Artists confront modern-day leviathan: Television
M. Taufiqurrahman, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
One need look no further than the OK. Video Sub/Version Video Festival at the National Gallery to learn that the most terrifying leviathan in modern life is television.
In the two-week festival, Indonesian artists and their counterparts from countries that include the United States, Australia, Japan, Russia and Belgium are showcasing their work, which shows how television has shaped the universe of the masses, manipulated their conscience and subjugated them in the face of global capitalism.
While delineating the immense magnetism of the culture of television, the artists also deliver a coded message that is aimed at dismantling the subterfuge, deception and banality of what is beamed from the magic tube.
In so doing, the artists resort to the very methods that are considered subversive in the profit-seeking corporate world: video piracy and other copyright-infringing activities, while giving encouragement to involvement in such practices by spectators.
"Subversive works have cleared the way for postmodernity to flourish, which, in turn, will subsequently multiply these subversive works. Paint a Mao (Ze Dong) picture, add a Coca-Cola logo -- done," said Ronny Agustinus, a founding member of Ruangrupa, a festival organizer.
The approach has gained currency among artists taking part in the video festival.
For instance, in Bataille, a video work by Belgian artist Nicolas Provost, fragments from the film Rashomon by Japanese director Akira Kurosawa are subject to a mirror effect.
Named after French postmodern thinker George Bataille, the work carries a scene in which two samurais clench each other, later turning into a monster-like figure where horror and pain evoke beauty and joy.
Manifestoon, by American artist Jesse Drew, genially portrays symbolism for the stranglehold of Hollywood films through the medium of Tinseltown's most well-known export, cartoon character Mickey Mouse.
The classic image of Mickey running over the globe has a new meaning in the current era, in which Mickey's parent company Disney controls one of the largest media conglomerations in the world.
The closing scene, in which a bearded Karl Marx takes the place of the cartoon character in saying "That's all, folks!", gives rise to a sense of powerlessness among the populace (represented by the leftist thinker) against the onslaught of the media.
If the two works are a harmless parody of media domination, Appetite for Dysfunction, an installation work by Australian artists collectively known as the Kingpins, reveals the more destructive aspects of the culture of spectacle.
The work, whose title is a pun on Los Angeles-based band Guns `n Roses' 1987 album Appetite for Destruction, put on display six television sets framed by the tongue logo of British band the Rolling Stones, continuously running recorded videos of an Australian commercial for burger restaurant McDonald's, a wrestling contest, Rock `n Roll talent scouting contests and an ambush at a Korean Starbucks.
The work, however, is ambiguous on whether the artists are making a mockery of what is being beamed from the screen or of the spectators who are glued to the TV.
If foreign participants in the competition have a penchant for launching an attack on big corporations, Indonesian artists are more interested in peeling back the layers of deception and false messages delivered by local television programs.
In similar vein to the Kingpins, the work of artist Eko Nugroho, Maling (Thief), speaks volumes about the fact that TV has become an integral part of people's lives.
In his work, Nugroho uses a television set that constantly beams a collage of footage taken from homegrown TV programs, from a campy, ghost-hunting show, uninspired reality shows and gory images from a crime scene -- all staples of TV programing these days.
To end the scene, Nugroho displays a mock ad of canned fruit with the label Maling.
It is up to the audience to decide who is the real thief in question -- TV programs that pry into the audience's private lives or the products in commercials that constantly harangue us to buy them?
In Iqra (Arabic for "read"), artist Ari Satria Darma, attempts to regain viewers' lost consciousness, which has been bombarded by words and letters from all types of advertisements, by slowly erasing letters that make up the logos of well-known products, leaving their frames empty.
"Is it because we are a consumption-driven society that we perceive the frames as empty?" Ari asked rhetorically.
in box:
OK.Video Sub/Version video festival runs through July 31. Open daily, Monday to Friday 1 p.m. to 5:30 p.m and 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m to 11 p.m. National Gallery Jl. Medan Merdeka Timur 14. Central Jakarta