SINGAPORE �S INVISIBLE CITY & THE BODY : ACCOUNTING FOR THE SURVIVAL & FUNCTIONALITY OF THE BODY IN THE CITY

Abstract

There is death in a city, but can death itself be seen as a city that is dependent on the infrastructure and thoughts of a city? The city and death is inextricably linked by the living’s desire to live on. This desire sparks the fundamental tenets that allow death to become a city of its own, dependent on the living and vice versa. City:

The efficient city is a place whereby bodies (both living and dead) work for the continuation of the city’s existence. Despite the common conception of a city as a place for the living, the dead has a city of its own, the result of the living city’s desires. To support the desires of the living city to live on, various systems of infrastructure, commerce, landscapes and population is essential. The city of death has been existent all along amongst the living, but simply unseen to us.

Death:

“Death” is looked upon as the pure usage of the physical body as a possibility for re-generation and assurance of survival for the living. It is the last chance in which the body can be of any use in its lifespan as a body. “Death” is thus seen as the capacity of the body as a resource for generation of energy - the maximum reusability of the body.

When the city is seen in the light of the body as a tool that supports the city, the result is a highly efficient city even in the manner it deals with its population. Statistics offer us the chance to view the costs and returns of the body in a factual manner. As the city of death comes into being due to the living, information from the living city of Singapore is used as a mirror and reflection that uncovers the invisible city of death in Singapore. The death of a city sparks the beginning of another, always relevant to the city that is still alive. A city of its own is constructed by the continuity of life and also the inevitable continuity of death, one, which relies partially on the city of the living in an inevitable way - a co-existence of various states in which the body exists in.