They’re Tearing Down 7th Storey Hotel. Boo!!!!

A bit of History from Wikipedia:

The New 7th Storey Hotel was established in 1953. The founder of the hotel, Wee Thiam Siew, spotted the potential for a hotel business on its current site in the early 1950s. Wee also owned the Ban Leong Group. At that time, there was an influx of immigrants and Europeanbusinessmen.

The then five-star hotel did well and became prominent. It was the tallest standing structure in the Beach Road area, and offered panoramic views of the beach. It was commonly used as a landmark by drivers to locate the lower Rochor vicinity. With the advent of land reclamation in the 1970s and 1980s, the seascapes gave way to flyovers. Following urbanisation directives, shophouses, a Chinese temple and pasar malam markets in the hotel’s immediate surroundings were also pulled down. In the 1990s, the development of the high-rise skyscrapers in Marina Centre such as the Suntec City obscured the sea view that the hotel once enjoyed.

In the 1950s and 1960s, the building’s top floor was the site of cha cha parties thrown by post-war British officers and graced by Singapore’s veteran singer S. K. Poon. After Singapore’s independence in 1965, most of the hotel’s guests were traders from India and Indonesia. Since the Asian economic crisis of 1997, fewer traders have been putting themselves up at the hotel’s rooms. Most guests now are backpackers from Europe and North America.

For those who are not sure which one it is, the New 7th Storey Hotel is that odd tilting building in Bugis in the same plot of land as the (tacky) DHL balloon and the Art-Decoish Parkview Square.

The other day I heard that the plot of land had been acquired to make way for an MRT station for the new downtown line which will be opened in 2013. Can’t imagine how lazy Singaporeans will be in the future. The place is just a friggin 5 minute walk from the already existing Bugis MRT! And I have this image in my head that in a few years, Singapore’s underground will be vaoid and filled with pipes and tunnels. Even now there have been a few cases of land caving in due to construction of tunnels. Maybe we will even live underground in the future, if Singapore hasn’t reclaimed so much land that the island is eventually connected with Indonesia and Malaysia.

Today Newspaper interviewed the lift operator (yes its lift is manually operated!) and the lift uncle was surprised to hear that they’re going to close the hotel and tear it down, his boss didn’t even say a word about it. My mind wanders. How will he make a living? Does he have a wife? Does he have to buy medicines for her? He’s so used to meeting so many people from different parts of the world everyday, he chats with them, won’t he feel lonely? What can he do next?

I hate it when they “have to” tear down old buildings, especially something not short of being a landmark – like the case of the New 7th Storey Hotel. It’s like telling an old man, “Hey sorry we just gotta kill you. We have better use for the space you are occupying in this world right now”

I thought I could book a room there for my birthday, before it’s evacuated later in December this year. But they’re fully booked for the period. Summer holidays, I guess. OK. Resolution. I gotta stay at least a night in the hotel before it’s closed! It’s gonna be an historical experience

The Birthday and The Best Nap Ever

Last Friday we had dinner at Arab Street’s Cafe La Caire (Al Majlis) to celebrate the bf’s and his friend Jackie’s birthday. She came with another friend, Zach. I really didn’t know what to get the bf for his birthday but in the end I settled for 2 books, on Francois Truffaut and Man Ray and crossed my fingers that he’ll like it. I got  Jackie a red 3-eyed plush monster.

Haven’t eaten there for quite some time and the food is still as good, although service is almost as bad as usual. Surprisingly our dishes came in less than 15 minutes, while we usually have to wait for almost half an hour (I guess due to the small kitchen). But it didn’t last long, we ordered dessert, and waited and waited and waited until we all forgot we’ve ordered dessert, and still there was no dessert coming our way.

So we paid up and had dessert – Sisha from the egyptian restaurant at the corner while laying around on a carpet on the walkway outside the shops. I felt like an elite hobo. I was hoping that we could stay out until midnight and count down to his/their birthday, but it seemed better to just end the night after the waiter added charcoal to our water pipe for the second time. I went home and wasted time playing online games.

I was so very sleepy the next day that I fell asleep during the first session at the museum training. The heavy Vietnamese lunch at Va Va Voom which included huge slabs of meat and rice didn’t help either. But I was pretty glad to find out that I wasn’t the only one who fell asleep. I looked around and I noticed half a dozen other heads nodding drowsily.

