My Ten Favourite Photos from i Light Marina Bay 2012

Over the past few weeks I indulged in several days of photography safari at the 2012 i Light Marina Bay – an outdoor light art festival held at Marina Bay Singapore. During this period, I experimented with different photography techniques, camera settings and not to mention a few tricks on the latest version of Picasa (3.9.7.585 Mac) which came with new photo effects too. Here is a selection of my favourite pictures (in no particular preference order) from this experience.

1. Ghost from the Gate - A translucent lady’s image on the right appeared like a floating ghost emerging from Li Hui’s The Gate

2. The Palm – I love how a passing breeze moved the electro-luminous wires to create this unintended palm leaves leaf-liked effect captured on my camera.

3. The Laser Lights Beams from the Marina Bay Sands and the ArtScience Museum – The additional laser beams from the Marina Bay Sands and the ArtScience Museum added to the festival’s illuminations.

4. Key Frames - Photography is often an exercise of patience and a sense of timing. This fast-moving installation took me several shots to capture all the lighted figures on the first three rows as I had to anticipate the precise moment when I can get a clear shot. This other similar picture has the entire figures captured.

5. Crystallised- This colours captured in this picture offered a glimpse of the depth of a colour in an otherwise multi-colour installation.

6. Parmendies-I-Solar-System – This image was created by merging several carefully curated photos to form a solar system-liked image in order to capture  different iterations of this changing installation. It is just like how our solar system – the Milky Way is also not stationary but ever-expanding and changing.

7. Woman walking in the white rain – This image reinterpreted Takahiro Matsuo’s White Rain depicting a woman walking in the rain while looking into a dark wet cold forest.

8. The 8 Lamp - By merging two images from Uno Lai’s The Light Dam, I tried to use the two different tones of the installation to form the number 8. After all, we Chinese people like the number 8.

9. Mind the Gap – This installation is made of umbrella shelters used by Thai monks. In urban Singapore, Art has brought direct and indirect economic benefits to the country such as a growing art market and the development of an environment attractive to global capital (Art Stage 2012). In a different perspective, Art, here represented by the monk’s umbrella shelters also plays a therapeutic role to lift the viewer’s spirit up to a world of possibilities or at the bare minimum provides a mental shelter, a moment of respite from a hard crushing concrete urban environment, an opportunity to regain one’s humanity.

10. Bibigloo - Will the fate of the igloo, the Eskimo’s traditional home, also depict the same fate of our own homes as the world warms up with the increased consumption of carbon based fuel?

Bonus – LV Island Maison, Singapore

My Take on the Release of Kevin is a Happy Little Vegemite Video

(Credit: Fairfax)

Here is my personal (outsider) opinion following this article about “Kevin is a Happy Little Vegemite” video. I am shocked beyond belief by some readers’s naivety reflected in their comments when they believed that Gillard’s office authorised the leak of this  video in an attempt to discredit KRudd during this chaotic period. Anyone remembered the Australia Day protest fallout?

I suspect it’s actually it could be an immature or disingenuous ALP member trying to complicate the current distraction, force a premature showdown between the two leaders, which will result further self-harming division within ALP. I guess all is far in love and politics. Either ways, Coalition still wins!

ALP could have been a good government for Australia. However for their sheer lack of party unity (reminded me a lot of NSW ALP’s frequent turnover of Premiers before the last state election loss) reflects in their inability to pursue the right policies for Australia, they have lost the public’s confidence to govern and therefore deserve to lose in the next election.

Sidenote: My Australia experience had taught me some of the challenges to run a government in a two-parties system. I am just grateful that the Singapore political environment so far as allowed my government not only to govern for the present but afford the space to undertake long term policies for the benefit of the country.

Putting Complex Investment Arithmetic into the Right Context

“In 44 years of Wall Street experience and study. I have never seen dependable calculations made about common stock value that went beyond simple arithmetic of the most elementary alegbra.”

