Propositions for Planetary Attunement

NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore presents “Propositions for Planetary Attunement”, a live event featuring Artists-in-Residence Ng Hui Hsien, The Observatory, and Zarina Muhammad. Spanning polyphonic storytelling, moving image, live music, and performance, it marks the culmination of the inaugural STAR Residencies (Science, Technology, Art & Research), a pioneering collaboration with the NTU Earth Observatory of Singapore (EOS). A research institute of Nanyang Technological University, the Earth Observatory of Singapore conducts fundamental research on earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis, and climate change to better understand the dynamic forces shaping Southeast Asia and the world.

What happens when artists and scientists find common ground in shared concerns and collective care for ecological complexities? What can they reveal about planetary matters that often exceed us—from the unfathomable scales of geological time and elusive frequencies to the molecular texture of rocks and age-old modes of coexisting with non-human formations? Emerging from a year-long exchange between the artists and EOS researchers, “Propositions for Planetary Attunement” explores the generative potential of interdisciplinary encounters, experimenting with the composition of scientific data into artistic gestures of ecological witnessing, listening, and becoming. These explorations manifest in three acts that metabolise scientific evidence, ancestral knowledge, and other-than-human perspectives. Drifting between geosciences and creative inquiry, each artist offers a unique proposition that merges measurements and musings, interlacing the empirical with the embodied, science with speculation, facts with signals.

Ways of a Mountain, a short film by Ng Hui Hsien, contemplates an active volcanic terrain as a living presence, an entity shaped by forces both geological and spiritual. Oriented by a score of meditative reflections, the camera explores the transience of water flows, light shifts, minerals, and human life to tell a story of a land in constant formation. Through a poetic synthesis of empirical observation, scientific evidence, and ancestral cosmologies, the volcanic mountain emerges not as a static object, but as a dynamic participant in planetary becoming. Expanding our perception of time and agency, the film invites viewers to sense forces larger than ourselves and consider the animacy of Earth in an era of environmental strain.

The Observatory studies geological forces and the ways Earth signals before change takes form in the performance lecture Resonance. In this sonic excavation of the hidden registers of the planet, they follow frequencies that exist beyond our perception across deep time and the sonic sensing of animals and machines. Drawing on seismic data, sonic archaeology, and lived experience, the performance lingers at the threshold where vibration becomes event and event becomes narrative. Through storytelling, sound, visuals, archival records, and speculation, the work invites to bear witness to the hidden pulse of the world as it resonates from the cavity of time into the substance of our bodies.

Arising from the entanglement of marine sciences, traditional knowledge, and ecological witnessing, Zarina Muhammad’s polycentric performance Observing Omens Drawn by Lightning (Singapore Iteration) merges fieldwork across intertidal zones with multi-sensory inquiries into microatolls, storms, and submerged coastlines. The work unfolds in two movements: a polyphonic opening of voices, stories, and bodies that turns multiple forms of knowledge into ritual storytelling, followed by a moving image essay live-scored by musicians. Featuring handcrafted masks co-created with master carvers in Bali, the performance unfolds as a drift towards the invisible ecologies, submerged histories, and fluid thresholds of the waters around us.

Complementing the artistic propositions is Planetary Archives, a selection of research materials from the NTU Earth Observatory of Singapore created for this event. This display foregrounds the core scientific work explored by the artists during the residency, offering a glimpse into the data and phenomena that informed their inquiry. Together, these acts chart a non-linear journey to the threshold of our profound unknowing of the invisible forces that shape the planet, inviting us to cultivate deeper forms of attention and attunement to the Earth.

Curated by Dr Anna Lovecchio, Curator, NTU CCA Singapore.

For more information and full programme details, please click here.

About STAR Residencies 
STAR Residencies (Science, Technology, Art & Research) is a pioneering initiative by the NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore, designed to foster meaningful cross-pollination between artistic and academic research. By embedding artists within world-class research institutes at Nanyang Technological University, the programme creates a unique site for exchange between creative practitioners and academic researchers.

About NTU CCA Singapore 
NTU Centre for Contemporary Art Singapore (NTU CCA Singapore) is a national research centre of the Nanyang Technological University. From 2013–21, the Centre was unique in its threefold constellation of exhibitions, residencies, research and academic education, engaging in knowledge production and dissemination. In its former exhibition hall, the Centre featured leading artists presenting their work often for the first time in Asia or Southeast Asia, which made it one of the few spaces in Singapore to present contemporary art from around the globe. Its ongoing residencies programme facilitates the production of knowledge and research, engaging and connecting artists, curators, and researchers across disciplines. NTU CCA Singapore positions itself as a space for critical discourse and encourages new ways of thinking about Spaces of the Curatorial in Southeast Asia and beyond. Located within Singapore’s visual arts precinct Gillman Barracks, the Centre’s dynamic public programmes serve to engage with various audiences through lectures, workshops, open studios, film screenings, and more. As a research centre, it aims to provide visiting researchers and curators a comprehensive study on the contemporary art ecosystem in Singapore and the region.