I had the Best Nap Ever yesterday. Was at Sentosa to enjoy some sea breeze, and I fell asleep pretty quickly at the beach under a big tree. I tell you sleeping outdoors like this is GOOD. Unless, of course, you are genuinely homeless. When I woke up I rolled around and saw a hairy beer belly, but the upper part of the body was covered by another person. So I thought, “Uncle with beer belly..” But then the hairy-bellied person got up and.. and… the owner of the belly was FEMALE! And not any aunties, she’s at most 25 years old! Shivers.

Random Post of the Day

Went for a SAM tour and managed to catch the tour portion of the Alain Fleischer exhibition opening. Was planning to go for the curator tour next week but there the man himself was, giving us a tour of his work.

Anyway, random picture of the day of an electrocuted bird by the eastbound MRT railway in Clementi Station. Enjoy.

Belief-O-Matic

I’ve been reading this great Blog by Rima Fauzi, an Indonesian who lives in Brussels. She took the Belief-O-Matic quiz and attested its accuracy. So I decided to give it a try. I was born into a Catholic family and was Catholic educated. I myself was baptised as a Catholic while still an infant. However, our views of religion and spirituality is wider than and extends outside only Christianity. We keep an open mind and I would say we’re more spiritual than religious, although we still stick to Christianity as a rite. Anyways, here goes my result:

1. Mahayana Buddhism (100%)
2. Hinduism (95%)
3. Unitarian Universalism (86%)
4. Neo-Pagan (85%)
5. Liberal Quakers (84%)
6. Jainism (83%)
7. Reform Judaism (78%)
8. Sikhism (78%)
9. New Age (77%)
10. Bahá’í Faith (73%)
11. Theravada Buddhism (73%)
12. New Thought (71%)
13. Taoism (68%)
14. Scientology (65%)
15. Mainline to Liberal Christian Protestants (65%)
16. Orthodox Judaism (64%)
17. Christian Science (Church of Christ, Scientist) (59%)
18. Orthodox Quaker (58%)
19. Islam (56%)
20. Secular Humanism (44%)
21. Seventh Day Adventist (34%)
22. Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) (33%)
23. Mainline to Conservative Christian/Protestant (33%)
24. Nontheist (26%)
25. Jehovah’s Witness (23%)
26. Eastern Orthodox (21%)
27. Roman Catholic (21%)

Out of the 27 religions the quiz compares my beliefs to, Roman Catholicism falls LAST on my list! Hahahah.. So sue me for being unchristian (or uncatholic) if you will.

You can click on *this* link to learn more about the beliefs listed above.

Lost & Found

Found this membership card in NUS the other day. Don’t know who it belongs to. Well OK I know it belongs to some guy named Sai Aung Hlaing Win and he’s a member of the Myanmar Computer Professional Association. I Googled up his name to see if his contacts are listed. I assume only a handful of people (if not only 1 person) is named so in Singapore and is involved in some IT-associated activities.

So my online search turned up an email address and a mobile number. I sent an email (no response) and I tried calling the mobile number. So I called, but nobody picked up. Then I got a call back from that number, and it was a guy talking in almost incomprehensible English.

Me: “Hello”
Guy: “Hello! You call!”
Me: “Yeah. I found this card for Myanmar Computer Association, is it yours?”
Guy: “I’m looking for job! You calling for job?”
Me: “OK.. is the card yours? The name written is Sai Aung Hlaing Win”
Guy: “Where you find?”
Me: “In NUS”
Guy: “You in NUS?”
Me: “Yes. I am.”
Guy: “Oh! I’m looking for job! You in NUS Project Manager?”
Me: “Er.. no..?”
Guy: “Oh! You NUS student!”
Me: “Er.. yeah..?” (obviously I’m not, but I didn’t want to complicate things)
Guy: “I want to apply for job!”

At this point I concluded that further exchange will be fruitless, so I hung up and sent him an SMS instead:

“Are you Sai Aung Hlaing Win?”

And he replied:

“ON”

So I still have this card with me and I’m hoping that I can return it to the rightful owner before its expiry.