“… whenever calculus is brought in, you could take it as a warning signal that the operator was trying to substitute theory for experience, and usually also to give to speculation the deceptive guise of investment.”

Two ever relevent insights from the late Benjamin Graham (economist and professional investor) especially in light of modern high speed automated trading in today’s markets and the importance of market experience.

UBS’s 2 Billion Lost – In Defence of Ringfence Investment Banking

Banks still haven’t learnt. They think they can regulate themselves. That’s just not so.

- Hildegard Fässler, Swiss MP and Finance Specialist

The latest UBS derivatives trading scandal backdated to 2008 has renewed the call to impose strong  regulation on financial institutions. Despite UBS CEO, Oswald Grübel’s efforts to improve UBS risk management , the latest scandal reflects a lack of progress from the supposed move towards a “low-risk client driven model“.

One would asked, what happened to the bank’s “reformed” internal risk management and external audit function?

Some of the measures promoted by international regulatory bodies and leading economists include imposing higher capital standards, ringfencing investment banking from the wider banking organisation and in some cases separating of investment banking operations from their parent organisation.

Related link: Of course it’s right to ringfence rogue universals (Financial Times)

“Welcome” to the 2011 Singapore Haze Season

Haze and dust particles enveloped the Singapore city skyline. This marked the start of the annual haze season. The haze came from the burning of Sumatran forest and plantation fields to make way for new plantations.

Melbourne, the world’s most livable city – 2011 Global Liveability Survey

Melbourne won the 2011 title of most livable city, according to the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual survey. (See BBC’s Melbourne edges out Vancouver to top liveable city list)

The result came as a bit of a surprise. Since my university days, I have always known Melbourne to be a great place to live – an open, lively, diverse, sporty and cultural society, access to good quality fresh produce, decent infrastructure, a decent rate of economic growth, a variety of connections to the rest of the world by plane.

However, over the years, my impression that this great city was slipping down the ranks because of the huge population increase, lack of affordable housing, overstretched public health system,  overcrowded public transport and ageing infrastructure and the  exceptional rising cost of living. Unfortunately, there have been a lack of real political leadership (from both sides of politics) at the state/ federal level after years of white paper churning. Just asked any average Melbournian about the state of the city? Australia has become a really unaffordable place to live or visit.

The only explanation that I could thought of to why these worsening issues did not affect the city’s overall rating is probably because their target audiences are those really affluent people who don’t really depend on the city’s crumbling public, over-utilised infrastructure or services.

Armchair Critique of Channel NewsAsia’s Living Cities Documentary Episode 1: Singapore

I just caught 20mins of the first episode of Living Cities “documentary” (shown on Channel NewsAsia) about my home – Singapore. It was so bad that it spurred me to write this post.

This show was a brain numbing and shallow boring brochureware. Maybe useful to numb the audience before going for the investment sales pitch. My introduction may sounded harsh. Maybe, but it is necessary to be critical in order to start a conversation to uncover Singapore’s distinctive contribution to the living cities discussion.. Not rehashing the familiar formula of Dubai/ Doha but Singapore – an Asian global business city.

Comment 1: Lack of diversity amongst its panel commentators/ experts

Throughout the show, almost all commentators/ experts are Caucasians (I could only bear to watch the first 20mins before I turned off my TV) constantly heaping praises on Singapore. The Singapore I know certainly does not suffer a dearth of locals/ Asians experts living in this country that are capable to comment on the development of this Asian city. Having commentators mainly from a particular ethnic group meant that the content would only engage and connect audience of similar heritage. Furthermore, by having a wide range of commentators from different parts of the world which are able to make critical assessments, it adds to the credibility to the overall theme of the show that Singapore is a truly open global city that welcomes people and business from all over the world.

Comment 2: Lack of focus on the city’s Asian character

Singapore is a special place in the world because it is a developed city-state with an Asian identity. This quality enables it to be an effective bridge between the West and the rest of the developing Asia. It is silly to play down our inherent character. Singapore is relevent to the world because we are an easy Asian proxy for the other parts of the world. Therefore we should focus on how Asian characteristics can be adopted to address modern city living.

