Gary MacLennan
I viewed a series of slides and a number of short films by Cha. The slides were complex images primarily centered around the notions of the construction of the body in Western and Non-western cultures. Each slide seemed to mark the site of both desire for and fear of the Other. The layering of the images was particularly important here. It was as if the body was being sighted within the interstices of a Western culture which ranged from ancient to modern. I was particularly struck by what I perceived as the dialectic of modernity in the field of sexuality. There is a tendency towards homogenization within gay culture. Indeed "gay" is the quintessential modern homosexuality. But the slides also encoded not only the encroachment of the homogenization process but also a longing and a nostalgia for the pre-modern.
The films that particularly interested me were the auto and the biographical series. Here the aesthetic seemed to me to be truly minimalist. The short sequence where Jeffrey dances his way upstairs was done in one long take. The conclusion was startling in both its spontaneity and its recording of the moment when the voyeur become the object of the gaze and flees in fear.
I cannot praise too highly the sequence of shadow dancing. This was truly an extraordinary moment. There was such a complex of moments being constructed all with the barest minimum of means. We had vulnerability, desire, lust and shame all on display in a complex interchange.
In thematic terms I feel that Chee's works are variations on the search for amour de soi self love. This is often mistaken for amour proper or self indulgence. But what Chee is trying to do in his films is to make meaning out of his own life and also of his subject Jeffrey. If one does not love oneself one cannot love anyone else, and it is this wisdom that Chee is exploring in his films.
It is my recommendation that Chee be given the highest grade possible a 7 - for this work and that he be encouraged to enroll in the Doctorate of Creative Industries. My sincere congratulations to the student and his supervisor for a brilliant job.
Ian Hutson
Most of Chee Seng Cha's work is constructed as video which sensitively and imaginatively explore those formative layers of experience and influence which continue to shape identity.
In the latter part of his MFA program he set up a collaborative work with Jeffrey Tan (a fellow masters dance student) and together they have been constructing a major piece to be presented in the new QUT Creative Industries precinct in May 2004.
Part of the video component of this work will be projected in this exhibition.
Although Chee Seng has a Masters degree in Information Technology and four years of industry experience there is no evidence in his second postgraduate study of a Masters of Fine Arts of a techno-lineal approach . Instead there is a subtle interplay of image and narrative which has a lot more to do with evocative qualitative and subjective domains.
In this series he explores the notion of loss of identity: He writes: "People find my cross cultural background, being an Asian brought up in a rich oriental cultural environment and influenced by the western culture, interesting. Being an Asian with multi cultural backgrounds, I often feel loss of identity. The mixture of "Think like a Westerner and feel like an Asian" or "Think like an Asian and feel like a Westerner" causes confusion and disorientation when I deal with personal problems which in turn inevitably informs my art works."