Pumping on Saturday Night

Shelly’s cousin is in town and last weekend she asked Shelly if we could take her out clubbing. I suggested that we go to either St James or MoS because those two are presumably (and are) the most well known, most happening, and biggest clubbing complexes especially for first-time clubbers in Singapore. But since most of us aren’t into too huge crowds or music that are too loud (or too “TRUNG TRUNG” – you know how those trance/ house stuff go “TRUNG TUNG TUNG TUNG TUNG TUNG TUNG TUNG”), we decided to drop by The Pump Room at Clarke Quay. They’re a bistro slash bar slash microbrewery (love the White Ale) slash club. And it’s free entry. And the music the DJs spin is pretty good. And the resident band, Jive Talkin’, kicks ass. And the band’s axe-man, Addy, kicks ass. And kinda cute. And the keyboardist plays the organ at the Cathedral. And they have a seriously huge fan on the ceiling (no kidding, the brand is: Huge Ass Fans). And the crowd’s slightly older than other hot-spots and less pretentious. And no annoying puking kids. All in all, we like the place. A year ago or so I clubbed quite often and we patronized The Pump Room quite often. After a few times we realised that the song the band play are the same 20 songs or so. They’re crowd-pleasers, tho. Those like Sweet Child of Mine, Ain’t Nobody, It’s My Life, Can’t Take my Eyes Off You (overkill Singaporean song), Rock DJ, etc. Anyway, after almost a year (?), last Saturday I kinda hoped that they’d found new songs to play. But was a bit disappointed that they’re still playing the same list of songs But we had fun nonetheless.

I’d love to hit clubs a bit more often, if only I could find more nice places and if only booze prices were much cheaper. Alcohol is just to freakin expensive in Singapore. Maybe we should just start at the local coffeeshop with those beer aunties with fanny packs and curly hair soaked in wet-look gel (is that how the chikopeks like it??), get drunk on Tiger (p*ss) and then head to the more chichi designations and pretend that we’re drunk on vodka martinis.

I’m a bad dancer, except when I’m possessed

The pre-kungfu strike and the typical Asian pose

She’s not drunk

For Potheads Out There

So you think smoking pot is cool. And you think that smoking pot using a bong is cool. I found this while Googling the word “cock” (DON’T ASK) – and it definitely renders pot smoking uncool [source]

On Strollers

When I was much younger I remember all the escalators I’ve seen has this sticker that shows you how to correctly push your trolley on the escalator – which I assume goes as well with baby strollers. However, when I go to shopping malls, most parents will balance their strollers on the rear wheels and balance it with their hands, keeping the front wheels hanging. I always have the urge to knock on some piece of plank just to make sure the parent won’t lose their grip on the stroller or the handle suddenly broke off or something. Then it’s bye bye baby bye bye. Obviously the stroller will just roll down the escalator. If they’re feeling acrobatic, why not just hang their babies on a trapeze or balance them on their fingers like a basketball.

I don’t dare to imagine what will happen if the handle breaks or the parent loses his grip

I find that it’s more responsible to stand on a lower level and support the stroller with your whole arm/body. Then even if you lose your grip, no baby will fall to its demise. Or if the wheel rolls off. Or if the handle breaks. I’d love to see more parents think about it. Then I won’t be in suspense everytime I take the escalator in the mall.

This looks more responsible, doesn’t it?

The Merlion is Missing Something

I believe everyone knows how the merlion looks like:

As in previous years, Singapore sends a representative to the Miss Universe pageant, where she will compete with a few dozen of the supposedly most beautiful, charming, but not necessarily intelligent, girls in the world. They’ll strut their stuff dressed up in a bathing suit, then a night gown, et cetera et cetera. This year, Singapore decided to be more creative. Our Miss Universe representative, Shenise Wong, will be wearing a Merlion-inspired gown made of dangling pieces of PVC leather and plastic as her National costume. Yes this means the picked costume is thought to represent Singapore. It was designed by the 18-year-old designer Muhammed Hafiz Tahir. [source]

Take a look:

OK it’s a perfectly fine mermaidish dress – which I personally think isn’t appropriate for something the scale of the Miss Universe Pageant, the Halloween pageant maybe or the Recyclable dress competition. I don’t even think it represents Singapore or it’s culture, more like Atlantis maybe. But since the choice has been made, why not just improve on what we have. My suggestion is: to up the impact and shock factor and also to more closely resemble the Merlion, get water to spew out of the Miss’ mouth:

Now that’s more like it.

