Vectors of power and specters of control.

Abstract

The interest for this Project surfaced when I returned to live in Singapore after spending 14 years in China. Having not grown up in Singapore, I did not have any memories of my birth-country at large and my experience with the landscape was predominantly new and unfamiliar. Upon returning to Singapore, Google Earth has since been my primary means of navigating the city. Through exploring the city from the software, I was able to scroll through Google Earth views of the Singaporean topography from 1995-2012. Looking through the territorial changes over the past 17 years unveiled a keen sense of malleability of the landscape in the hands of the ruling powers.

The project is about using Google Earth imagery as a form of Landscape photography to observe the power exerted on the land by comparing both past and present states. Mirroring Singapore's process to bring its topography under control are individual breakthroughs in conquering the orchid. As a polar point of tension, these locally hybridized orchids epitomize the power of the individual orchid enthusiast over nature.