To respond to the show’s theme of”Living Cities”, it should have gone deeper into the challenges of urban living  and how Singapore overcame them. Instead, the show went on into a litany of clichés – young professionals in a CBD, yuppie life, fast moving cars, shopping malls,  gentrified heritage buildings that turned into cafe + galleries, frequent showing of foreign workforce and labelling it as progress. What is Singapore’s unique contribution in the living cities discussion?
Does the existence of such clichés actually resembles a living city? No. Our modern world is now searching for a new model of development. A new model of a living city where economic opportunities are plentiful through its connection with to the world. In the same breathe, its domestic residents must also feel a sense of connection, a belonging to the environment in which they live in. A model city is where its residents feel responsible and desire to make the society a better place, occasionally with the authorities’ involvement.

If the presenter wants to present Singapore as a model of a living city, there is a need to look and highlight such Singaporean examples. When that’s achieved, would the show give the city and its viewers a real insight into the living cities discussions.

The Famine and Drought Situation in East Africa – Be Informed, Get Involved and Save Lifes

The worst famine in 60 years has struck East Africa (Somalia and Kenya region), an area already engulfed by militant violence. They need your help, urgently.

Today, nearly half a million of Somalis are seeking food and shelter in Kenya. This video unveiled the dire situation at Dadaab, the world’s largest refugee camp in Kenya and now the refugees and aid workers are trying to keep up in extremely difficult conditions.
Please donate money and help the refugees in Kenya. This weekend, many in Singapore will be spending time family and friends over delicious pots of curries, let’s be thankful for the plenty we enjoy and share it with others and save lives.

You can now make a donation to UNHCR Somalia Crisis microsite.

Related link: A Place in the Sand (ABC Foreign Correspondent)

The State of the Federal ALP Government as described by Clarke and Dawe

As a casual observer of Australian politics I can’t help feeling tired and fed up with the current performance of the ALP at the federal and state levels. This video by Clarke and Dawe had accurately described what’s happening in the Labor government. This is a government that lost its agenda setting ability and is either in denial or lacked ideas to reverse its current position.

I had so much hopes for Australia when the ALP (Australian Labor Party) went through a disciplined and focused campaign to defeat the second longest serving Prime Minister – John Howard and took office. At the start, Rudd looked like a capable PM, financial conservative guy with foreign affairs expertise with Gillard looking liked a capable, strong deputy PM and taking on industrial relations and education portfolio amongst other things. Things looked pretty good and I thought Australia was entering into a golden age of economic and social policy progress. My admiration went to their latest level when a centre-left ALP managed to keep the Australian economy in shape through the darkest times of the 2008 GFC (global financial crisis) by riding on the China boom.

But since then everything seem to fall apart and I had my dose of reality check. This government was unable to defend their policies has gradually lost its support for its programmes and overall support despite a negative and uninspiring opposition. Australians were increasingly more worried for their future despite a blooming economy. The ALP’s internal discipline faltered, the great opportunity to push through difficult reforms despite a federal-state ALP government never came, education review led to more questions about Australia’s research future, national infrastructure investment did not fly, home insulation programme was canned, the mining super profit tax was watered down, climate change agenda captured by  the Coalition, refugee issue remained a question mark.

As a Sinophile, I was most disappointed by the dearth of leadership and ideas to engage China in a meaningful and with the forward looking vision to prepare the country for the rise of a new global power and the new opportunities beyond natural resources. Instead I saw policies and behaviours that reflected tints of yellow peril. United States is without a doubt still a global superpower and an important ally, but Australia has to prepare for the new reality.

If the federal ALP government wants to retain the confidence of the Australian public, they better get their act together and stopped repeating that these are difficult times for any government. Stop the denial and take it on the chin! Guess what? That’s why the Australian public voted them into government in the first place.

A Geek Moment

I’m a geek at heart when my first instinct was grab a screen capture of a Google 404… <grin />