A performance-lecture by Ho Rui An followed by a Q&A with Zach Blas

Opening with footage of an accident captured from a dashcam, Singapore-based artist Ho Rui An’s performance lecture DASH considers how the accident – or crisis – becomes legible within a risk-managed and financially-hedged era. While the dashcam was originally designed as a device that bears witness to the accidents that happen to the vehicle to which it is fitted, its proliferation in recent years has inadvertently yielded a contemporary index of the accident in the form of the vast accumulation of crash footage on the Internet.

In DASH, Ho takes the dashcam as a point of departure to consider the logic of ‘horizon scanning’ that underpins the foresight programmes of the Singapore government, which combine big data and scenario planning as tools for ‘surprise anticipation’. As a crucial node along the electronic circuits of global finance as well as the sweaty regional routes crossed by disenfranchised migrant labor, Singapore is considered here as a privileged site to attend to the disturbances or ‘weak signals’ that crop up on the horizon. From this limit-space where one can never know what might come at you, a fantastic speculative economy – populated by the likes of ‘black swans’ and ‘dragon kings’ – is produced to affirm some narratives while extinguishing others.