An Eventful Weekend and More

FRIDAY

Went to the Singapore Art Museum to catch Ket Noi, a performance art event by Vietnamese and Singaporean artists. Four artists performed on Friday, started with something that involved the artist being whipped by a red scarf (missed the start, was watching this video about Giacometti in SAM), then a ‘Silent Conductor’ (or something to that effect), where the artist conducted silence, poured water into her left ear, turned her back to the audience and started howling, and then a woman’s temple where water was transported with nothing but bare hands as an offering. The last one was where art books and magazines were put into a washing machine. Also met some of Billy’s friends there, Angie, Sherman, and a few others. Also Ken, who seem to be the only ADM staff I know who attend openings. He was taking photos of people taking photos of the event.

Have you ever been in somewhere really nice and captivating and pleasant but then something/one ugly enters your field of vision and you just can’t help staring? Well, during one of the performances there was this lady who apparently wore G-string with really tight jeans. She squatted down and I happen to be standing right behind here. What happened was a bad case of plumber’s crack. When she squatted, the waist of her jeans slipped right to almost the end of her ass and we could see not only her panties’ waistband but also the (what do you call it?) vertical part of the G-string right to the end of her ass. Another millimeter and I bet her jeans would just fall off. Eyes traumatized, I went home and tried to forget all about it.

SATURDAY

It’s Ririn & Henry’s wedding in the morning, at the Bukit Batok Presbyterian Church. They’ve been going out for ever and whenever we ask her when they’re getting married, she always replied “Still very loonggggggg”. And then one day we received an invitation to their wedding, just a month before! Sneaky! And they’ve bought a flat! Which means they’ve been planning for this for long! Sneaky! So here’s us and the happy couple..

We went back to town on the train, and when we stepped into the train at Jurong East, this lady stood up from her seat and offered it to me! OMG, SHE MUST’VE THOUGHT I WAS PREGNANT!!!! I’M NOT THAT FAT! We laughed until tears rolled and I didn’t dare to turn my back and look at the lady – I assume she’s embarrassed – and we laughed some more. I dried up my tears and tried hard to stop laughing. But then Aldo was still laughing after so long. So we started laughing again. And more tears rolled.

Since there’s no training at the museum today, I met up with Billy after the wedding and went for a walk around the city. We dropped by the Arts House – which is Singapore’s former Parliament House – to check out what’s on and went into the chamber and tried to experience how it’s like to stand at the podium and talk to the whole parliament.

Then we went to the Asian Civilisation Museum. Last time I went there was maybe almost 2 years back. I remember liking it a lot, but now the place just seem so big and empty and dark and scary. But I had fun nonetheless. They have lots of interactive exhibits and we tried on costumes and learned how to play middle-eastern drum. I wanted to take pictures of the deities, but I was afraid that it works like how it works in Java’s Keratons (palaces) – your film won’t develop when you take pictures of sacred objects – I personally have never tried it but just to be on the safe side of my brand new $500 toy, I refrained from it. I found out that Jamiroquai got his inspiration from Torajan warriors:

SUNDAY

Checked out the newly opened 9km track from Mount Faber, through Henderson Wave and Hort Park. The climb up to Mount Faber from Harbourfront was grueling. It was an almost never ending staircase and that hurt my ass. Or maybe I just need more exercise for my ass. We were lucky that it didn’t rain although the sky was overcast. We could’ve resumed the walk to Kent Ridge Park, but we thought we’d had enough walking for the day and headed to Vivocity for lunch and some shopping instead. Elisa bought a Winnie the Pooh drumset for her niece in Jakarta. So then I went home and watched the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly on DVD. It was rather cheesy and it reminds me of Kill Bill. Or rather if I’d watched the Clint Eastwood flick before Kill Bill, I’d say Quentin Tarantino drew his inspiration from TGTBATU.

View from Mount Faber

Henderson Wave

@ Hort Park: this was supposed to be Dorothy from Wizard of Oz with her dog, Toto. There were other characters form the movie, too. Made out of scraps. And there’s the witch (blond!) who popped out of a field of flowers, it was successfully creepy.

