Creative Content

I have been thinking about some questions on the quest to become a 'Global Arts City'

1) Can a people brought up on a pragmatic and functional world-view develop an aesthetic sense, or enough of an aesthetic for them to be creative? Can an aesthetic sense be turned on and off like a switch, or it deeply ingrained and inseparable from one's being? Is there a time beyond which it becomes too late for an individual to develop such as aesthetic sense. When is that time? Can you have an aesthetic sense without an unified aesthetic outlook?

2) If you wish to be creative, what is the creative thing you want to make? And must it be unique?

a. Relatedly, Singapore has thought of itself as not just a multicultural, but cross-cultural place. Indeed, it sees itself as in the middle of two other continuums, namely, between the modern and traditional, and between West and East. Yet what content has it produced that evidences its hybrid culture in a deep rather than pastische way, much less showcases it.

i. Hence where are the plays, novels, designs, buildings etc, which is produce of out cultural positioning?

ii. In what way is the arts and cultural policy helpful to the making of these cultural products.

b. Is there, in other words, a Singapore cultural aesthetic, and what is it? And how is different from the aesthetic of non-Singaporeans?