Singapore’s Creative Industries
In labelling Singapore as a ‘cultural desert’ and ‘nanny state’, the government is articulated as an authoritative state that utilises an explicit regime of control, the grooming of subjects through strategic ideological nationalistic rhetoric, in its efforts to strengthen Singapore’s economic and social stability. Perhaps, such charges are valid for the immediate post-industrial years of Singapore’s development, which Kong refers to as a pragmatic developmental state that prioritises economic development above other matters” (2000, p. 6). This is most clear when Dhanabalan, the Minister of Culture in 1983, emphasised that the state has concentrated “on improving the standard of living of Singaporeans,” while “the quality of life in Singapore,” which includes artistic endeavours,” are taken as a secondary and distinct issue (1983, p. 16).
However, the negative labels mentioned above are less reactionary in the present, ever since the cultural or artistic sphere has been targeted as a developmental block within government policy. Within the span of the past few years, the government have pumped in substantial capital towards the development of arts education, infrastructure and assistance schemes. In this essay, firstly, I will analyse the economic-rationale that influences Singapore arts policy under the current rubric of the Creative Industries. Secondly, I will trace the origins of Singapore’s cultural policy and its aims in nationalism, and determine the place of national identity within current policy arrangements. It is my aim to demonstrate that, while Singapore is far from being a cultural desert and that arts policy have indeed increased arts activity, it is still crucial to examine how its developmental trajectories resemble an artificial network build on a desert.
In light of globalised informational flows, technological advancement, and economical competition, the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) initiated the Creative Industries Development Strategy (CIDS). This is an effort to tap into the opportunities associated with the rapid growth of the Singapore’s creative sector that contributes to an estimate of “between 2.8% to 3.2%” of Gross Domestic Product” in 2002 (ERC, Sep 2002, p. 1). The growth of this cluster from 1986 to 2000 “grew by an average of 17.2 per cent per annum, as compared to average annual GDP growth of 10.5 per cent” (MICA, 2003, p. 54). Thus, the creative sector is singled out as a contingent area of development due to its increasing economic viability.
The definition of the creative sector in CIDS is based on Florida’s definition of the creative class that “includes people in design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or creative content” (Florida, 2006, p. 8). A more systematic rendering initiated in the CIDS renders it into three broad clusters: Arts and Culture, which consists of performing arts, visual arts etc; Design, which consists of advertising, architecture etc; and Media, which consists of broadcast, film and media etc. This is supported by three corresponding initiatives: Renaissance City 2.0 that aims “to develop Singapore into a highly innovative and multi-talented global city for the arts”; Design Singapore that aims to “establish Singapore as Asia’s leading hub for design excellence”; and Media 21 that aims to “develop a thriving media ecosystem” (MICA, n.d., par. 7). The convergence of these three clusters through “convergence, customization, collaboration and networks”, and its directed contribution to the economy forms an ecology of Singapore’s creative industries (Cunningham, 2002, p. 59).
In citing examples of successful artistic milieus such as the rise of Renaissance Art in Florence under the patronage of the Medici family, Sanyal argues, “Art is not the result of unregulated bohemianism but the result of patronage” (2006, p. 8). A contingent issue that arises with the increased governmental patronage, the structuring of the creative industries, is concerned with the use-value and practicality of a top-down approach. There is a split between an understanding of artistic production as organic process and it being a result of governmental intervention.
One initiative sparked off by the Renaissance City scheme is the emergence of an arts hub/district within the central business district. In an interview in the Straits Times, William Lim, a prolific architect and urban theorist states, “I’m not sure you can do an arts hub deliberately. These things have to grow on their own energy.” (Cited in Tan, 4 Feb 2009, par. 20) Furthermore, the high rentals within the arts district facilitate the growth, other than national museums, of art entities with sufficient capital within the capitalistic economy. This disadvantages minor arts organisations and communities. He elaborates further that for creativity to thrive, the government should draw inspiration from the “chaotic order” of notorious districts such as Geylang, the bustling and hectic red-light district, to create “spaces of indeterminacy” for artistic production (ibid, par. 10-11). Thus, Lim transverse the dichotomy of control and spontaneity by not simply rejecting the use-value of governmental intervention, but gesturing that arts and cultural policies should be sensitive towards the experimental and radical nature of creativity, which thrives on the authenticity associated spontaneous communitarian organisation that might not fit into the government’s obsession with ‘cleanliness’.
