techno raves, TED talks and a World War II re-enactment inside a nuclear weapons facility. This two-part presentation includes a viewing of the documentary followed by a question and answer session with the artist.
Arjuna Neuman is a filmmaker, writer and artist. He is the co-founder of the research gallery and collective – Concord in Cypress Park, Los Angeles, where he lives, collaborates and works.