MONDAY

I took Monday off to enjoy some of Singapore’s nature. We went to Pulau Ubin in the morning. By mistake we took a bus from Lavender MRT to Changi Village. Was a veerryy longgg rideeee… We didn’t have to wait for other passangers at the jetty, as it’s school holidays and quite a number of people went to Ubin. We were tired from the walk at Mt Faber the day before, so we didn’t stay too long at Ubin. It’s pretty interesting to see this side of Singapore which looks more like spectacles from road trip out from Jakarta. We cycled to Check Jawa, get some tan lines on my feet from the scorching sun, watch the crabs with huge right claws fight for women and teritorry (When they fight with their claws they make this obscene gesture.. if you watch the South Park episode where they parodied 300 you’ll get what I mean) and had lunch and cycled a bit more and fed the turtles at the temple, and we went back to Changi Village. We felt old. We had to push our bikes up steep slopes, while other people happily pedal up.. But then I like to blame it on the $8/day bike – stupid gears don’t work. Bwahahah. Or maybe cheap bikes are just not made to go up inclinations. Anyway the cycling sored up my groin. On the way back, we dropped by the WWII memorial Changi Chapel & Museum. I guess it’s the Singaporean version of Lobang Buaya. While waiting at the bus stop, we saw 3 girls brats, maybe about 13 or 14 years old, smoking and cursing, and one of them very unglamorously spitted out a string of phlegm. I felt like giving them a good kick in the face.

View from Check Jawa

Another view from Check Jawa

This is where we fed the turtles

At Changi Chapel & Museum

Lost in Time

A few minutes back I checked my email and noticed that the most recent email was dated “Thu 5 Jun”. “But it’s only Wednesday”, I thought. I was so excited about the possibility of me getting emails from the future! But after consultation with the laptop’s calendar, I realized that today IS ACTUALLY THURSDAY.

Fragonard painted with his buttocks, Renoir with his maleness

Last week during the Museum Volunteer training session each of us were given a copy of “The Annotated Mona Lisa“. It a comprehensive, compact, easy-to-read book (no academic arty farty terminologies) – which I’ve been reading day in – day out. I really think I need to catch up on my art, especially in this training period, as I’ve abandoned almost any (visual) art related activity and readings the moment I stepped into Engineering School. Then I got distracted by the textbooks and gathering enough ECA points and all the other things that preoccupies a Singapore university student. Luckily we got heaps of art books at home that I flipped through diligently when I was back in Jakarta, but I can’t remember most of the stuff I read, although some did stick in my head and all the artists’ names sounds just so familiar. I would say this Museum Volunteer thing is a really good opportunity to revisit my interest in art (it was never gone in the first place, but it did diminish) and also I’ll be surrounded by people who are also genuinely interested in art (environment). It’s like being married to a woman, then moving out to live with the girlfriend, and then after a few years rekindling the romance with the wife. You can feel the joy of reminiscing memories and the novelty of another newfound romance.

Anyway, back to the Mona Lisa book – I’ve been reading it day in and day out, on my way to the office, during my solitary lunch hours, on my way back from work, as a bed time reading. And this morning I was waken up by names of random Italian artists swimming around in my head. And I tried to fall back to sleep but all I could think about was who these people were and what they painted! This is becoming an obsession. And I still have a binder of excerpts to read. And I need to do a writeup on Jacques Lipchitz, the cubist sculptor. Went to the central library to look up books on him, but apparently most books on Cubism explore paintings almost exclusively. Found a few books written about his work, too. But I need some explanations on a specific, preferrably representative, artwork. Guess I’ll have to spend some time this weekend squatting in the library. *hooray for studying!* I so miss my studying days.

I chatted with a visiting professor during lunch yesterday. He teaches Music Technology in Australia and he’s into experimental music. He’s also created an interesting performance that uses Bluetooth enabled phones (16 of them, swung around the head of students) as instruments. So he mentioned that he got his degree in Music, and reality struck him – he couldn’t make money out of music! At least not decent enough money. So he became an engineer instead. The new occupation had better capability of paying the bills. But it got interesting that now he’s exploring technology (engineering) to create music. So I asked him if people ever wondered what the point of swinging phones was, after a performance. He told me he’d simply reply, “Why are you still here, then?”. But to avoid people who grumble about “what’s the point?” he’d prepared a slide that lists the reasons:

• It’s easier than swinging those huge loud speakers around
• *something I can’t quite recall*
• It gives a spatial sense of sound without the need of fancy DSP
• It’s fun!

Ode to one thousand keratin sprouts

They sparkle,

Like Stars, he said.

Art for Today : Surrounding David

This gigantic duplicate of Michelangelo’s David clad in pink kebaya brocade is currently in the rotunda of the National Museum of Singapore (NAMOS). It’s the deeds of Indonesian artist, Titarubi. I believe people’s reactions would vary, including “This looks like candy”, “What is this?”, “Who is this?”, “Gotta be someone with fucked up brains”, “What next? Rodin’s The Thinker clad in Hello Kitty decals?”, “This is an eyesore”, “Heeheehee look at his dick”. I just thought it was a bit frivolous at first. Anyway, I found a writeup done by its curator, Enin Supriyanto.