The rationale behind the creative industries is not limited within its designated clusters as it is understood that it “not only contribute towards the economy directly, they also have a powerful, indirect impact on the rest of the economy – by adding style, aesthetics and freshness to differentiate our products and services” (MICA, n.d., par. 3). It is envisioned that the propagation of creativity will engender a healthy transformation and rejuvenation of Singapore’s capitalistic economy, a switch from one-dimensionality to multi-dimensionality that is essential for continuous growth. Thus, the creative industries function as a source and indicator of entrepreneurship within the wider economy, bringing to mind Schumpeter’s theory of Creative Destruction which he describes as an industrial mutation “that incessantly revolutionizes the economic structure from within, incessantly destroying the old one, incessantly creating the new one” (1994, p. 83).
Thus, the CIDS is explicitly utilising the idea of creativity, which was once considered lacking in the nation-state, to engineer success within the late capitalistic economy that departs from traditional modes of production. The integration of artistic endeavours into the economy and governmental patronage of the arts enables greater legitimisation, representation, and output. However, one major concern is the commoditisation of art in which creative diversity becomes reterritorialised into capitalistic logic. The Esplanade, which is considered as Singapore’s art infrastructure par excellence, is a compound that combines a large concert hall, a 2000 seat theatre and smaller venues with a shopping complex. Passion 99.5FM, an arts radio station that was spearheaded in conjunction with the Renaissance City scheme, was shutdown because it was deemed unprofitable in the light of an economic downturn in 2003. As Caust states, “Equating the making of the art with the selling of art undermines the process of the doing” (2003, p. 61).
In order for local artistic productions to tap into the global market, it must, to a certain degree, subscribe to the modes of consumption in the global economy. The hegemonic assertion of English as the de facto language within Singapore’s management of language, much in line with its education policies, influences its management of the creative industries. In a National Day Rally in 1999, then prime minister, Goh Chok Tong, asserted that “since English was the language of technology and international commerce, it was essential that standards should be raised, if Singapore was to attain first-world economic levels” (Cited in Shepherd, 2005, p. 91).
Singapore is a hybrid multi-cultural state that consists of Chinese, Malays, Indians and many other minoritarian races. Similarly, there is a diversity of languages utilised in the creative sector. However, there is a stronger legitimisation of English-based production. In a study of local theatre companies, Chong asserts that the National Arts Council demonstrates that English language companies are given more importance in the arts sector in relation to its funding practices (Chong, 2005, p. 563). Thus, non-English language companies are disadvantaged by a form of traditionalism and oriental outlook asserted on them by the ideology of the creative industries. In this sense, the CIDS’ commoditisation of artistic products results in the hierarchal stratification of difference.
Prior to the 1970s, there were hardly any substantial mentions of culture and the arts by the government. Perhaps, the illuminating potentials of an ideological appropriation of the cultural field towards the purpose nationalistic cohesion resulted in the birth of cultural policy in Singapore. In a 1973 press release, Inche Sha’ari Tadin, then Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Culture, stated:
Already many young people are mindlessly aping foreign mannerism. They think that the process of modernisation simply means drug-taking, a-go-go dancing and pornography. Once our youths have adequate cultural anchorage, they will be less prone to these modern excesses (cited in Kong, 2000, p. 9)
Another significant utterance was made in 1978 by Ong Teng Cheong, then Acting Minister of Culture, who said that cultural policy “allow[s] Singapore’s rich cultural heritage [to] gradually interact and blend into a distinctive Singaporean culture;” to construct “the necessary cultural ballast and to guard against the erosion of traditional norms and values (1978, p. 1). Thus, it is clear that a particular nationalistic identity is being constructed as a means to soothe the transition into Modernity, in which Western cultural lifestyles are taken as a form of decadence, a bad influence on Singaporean citizens. For this purpose, Confucianism is utilised to construct a Singaporean brand of Asian identity. This is drilled in via the local culture/media industry. One simply has to look at Mediacorp’s vast array of local television series during this period to locate strong elements of patriarchal and Confucian familial patterns.
