5 The Urban Wilds
Ecoculture, consumption, and affect in
SingaporeChris Hudson
Shop eat chill
Of all the marketing strategies deployed by the Singapore Tourism Board in recent
years, the slogan “Shop Eat Chill” perhaps best encapsulates the marshaling of
affect for an economy of consumption. Singapore has long had a well-deserved
reputation as a Mecca for shopping and eating, but in a world where the global
proliferation of clothing chains such as Topshop, Zara, and Uniqlo can offer
relatively cheap consumer goods at any number of locations around the world,
the nation can no longer style itself as an Asian bazaar and a haven for tax-free
electronic goods. If some visitors still see Singapore as the “only shopping mall
with a seat on the UN council”, as writer William Gibson allegedly said, they have
missed the point. Since the 1990s, Singapore has rebranded itself as a “Renaissance
City” (Singapore Government 2002) and a “Global City for the Arts”. The reality
has not failed to live up to the promise of a city of culture. For the annual Singapore
Arts Festival, it seems that no expense is spared to attract an impressive array of
international theatre and dance companies, philharmonic orchestras, and other
smaller-scale local and imported performances. The plethora of arts and cultural
events appears with such frequency and on such an extravagant scale that public
life in Singapore imparts a sense of continuing carnival and a dramatization of
urban life (see Hudson 2012). The collective affect generated by such an array of
spectacles that appear not only in theatres but also in parks, shopping malls, and
other public spaces is one of the keys to the government’s economic agenda in
the post-industrial era. Culture is now a strategy for capitalist accumulation and
instrumental for private interests (see Kearns and Philo 1990; Zukin 1995), or as
Lash and Urry express it, the economy is increasingly culturally inflected while
culture is more and more economically inflected (Lash and Urry 1994, p. 64).
A symbolic regime that relies on eco-culture and the commodification of the
natural environment has also become a salient feature of Singapore’s marketing
strategy and an important component of the affective register of Singapore. It
has facilitated a mode of place making that allows Singapore to rebrand itself as
an urban wilderness. Its success is contingent upon a vibrant eco-aesthetic that
has made the intensification of the senses part of the quintessential Singapore
experience and an important aspect of its affective allure.