#TheObsessions — Rafi Abdullah, Partner of ToNewEntities and Curator of Crossroads Shares His Favourite Things - Men's Folio
Lifestyle, Arts & Culture

#TheObsessions — Rafi Abdullah, Partner of ToNewEntities and Curator of Crossroads Shares His Favourite Things

  • By Men's Folio

#TheObsessions — Rafi Abdullah, Partner of ToNewEntities and Curator of Crossroads Shares His Favourite Things
What makes some of these local or global creatives tick? In this weekly column, Partner of ToNewEntities and Curator of Crossroads Rafi Abdullah (part of Singapore Art Week 2022, supported by the NAC and Singapore’s latest annual cross media art festival) shares his favourite things.

#TheObsessions — Rafi Abdullah, Partner of ToNewEntities and Curator of Crossroads Shares His Favourite Things
1.  Aphorisms: I have an obsession with aphorisms — specifically ones that are oxymoronic/paradoxical — and collect them in an array of forms: t-shirts, prints, and even saved Twitter drafts. I’m sharing here one of my favourites, from the artist Jenny Holzer, whose work was one of the pioneering few that invaded advertising billboards.


2.  Nicolas Jaar: I’ve been madly in love with Jaar for the longest time. Nico is a thoughtful musician with so much musical and emotional depth/range, and has an impeccable ability to fuse wildly disparate sounds and textures harmoniously. East Coast gangsta rap acapellas against ambient muzak? Check.

Shared here is his album SIRENS, which slyly features his father’s, artist Alfredo Jaar, politically charged artwork (This is Not America, 1987) that was displayed on the same screen as Holzer’s work above.


3. Pre-Movie Filler Ads: I think my partner can attest to the fact that I’ve almost never failed to sing along (at times brazenly loud and at other times under muttered breaths) to the Dolby Surround ad. Yes, that one with the balls of varying makes and sizes falling down on a plane and ending with a raspy and tingling “all around you…”.

Sharing here a classic favourite from the 2000s that I recently rediscovered. The cinematography by the roster of auteurs, who portrayed what it was like at 5:30AM in their respective countries, is timelessly beautiful. Relistening to the distinct snoring in the Wong Kar Wai bit got me feeling some kind of way.


4. 90’s Anime: I am a fan of anime and they’re also actually interesting places to locate beautiful filler imageries of advertising billboards. One of my top favourites includes this particular sequence from Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell (1995). The bold (a full three minutes worth of just imagery) sequence runs us through haunting scenes of a dystopian cityscape littered with electronic billboards.

What’s striking here is that ads and billboards in animations occupy an interesting latent space where they’re not actually promoting or marketing anything real.

#TheObsessions — Rafi Abdullah, Partner of ToNewEntities and Curator of Crossroads Shares His Favourite Things
5. Westworld: I’ve been glued to the science fiction TV series Westworld over the past few seasons, and my favourite scene (it appears in some of my writings) is that of The Gate, a tear in the fabric of the Western-themed amusement park, where the Artificial Intelligence (AI) ‘hosts’ are to decide to jump through it or to remain in the park with the knowledge that they’re not actually humans.


6. New Media Festivals and Biennales: I really enjoy going to new media presentations. The most recent one that I fondly remember visiting is the series Ghost2561 in Bangkok and particular a special moment that happened when a monk came to visit and experience artist Jon Rafman’s Virtual Reality (VR) artwork.

Photo credit Ghost2561 and Bangkok City City Gallery


7. Magazines: Although contentious, Adbusters was the first “magazine” that I was invested in growing up as a teenage youth. They also introduced me to the idea of “culture jamming”.


8. My artist peers: I’ve been constantly watching on loop the works from my fellow artist peers in anticipation of our festival and am excited for everyone else to get to see it on the big and small screens!

Once you’re done with Rafi Abdullah’s obsessions, make sure you make time for Crossroads. The first iteration will be screened on major billboard displays at ION Orchard and Ten Square from 7.30PM to 8.30PM, and will feature six local multidisciplinary artists during  Singapore Art Week which runs from 14 to 16 and 21 to 23 January 2022. Or, click here to catch up with our December/January 2022 issue.