blinkBL-NK #2 … blinkBL-NK is Back!

Sorry to miss all of you in March, but after launching this project, the team needed to catch our breath. Now it’s April and we’re back with three great new talks! We also have a new home on the third floor of Blu Jaz, on Ophir Road in the Arab Quarter. We’ll miss the cozy confines of hackerspace.sg, but we’re super excited for the comfy couches, full-fledged A/V setup and regulation bartenders at Singapore’s best little club. So, please read on for the full event details, including summaries of the three talks.  And please join us next week for another installment of blinkBL_NK.

EVENT DETAILS

Date: Wednesday, April 28
Time: Doors at 7:00 PM, first speaker at 7:30 PM
Place: Third floor of Blu Jaz. 11 Bali Lane, Singapore 189848. Ph: 6292 3800. Map

Talk 1 – With a Little Help from My Friends: Making Art that Involves the Public
by Song-Ming Ang

Description: In this talk, Song-Ming speaks about his art practice and a few of his projects, including Guilty Pleasures, a listening party where the audience each brings a musical guilty pleasure and takes turns to make their ‘confessions’, before playing the song for everyone to hear. He will also speak about his currently ongoing project You and I, where the public is invited to write a letter to the artist telling him something personal about themselves, to which Song-Ming responds in the form of a personalised audio mix CDR.

Speaker: Song-Ming (b. 1980, Singapore) makes art revolving around the social aspects of music and sound, exploring what can be produced by temporary communities, amateur efforts, and interactions with systems. His works are usually executions of an idea or premise, and adopt various formats. For more on his work, check out www.circadiansongs.com.

Talk 2 – Religion 2.0: Musings on the Ultimate Social Operating System
by Wong Meng Weng

Description: In the past twenty years we have learned a great deal about the propagation and evolution of operating systems.  If today’s dominant metaphor for human cognition is the computer, then what are social operating systems?  Religion and culture.  In his talk, Meng will compare the phenomenon of religious conversion to reinstalling your OS, drawing examples from the Linux movement, the low-carb movement, the barefooting movement, and Mormonism; he will touch on issues of class, society, etiquette, self-help, and leadership, with a focus on historical developments in Singapore over the last 50 years, in the United States over the last 150 years, and in China over the next 50 years.  Joseph Campbell defined four functions of myth: cosmological, sociological, psychological, and mystical.  Meng interprets those functions as market demand drivers, and discusses how, in a secularizing world, new meme-complexes from environmentalism to life-coaching to psychotherapy to Facebook are variously supplying those demands.  In closing, Meng argues that Religion 2.0 is a fertile area for angel and VC investment.

Speaker: After leaving Singapore at the age of 13, Wong Meng Weng spent time in Vancouver, Philadelphia, and Silicon Valley earning an education and working for Internet startups.  His interests include historical typography, psychometric photography, and molecular gastronomy.  He considers himself a competent but unexceptional programmer, specializing in data visualization and Internet messaging infrastructure.  In 2008 he returned Singapore, where he is adjusting to life as a confirmed bachelor.  In January 2010, he stopped using soap and shampoo.

Talk 3 – Pick a Card, Any Card and Other Magical Stories
by Chinmaya

Description: What started out as an epidemic timepass becomes an obsession and later blossoms in unexpected ways. Follow Chinmaya’s journey as a magician, his transformation from an awkward teenager to a grown man and his foray into skepticism. This talk comes with FREE MAGIC TRICKS!

Speaker: Chinmaya is currently a university student. He dabbles in religion, science and when people ask them to show him a trick, he’s got a few up his sleeves. He gets philosophical at times so he surrounds himself with friends to distract him from the deeper issues.