Singapore’s Master Plan 2013 is the latest in the long line
of maps that have zoned the island into existence since its first colonial town
plans in the 19th century. As with its predecessors, this cartographical view
of the city-state pragmatically sees the island as a planned
spatio-temporality, albeit now one that is hyperlinked down to each plotted
site. Indeed, the Master Plan is an integral part of the cartographies of power
that continually produce and fix Singapore space in a teleological capitalist
matrix. Using the terms coined by the spatial theorist Henri Lefebvre, these
planning regimes produce Singapore as a profoundly abstract space as opposed to
a social space that is alive to the possibilities of spontaneous spatial
practice and representational space. These plans also demonstrate the inherent
fictionality of these productions of space — they are not primordial or natural
in any sense but imagined and then imposed. Indeed, the recent grassroots
movements to save particular buildings seen as unimportant to planners but as
collective emotional landmarks are perhaps part of a growing realization of
alternative spatial narratives that are possible in the city.
However, as Singapore architect and thinker William S.W. Lim puts it, the possibilities for heterogenous space have been the exception rather than the rule in Singapore. Thus, this paper takes the pervasive cartographic vision of Singapore as a starting point as it turns to recent literary urbanisms by Singapore writers like Alfian Sa’at and Tan Shzr Ee. Looking specifically at Alfian’s Malay Sketches (2013) and Tan’s Lost Roads (2007), I argue that while these texts were produced in the late capitalist moment, they attempt to conceive of the city beyond its ever intensifying spectacle and the fixity of pragmatic capitalism. Their literary detours in the city resist seeing its space for profit and investment, and instead experiment with ways of perceiving and conceiving of the city that lead to altered spatial practices. Tan does this through a unwieldy “scrapbook” of confabulated and seemingly insignificant spaces in the city, while Alfian hones his craft in tiny flash fictions, brief literary moments that are polyphonic and open-ended. Both these texts attempt to write the unmappable — the affective, the indeterminate, and the unquantifiable — while remaining cognizant of the overarching structures of power that their texts and characters come up against.
My paper draws on Lefebvre’s main argument in The Production of Space (1977): that the production of space occurs through a dialectical relationship which exists within the triad of the perceived, the conceived, and the lived. This conception of space thus creates significant equivalences of the symbolic, the textual and the material — and in the context of urban spaces like Singapore reminds us not to discount both representations of space which “intervene in and modify spatial textures” and representational space which “embraces the loci of passion, of action and of lived situations.” My reading of the texts by Alfian and Tan thus modulates constantly between the social and the literary, in order to understand their ever-evolving relationship in the production of urban space in Singapore. By focusing on the contested spatiality of Singapore in these texts, my close readings examine the ways in which they challenge the blueprint of Singapore as global capitalist success. These texts are counter-cartographies, counter-narratives of what the city was, is, and could be. Reading them enables us to inhabit Singapore in a multitude of alternate modes, reminding us, as the filmmaker Tan Pin Pin puts it, that the city is a “teeming, contested terrain.”
However, as Singapore architect and thinker William S.W. Lim puts it, the possibilities for heterogenous space have been the exception rather than the rule in Singapore. Thus, this paper takes the pervasive cartographic vision of Singapore as a starting point as it turns to recent literary urbanisms by Singapore writers like Alfian Sa’at and Tan Shzr Ee. Looking specifically at Alfian’s Malay Sketches (2013) and Tan’s Lost Roads (2007), I argue that while these texts were produced in the late capitalist moment, they attempt to conceive of the city beyond its ever intensifying spectacle and the fixity of pragmatic capitalism. Their literary detours in the city resist seeing its space for profit and investment, and instead experiment with ways of perceiving and conceiving of the city that lead to altered spatial practices. Tan does this through a unwieldy “scrapbook” of confabulated and seemingly insignificant spaces in the city, while Alfian hones his craft in tiny flash fictions, brief literary moments that are polyphonic and open-ended. Both these texts attempt to write the unmappable — the affective, the indeterminate, and the unquantifiable — while remaining cognizant of the overarching structures of power that their texts and characters come up against.
My paper draws on Lefebvre’s main argument in The Production of Space (1977): that the production of space occurs through a dialectical relationship which exists within the triad of the perceived, the conceived, and the lived. This conception of space thus creates significant equivalences of the symbolic, the textual and the material — and in the context of urban spaces like Singapore reminds us not to discount both representations of space which “intervene in and modify spatial textures” and representational space which “embraces the loci of passion, of action and of lived situations.” My reading of the texts by Alfian and Tan thus modulates constantly between the social and the literary, in order to understand their ever-evolving relationship in the production of urban space in Singapore. By focusing on the contested spatiality of Singapore in these texts, my close readings examine the ways in which they challenge the blueprint of Singapore as global capitalist success. These texts are counter-cartographies, counter-narratives of what the city was, is, and could be. Reading them enables us to inhabit Singapore in a multitude of alternate modes, reminding us, as the filmmaker Tan Pin Pin puts it, that the city is a “teeming, contested terrain.”
