One or Several Tigers

Two-channel video, ten-channel sound, smoke machine, automated screen, show control system

One or Several Tigers tells the story of Singapore through the tale of the Malayan tiger. This creature played a central role in the cosmology and ecology of the Malayan world before coming close to extinction during the age of colonialism. A master of metamorphosis, it continues to capture the public imagination, both as myth and metaphor.

This work is located within a mirrored box. It draws visitors into this historical room as they catch reflections of the surroundings and themselves in the mirrored surfaces. On entering the box, an abstract, stylised narrative of Singapore’s history transports them into another sphere. They encounter the Tiger and the Surveyor, two characters in Heinrich Leutemann’s print, Unterbrochene Straßenmessung auf Singapore (Interrupted Road Surveying in Singapore). Located at DBS Singapore Gallery 1, this print depicts a purported incident between George Coleman, the first Government Superintendent of Public Works, a group of Indian convict-labourers and a Malayan tiger during a survey mission in 1835. If the Surveyor represents rationality and control, the Tiger in turn embodies animalistic savagery. The work in City Hall Chamber unfolds hypnotically, and in doing so blurs the lines between human and animal, reason and magic, and history and folklore.

One or Several Tigers is the final work in a tiger-related series that Ho Tzu Nyen has created, which includes The Song of the Brokenhearted Tigers (2012), Ten Thousand Tigers (2014), 2 or 3 Tigers (2015) and Timelines (2017). Drawing on over 10 years of research of Southeast Asian histories, anthropologies and cosmologies, Ho uses ancient and contemporary cinematic techniques to condense complicated narratives into dream-like sequences in this work. These techniques include shadow puppetry, video, 3D scanning, motion capture, animation and automation.