The Urban Wilds 67
This chapter considers the creation of an eco-culture in Singapore, one of the
key characteristics of which is the deployment of the natural environment for the
exploitation and manipulation of the senses in the promotion of a pervasive culture of
consumption. To begin with, I examine some of the discursive and material strategies
deployed in the branding and construction of Singapore as an eco-landscape with
buzz; the subsequent section investigates the role of the senses in the naturalization of
certain spaces and the production of eco-aesthetics. Following that is a consideration
of the ensemble of affects on offer in Singapore where taste sensations combine
with other sensations to create a culinary eco-adventure as part of the expansion
of the consumer experience. Finally, this chapter concludes that the production of
Singapore’s eco-culture and the lucrative commercial prospects that accompany it
rely on a complex regime of the senses, a synaesthetic extravaganza where consumers
can immerse themselves in the urban wilds while eating, shopping, and chilling.
Eco-landscape with buzz
Singapore’s renaissance in the global era has produced new symbolic goods and new
ways of defining the national character. An important aspect of this is the generation
of excitement and the production of “cool” spaces where people can not only shop
and eat but also “chill”. Bungee jumping, hip-hop competitions, and the hundreds of
cultural events and festivals and other excitement-generating activities provided by
the government and the private sector are vital elements of the consumer economy
in Singapore. Excitement itself is a commodity, and is now part of the national
narrative. When former prime minister and then senior minister Goh Chok Tong
addressed students at the Nanyang Technological University in 2010, he inscribed
Singapore as a “Global City of Buzz” and identified affect as a component of
economic success: “We [are] talking about the positive vibes of a place, where the
environment is vibrant and exciting, and where people feel energized, engaged and
happy. Some call such a place ‘happening’, ‘funky’, or simply ‘lively’” (Goh 2010).
Positive vibes and funkiness precipitate emotional responses aligned with certain
embodied reactions such as feeling energized, but a competitive market demands
ever more novelty and ever more sophisticated aggregations of affective prompts
to produce such responses. Commodities, as Nigel Thrift puts it, “are increasingly
carefully designed to produce strong affective cues that will amplify their effectivity
by lodging them firmly in the phenomenal register” (Thrift 2005, p. 7).
Despite the functional housing tower blocks that are typical of the city
state, the ubiquitous shopping malls, and the seemingly ceaseless construction
of the built environment, Singapore—unlike many other Asian cities and
mega-conurbations—has not suffered so much a destruction of the “natural”
environment during economic development as a relocation of it (see Yuen, Kong,
and Briffet 1999, p. 323). The planting of millions of trees, plants, and shrubs in
an island-wide planting program begun by founding Prime Minister Lee Kuan
Yew in 1963 has been accompanied by the development of an extensive network
of national parks and gardens. Far from being transformed into a Bangkok- or
Jakarta-style concrete jungle, much of Singapore is a real jungle, with green cover