CLOSEUP
artsy nights out
FAHTHAI
29
“It’s a performance and a meditation
at the same time. Although it’s
nonsensical, it still feels like a
language, like I’m communicating.”
Improvised vocal work is just one
of the experimental art forms Siew
has used to express herself since
completing a programme in media
studies at the University at Buffalo -
State University of New York.
Born in a hospital minutes from
the galleries on Kuala Lumpur’s
frenetic Jalan Panggong (formerly
known as Theatre Lane), where
she now performs and hosts film
screenings, Siew didn’t know
experimental cinema even existed
when she arrived in the United
States. That was until she met
Professor Tony Conrad, an avant-
garde video artist. “He was a very
unconventional person, he shocked
me. Malaysian institutions have
a traditional way of teaching and
it was inspiring and liberating to
experience this new way of learning.
During one winter break I decided to
bring some work back to KL and I
naively went to colleges and asked to
do experimental film screenings. The
lack of linear narrative was new to
people – some couldn’t accept it but
some were curious.”
After completing her studies,
Siew returned to Malaysia for
good in 2005 and began working
with a group making experimental
and improvised music. They
eventually formed a collective.
“We co-organised a fringe event
called Not That Balai Festival. The
National Gallery is nicknamed
‘Balai’, [but] what we were doing
felt so different.”
In 2010, Siew and several friends
launched the Kuala Lumpur
Experimental Film & Video
Festival (KLEX). Last year, the
event attracted more than 250
submissions from across the globe.
“It’s important that events like
this take place,” Siew says. “Kuala
Lumpur is a metropolis like New
York – we have a commercial
outlook and skyscrapers – but there
are people with different things
to say. It’s important to give these
people a voice.”
To hear some of these voices,
and add her own to the mix, Siew
heads to galleries like Findars and
LostGen, where art exhibitions and
experimental performances are a
fixture. She says it’s thanks to venues
such as these – and the improvised
concerts that take place amid the
kitschy Chinese décor of the Petaling
Street Art House – that experimental
art is fast increasing in popularity:
“Sometimes in Asian society we’re
a little bit reserved; you’re trying
to fit into the majority, you might
censor yourself,” she says. “But I
go to places where people express
their unique thinking. Collaboration
is important. The venues I love
are places where we can all work
together to form a stronger voice.”
KLEX 2014, the festival’s fifth edition,
runs from 19-23 November at
LostGen, Findars and Petaling Street
Art House. klexfilmfest.com
Siew-Wai Kok
Videoartist, improvisedvocalist, anddirector and
curator of theKualaLumpurExperimental Film&
VideoFestival
