65goddex65

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for CYPHER Billboard, London

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2019

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Made with artists Weixin Quek Chong and Luca Lum* from soft/WALL/studs in response to London-based group CYPHER 's invitation, 65goddex65 explores the form of billboard and banner advertisement, taking place as image, website, social media platform and event. 

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We used linguistic and aesthetic cues for transcendence and mysticism, recalling advertisements seen regionally and online for spiritual services and cults. Much commerce is built around spiritual services such as the religious tradition in Singapore of burning paper offerings or effigies (kimzua). With the seamless shift of advertising into digital platforms, 65goddex65 explores how networks such as WhatsApp and Instagram, riddled with commerce and entangled with the spectre of personal desires, become channels for belief, hope, motivation and action.

The billboard artwork was accompanied by a webpage in BOUNDS, Cypher's digital commission for online project space SKELF and included an event, Day of Crypt0fferings - performed by Weixin Chong and Marcus Yee in London with Luca Lum in Singapore online, as a joint offering ritual to the digital deity.

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*Addendum: Alongside Lum and Chong, another artist was involved in the making of this project. Due to ethical breaches, he is no longer a part of soft/WALL/studs, and has agreed to have his name removed from this project.
 

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