PLASTIC CULTURE: WHERE ARE WE?

Director-choreographer : MOHD KIPLI B. ABDUL RAHMAN

Synopsis:


This work is an expression of a ‘New Genre Public Art’ through a medium of ‘Hybrid Performances’ and being communicated in a style of ‘Global Integrative Intercultural Performances”. It is a fusion of body art, fluxus and inter-media so as to establish a concept of plasticity with the use of plastic as a concrete object. Thus, the performance connotes different perspective in terms of space, time, and orientation towards gravity. All sorts of plastic material are utilized - dust bin, bottle, umbrella, plastic bag, plastic flower, rain coat, rope, chair, and plastic hose. They all represent meanings of their own. In addition, they are also used as costume, props, setting and musical instruments. The main issue addressed here is focus on the domination of plastic culture in all aspects of postmodern human life, more specifically in the globalization era.


In the performance, the extraction of plastic culture is done in two ways, extrinsically and intrinsically through looking at its effect on human existence through the performativity perspective. Extrinsically, plastic is seen as being an acceptable culture in postmodern people and applied as a symbol of materialism and status. Human dependency on plastic is reflected through economic and social prowess as the product of ‘free market capitalism’. Intrinsically, the plastic culture is viewed as having influenced the human behavior and supported by political hegemony and power. Undoubtedly, contradictions between words and human actions are clear signs of the meaning of plasticity. The world view with the strong grounding on the belief that the idea of ‘the ruling state or class has the ruling ideas’ has somehow affected the human life system that is so dependable on hegemony of underlying plastic culture as a whole. The clear cut effects that can be seen on the victims are political conflicts, warfare, destructions, and suffering caused by the plasticity practitioners.