Subverted David, Subversive Beauty
…
By choosing David, Titarubi is jumping directly into a maelstrom of intertwining problems: the canon and model of genius (male) artist and his masterpiece, gender, idealization of masculinity and nudity. This is why, although there are other existing statues, which are generally considered in Western tradition as the ideal figure of a human (male), the hero and also the symbol of knowledge, such as exemplified by Apollo Belvedere, David provides more space to problematize not only conceptual debates concerning to the ideal canon of human body—the masculine beauty—but also how the concept is realized within a specific context: the contribution of modern art history in constituting the dominant discourse of the ideal human body (male). And how all of them are contextually represented to Indonesian or to Asian society in general.

At least there are three visual, as well as conceptual, strategies that Titarubi applied to approach David in her current work. First, she amplifies the size of David, almost two times larger than the original one. The 5,5 meter tall David in Michelangelo’s version is already in larger than life size, gigantic even, added to its arrangement on top of it’s plinth. Titarubi enlarges it even more. She transforms David into Goliath’s size, soaring up to 4 to 5 times taller than the average height of average Asian men. At the present, David truly becomes monumental by filling up the space as if reaching out to the pinnacle of rotunda above. The historical synchronism between David and the structure of the space and building ostensibly reveals the conjuncture of civilization that has merged the two. But on the other hand the colossal figure has transformed it from the ideal form of man into a giant. Hence it diverts from objective representation into pure abstraction. David’s image as ‘small, ordinary man’ is presently abstracted and idealized—complying with its mythological grandeur: a mighty man turns into a gigantic towering figure.

And, second, Titarubi covers David’s body with brocade fabric, a type of fabric that is weaved with patterns of tendrils and flowers, which is commonly used as kebaya material in combination with women traditional outfit in Indonesia, mainly in Java and Bali.
…
Titarubi sees that brocade fabrics and the design of kebaya outfit contain a manipulative nature towards female (body): fabrics and clothes are intentionally worn to cover up women, protecting them from nudity. But because the fabrics transparent nature and the skin-tight design of kebaya tend to expose the curves of female body, the clothes ironically work by stripping women off. Brocade fabrics have put woman’s body and identity under the gaze.

Titarubi thinks that male nudity is uniquely positioned or separated from the attribute of ‘beauty’—which in the context of female body is reduced into sensuality and sexuality. In contrast, male nudity is represented as an attribute of masculinity and power.
…
David, the ideal male which was originally naked, is now covered with brocade in bright color. He became a visible object, placed right at the center of a room with a rotunda dome on top of it, surrounded by huge pillars. Although stand towering in immensity, David’s body is now covered with an all feminine attribute. He is no longer indestructible bulges of solid muscles and tissues. His muscular body looks weightless, transparent, with beam of lights coming out from the inside. He turns perfectly—through the surface of his body devoid of any organs— into an object of gaze from certain proximity.
…
Titarubi’s act of covering up David is an intervention that intentionally infiltrates his whole appearance with ‘feminine aesthetics’, smearing him with the sentiment of beauty. In our socio-political context today, regarding to gender polarization and anxiety towards bodily exposition, to say nothing of nudity, the act of representing beauty in such an open and lucid way is one subversive act.

Grab Yourselves by the Balls

Someone told me women’s menstrual cramps feel like a good tug at the balls for men. Not sure who found out about it first. But if that’s true, MEN, you should try grab your balls and give em a good tug for 3 continuous days every month. Talk about emancipation.

Met someone from NTU’s ADM today. The school of ADM was incepted 3 years back in NTU along with lots of hoohahhs, the stellar CREATE campaign, and they even get their own special considerably more cutting edge and arty farty shaped building in the campus (the putting green, or the putput). I imagine the (boring, bookish, and blatantly unfashionable) Engineering students drooled over the newly discovered species of Artus studentii in their campus. Obviously it was part of Singapore’s plan to become another hub for something, in this case THE media hub in Southeast Asia (or Asia? or The world?). And what better place to have an art school other than NTU? Right. Anyway, I found out that although the school’s called Art, Design & Media, apparently they only have two departments: 1) Design, and 2) Media. Now, did we miss something?