Dr Eugene Seow

Recently, I had the opportunity to present at the fifth conference of the International Network for Artistic Research in Jazz (INARJ), held at the Koninklijk Conservatorium Brussel under the theme “Places and Spaces”. It was a fitting setting for the paper I brought there: “Pocket as Embodied Space: Reflections from the Bandstand.” The conference framed artistic research in jazz as a serious and expanding site of inquiry, explicitly naming embodiment as one of its core strands. The...

This year’s Chinese New Year was meant to be a short reset. I took a few days in Phnom Penh with my wife to step away from marking, proposals, and the quiet strategising that comes with building a life in higher education. It was supposed to be a pause, a sightseeing holiday. Instead, it became perspective. We visited Tuol Sleng (S21), the former school turned prison under the Khmer Rouge. The rooms are preserved as they were found: metal bed frames, shackles, faint blood splatters on the...

Last week, I had the opportunity to facilitate an IN-depth module at the University of the Arts Singapore titled Artist as Futurist. Although UAS provided the workshop content, the experience resonated strongly enough that I felt compelled to document the learning trajectories, tensions, and shifts that emerged across the three sessions. What follows is not a summary of content delivered. It is, instead, a reflection on how thinking evolved through discussion, critique, and making. Throughout...