A disparity arises when one compares this trajectory with the current creative industries rhetoric. There is the concern of whether the brand of Singaporean nationalistic identity constructed through the government’s paternalistic approach can coexist with the propagation of creativity within the CIDS model (Leo & Lee, 2004, p. 52). Cohen states that globalisation “hegemoniz[es] nation-states” towards the creation of ‘an exclusive citizenship a defining focus of allegiance and fidelity in favor of overlapping, permeable and multiple forms of identification” (1997, p. 157). In this climate that relates to the free-flowing, paradigm shifting capitalistic creativity propagated by CIDS, the deterritorialisation of nationalism, which contributes to a citizen’s understanding of his/her sense of self, might be reterritorialised through the reinvention and reassertion of nationalism because of the need to articulate identity.
Thus, the nationalism advocated by the government in early cultural policies are updated and reasserted within the framework of the creative industries. The hard-headed paternal and Confucian elements still exist, but are played down within the articulation of a nationalistic Singaporean product. As part of the Media 21 scheme, local content is encouraged within the creative industries through the emphasis of “Singapore Content and Brand” (Media Development Authority, 2002, p. 13). This is asserted as a form of nationalistic dissemination of a distinct Singaporean product towards the global economy that “establishes a reputation for Singapore as a New Asia Creative Hub” (ERC, Sep 2002, p. 2). Through the products of Singapore’s creative clusters, Singapore “mobilize[s] New Asia as a strategy of branding and a form of cultural capital” that is significant from other creative industries “because it incorporates the ideology of Asian values” and positions accumulated cultural capital “as an economic strategy of regional dominance” (Yue, 2006, p. 21). Difference is contained and absorbed within the New Asian creative economy through “the active citizenship of communitarianism” and “through communitarianism embodied as New Asian capitalist materialism” (ibid, p. 24).
Creative workers of different ideologies and lifestyles are allowed and even encourage in participating in the creative economy. But they are prevented from acquiring power and representation for their belief systems. Creative workers of diverse backgrounds must all express the state ideology of the economically driven projection of the New Asian brand of nationality. This is evident in the government’s administration of the homosexual community in Singapore. In taking about the Renaissance City, former Prime Minster Lee Kuan Yew said:
…they tell me, and anyway it is probably half-true, that homosexuals are creative writers, dancers, et cetera. If we want creative people, then we’ve got to put up with their idiosyncrasies as long as they don’t infect the heartland (Cited in Lim, n. d., p. 9)
An attempt to repeal the anti-gay law in 1997 was rejected despite the government’s ‘acceptance’ of homosexual creative workers and their contribution to the creative industries. Representations of their belief systems in the public sphere are silenced through the homogenising effect of the New Asia rhetoric.
Lee’s statement also reflects the use of the heartlanders category, in contrast to the cosmopolitans that are situated within the creative economy, as a way to combat the transgressive elements that might arise from Singapore’s opening up to the global economy. Webb sums up this ideological strategy in saying, “While the authorities realise that plenty of Singaporeans, dubbed ‘cosmopolitans’, are well travelled, well-educated and open-minded when it comes to new experiences, a large portion of the population- the ‘heartlanders’- remain conservative and resistant to avant-garde art house films or sensational art” (Webb, 2002, p. 59).
