News, Souvenirs, and Other Items from the End of the World

In a couple of weeks, artist, curator and future novelist Heman Chong will join me for a travel adventure in southern China. For him, this is partially an escape from a busy time shuttling between Berlin and his native Singapore, where he is preparing an art installation for Hermès (541 Orchard Road, Liat Towers) in that city to open on May 22, 2008. Titled The End Depends on the Beginning. The Beginning Depends on the End., the project is a continuation of his research in the ways the future is imagined and portrayed in literature and film. As part of this investigation, “the end of things” figures regularly, and Heman’s latest work gives this focus. The press release reads:

"Heman Chong continues with his investigation into the reasons and methods where individuals imagine the future and how it can be represented as a series of conceptually generated objects, situations and texts. Here, he is fascinated with the idea of the end of things (in this case, the end of a novel), utilizing both the form and content of these “book ends” to compose the series of objects on display at the Hermès space in Singapore. These books include Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami, Woman in the Dunes by Kobo Abe, Foe by J.M. Coetzee, Star Maker by Olaf Stapledon, Roadside Picnic by Arkady & Boris Strugatsky), The Possibility of An Island by Michel Houellebecq, and Correction* by Thomas Bernhard)."