On the second day of conference, a panel session with Surrender, Mo’Wax and and Kazuki Kuraishi was held. However, this also became just presentations of works, and the audience who sat on bean cushions in front of the stage could not help nodding off. That became even worse when Kazuki Kuraishi’s session became a Q&A session from the beginning because he did not bring in any materials to show. “If there is no material, we cannot come up with any questions.” An opinion such as this erupted among audiences, and he kept replying them with brusque answers. He was on the stage right in front of us, but he kept distance from us. And there eventually was an audience member who spoke out his resentment saying ” I’d like to speak to the organizer. What a stupid presentation. We came here to know processes not just collections of works. What can we learn from this?” He spoke for all the other people in the audience and it resulted in a storm of applause. Eventually, this eventful session ended with a bad aftertaste.

This bad aftertaste was driven off by Rostarr. He says that he fell in love with graphic design because of its powerfulness. He made audiences glue to his sketchbook where he draws images of destruction and creation. His encompassing remark “We, artists need you guys” cleared off the bad atmosphere that dominated among audiences. However, when audiences pointed out the significance of conference, it simply stated the presence of barriers in street culture scene and made us to think many other things.

The conference was concluded with a session by camouflage king Maharishi. EXPO time followed after the conference. Delta’s live performance was canceled because of some technical problems and he organized a tagging event on very short notice. There was a good atmosphere around his booth and he conversed with audience members asking, “Where are you from?” and “Do you study Design?.” Official booklets that were given out to audiences were filled with tags and autographs from artists and designers, and audiences must had been happy. Even audiences can meet and converse with their favorite artists, there sill exists a barrier between big-stars and fans, it was a sort of disappointment that there were no sorts of people who showed up to present his own works to exhibiting artists.

I went out to the exhibition “Decade of Decadence” by Phunk Studio with a bit of mental agony. Phunk is a true champion in Singapore’s culture scene, and Stefan Sagmeister says about Phunk; “I wanted to make things but PHUNK did it before me. I don’t like them!” The exhibition was dark and decadent filled with displays of outstanding and exciting works. Flyers were put up on the wall cumbersomely, and messy but powerful views were something that Singapore’s streets miss. There are no graffiti and stickers on the street. Singapore is teased about its popular employment of death penalty law and graffiti corresponds to flogging as a punishment. There were many artists who were speaking for “revolt” at this conference in this clean country Singapore, and I am curious to know what meanings Singaporeans get from it.

DesignEdge Conference & EXPO 2005 generated many happenings and feelings. An uneven contrast between big-stars and fans was difficult to dismiss. In addition, FUNK’s remark ” We become visual rock star.” has also remained in my mind. If Singapore wants to become a rich design market, the existence of distance between presenters and audiences can be a success, but it must have been disappointing for young talents who dream to be next rock-stars. The edge of design should be at the hot spot where there is no distance among all talents.

DesignEDGE Conference & EXPO 2005
Date: November 10th – 12th, 2005
Place: Singapore SUNTEC Halls
Address: 1 Raffles Blvd, Singapore 039593
Tel: +65 6337 2888
http://www.designedge.sg