Allan Chan Joon Chiew

Class of 2017

Final Year Project(s)


Analog Future at NTU ADM Portfolio

As we made the transition from analog to digital technology, the quantifiable receded to the backdrop and everyday processes became more metaphysical and unknowable than before due to our increased involvement with the virtual world molded by complex digital data. The result is a whole generation of gratified technophiles who harness immense digital power at their fingertips.
 
The artist’s installation looks at more primitive technologies that were depicted as high-end and sophisticated equipment in science fiction movies that dominated the silver screens from the 60s to the 80s. The creators of these works envisioned a future still dominated by green phosphor screens and countless modular analog buttons. All these speculative fictions reflected largely on the state of the society and its technological progress at that point of time. 
 
We’ve given up a reality that utilises analog currency of waveforms as the “pixels” and building blocks of the material world due to whatever limitations that we perceived. We’ve since then dived deep into digital technology and spawned an entire new branch of science fiction narratives based on that. In retrospect to our delusions from the past, do we really know what kind of technological future is coming for us?

Selected Coursework(s)

Daymare at NTU ADM Portfolio

Daymare (2016)

Inspired by unholy geometries and unknown madness found in H.P. Lovecraft’s works, my piece seeks to create the transition from the subject matter of such cosmic horrors and how that fear of the unknown gets absorbed and then eventually regurgitated. From the bottom to the top, I dive deep into the unknown and exit with a reality that’s only understandable to myself as things change from abstraction to objectivity. When I stare into a blank space after reading, there’s no daydream. There’s only Daymare left.