The fine art of gentrification talks is about the issue of gentrification at New York, Lower East Side in which artists are indirectly involved in. Can artists be held responsible for this? It is unavoidable that they find the area to be 'bohemian' - suitable for their artistic practice. This will make us question their initial intention - after a while, the place was 'revamp' to create something like an 'arts village'. Gentrification is an example in which artist chooses to ignore the impact their action may cause to the environment and in this case, it cause thousands of people homeless.
In Singapore context, the social responsibility of the artist will also depend on the audience that comes to watch the performance or the exhibition or the space in which the artists works in. I feel that the performance (FOI 4) - being a durational one, in a way manage to get audience to look at his process of art making or meaning making. The responsibility would then be to how much the audiences are involved in his work. How much is he willing to share - or is it up to the audience interpretation? In his performance, he was performing with a fish. Is it an act of questioning our morality?
I do believe what Kai said when he says that the fish is able to live on water and on land. Is he questioning our preconceived idea/knowledge that all fish live in the water and that having it 'walking' on land is a form of cruelty? Is the artist in control of the situation? Is he in a way 'controlling' the mind/actions of the audience?
The words 'free live' that was written on his hand - is this a reflection/response? This act is contradicting as the fish is on the floor and it is not free. Furthermore, using a fish may be questionable as the fish (which is a living thing) has its own rights. Are we actually deciding for it to perform (just because it may talk in a language that we may not understand)?
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