Launched in 2014 by the Singapore government, the Smart Nation initiative aims to enhance economic productivity and urban efficiency through technological streamlining and boundary-marking of both territories and bodies. Since the onset of her residency, Luca Lum has turned to the “soft architectures” and “non-events” of the city, that loose and ungraspable entanglement of sentiment and decoration, behaviours and bodies that defines urban life. Her research focuses on the diffractive relationship between two specific sites: Geylang, a little-known testbed to many Smart Nation initiatives, and Marina, Singapore’s anchoring “global” image. Understanding the optical phenomena of diffraction and iridescence as relational geometries that connect positions of proximity and distance, generate states of affection, and undergo multiple interferences, the artist is conducting repeated visits to the areas. Through her open-ended explorations, she is in the process of mapping and morphing the distinct attitudes and streaks of desires that inform the two sites. Her eclectic approach spans across various media and materializes in the form of photographs, objects, drawings, recordings, scores, and texts.