The social field inhabited by the heartlanders is marked with a traditionalism evoked from early cultural policy. The infrastructure and products of the creative economy are catered to the cosmopolitans, to accumulate cultural capital in a bid to position Singapore as a city of global cultural standards and to attract foreign talent who are seen as an asset to the creative industries. Lim observes that the first Singapore Biennale was catered to foreigners and the cosmopolitans, as it was funded under “an umbrella event known as Singapore 2006, which included the International Monetary Fund-World Bank Meetings and related conferences” that were held during the same period (nd., p. 8). The segregated heartlanders reap the benefits of the cosmopolitan’s connectivity with the global market. But they are mostly alienated from the products and cultural implications of the creative industries. As Tan states, “The more privileged in society are equipped with cultural capital to decode, for instance, more challenging art work that is often impenetrable for the less privileged working class” (2008, p. 64)
It is healthy and authentic when local art forms and communities attempt to express a personal sense of national identity through direct experience. However, such expression might be at odds with the communitarianism advocated within the New Asia regime. For example, Royston Tan’s 15 (2003), a film that portrays ethnic youth gangs residing on the fringes of mainstream society, was met with excessive censorship. The silencing of art forms that challenge the dominant paradigm of a clean and orderly New Asian Singapore is often justified by a consideration for the heartland. Bin Sa’at states that “on issues such as censorship, the idea of the heartlander, this silent majority of conservatives, is summoned, and their reservations will be appropriated to extinguish any tentative sparks towards liberalization” (2002, p. 259). Thus, the government utilises the cosmopolitan/heartlander dichotomy, which is unstable in reality, as a basis of control, as and when the creative economy’s trajectory transgresses its set boundaries.
Lee states, “Boundary markers in politics, mass media and censorship laws have remained” despite the government’s push for greater creativity (June 2004, p. 18). This is particularly true for art forms that deal with political issues that are contradictory to the ruling elite’s ideology. Martin See’s Singapore Rebel (2005), a documentary of Chee Soon Juan, leader of the Singapore Democratic Party and propagator of free speech, was banned and pulled out of the International Film Festival. Furthermore, See was subjected to police investigation and his film equipment was confiscated. Creativity, as articulated under the Creative Industries rubric, is limited by capitalistic and paternal logic. Art forms that explicitly enable audiences to think critically about the dominant order in Singapore are discriminated upon if it contradicts the ruling party. There is hardly any explicit anti-governmental thematics in Singapore Rebel. Rather, it simple portrays a side of Chee that contradicts the government-controlled media’s portrayal of Chee as a fanatic, a trouble-maker.
In this essay, I have analysed Singapore’s implementation of the creative industries model and its management of nationalism within this neo-liberal climate. Firstly, I discussed the homogenising trajectories of the creative industries through the concern of the government’s top-down approach versus spontaneous growth; the use of creativity to rejuvenate the economy; the reterritorialisation of the creative arts into an economic paradigm; and the turn to global modes of consumption that disadvantages minoritarian forms of expression. Secondly, I discussed how the nationalism constructed by early cultural policy translates into the creative industries through the articulation of the New Asia Creative Hub; the absorption of difference through the rhetoric of communitarianism; the strategic assertion of a split between cosmopolitans and heartlanders; and the use of censorship on art forms that are contradictory to governmental ideology.
The creative industries model has definitely increased the legitimacy and output of local art forms. However, it is delimiting that the majority of these art forms are overly commercial. There are examples of progressive art that utilises creativity in a transformative manner to challenge dominant modes of governmental rhetoric. But in order for local art to be critical within the creative industries, it has to be discreet, indirect, albeit like a simulation of political agency. The government’s top-down approach appropriates all forms of creativity into a neo-liberalist economic paradigm in its attempt to shed Singapore’s status as a cultural desert and nanny state. Its micro-management of this transition proves to be a strategically thought-over plan than retains the cohesion of a state-sanctioned brand of nationalism while integrating into the global economic and cultural field. For an authentic local art to flourish within a progressive trajectory, it should exploit the government’s propagation of the creative industries, but do so in a way that exposes and resists the homogenising elements of this seemingly agreeable policy.
To end off, lets compare the MDA rap with Ah Beng rap (appropriation of techno into localised territoriality? Is this more authentic as an art form?)
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