“REFRACTIONED” by Artskins on Monuments is an Audio Visual Journey that was commissioned by the National Gallery Singapore for Light to Night Festival 2022, which was part of Singapore Art Week 2022. The pandemic years of 2020 and 2021 brought unprecedented change to the human experience. Singapore’s small size presented an array of challenges unique to life in the city state. The passage of time changed as days melted into months which in turn melted into years. People and places that we took for granted took on new relevance in our lives.

In order to tell our story, the imagery in “REFRACTIONED” was derived using photography of iconic HDB Blocks and other iconic Singaporean architecture taken during Circuit Breaker. Fused into a series of animations by our very own ‘SuperCyberTown’ using proprietary real-time image synthesis techniques, this beautiful piece distills these feelings into a visual representation of what Singapore looks like at a higher dimensional scale, a glimpse through the quantum foam where each bubble that arises is a different path through the experience of reality. Familiar architectural patterns and colours of daily Singaporean life merge into new states of matter, augmenting the National Gallery Facade.

Accompanying the animation, our very own ’Benedict & Palmer’ created a beautiful cinematic soundscape piece that took viewers on a transcendental journey through time and space, conjuring “New Ways of Seeing, Thinking and Being”.

Photo Credits: Ayumi Endo & TongMing Photos