“Life Circuit” by Urich Lau is a multimedia installation originally conceived as a video demonstration, centering around a wearable device reconstructed from industrial safety equipment – welding goggles affixed with LCD screens and spy cams, a gas mask modified with speakers, and ear muffs that serve as amplifiers. Within the confines of each exhibition space, audiences encounter live projections of themselves on external screens as captured via the almost imperceptible spy cams. These images, however, quiver and convulse and glitch and break from the over-stimulation of inputs channeled through this singular device. Reflecting on the condition of living in a technologically-advanced city like Singapore and its attendant issues of privacy and data collection, the work utilizes the language of technology itself to perform a critique on the often-insidious nature of these complex systems, and the ever-tightening grip around our liberal freedoms.
