'Click Art': A new method of collecting artworks

By Nuraini Juliastuti

YOGYAKARTA (JP): Bintang Hanggono sat before his computer. Two big white screens were put up some distance before his computer desk. He was going to begin his performance, called Under Public License. On the screen were faceless human figures appearing one by one, forming a crowd. On the screens ran: "I see power, I see money, I see a system". This was followed by the words "mine, yours" and "all properties".

Meanwhile on the screens, a young girl -- a real human being, not a virtual human -- sat on a chair, moving with invitingly pleasant gestures. Toward the end of the performance, two real human beings suddenly appeared from behind and broke through the screens before making their way to the stage.

Bintang was able to make a comment with this performance that everything in this country, that is, all natural wealth, had become private property. Nothing belonged to the people any more. There is no public property. Everything is illusionary.

Before Bintang's turn, Sigit K. Pius appeared with his performance. He also sat and operated the computer. Bintang and Sigit's works were both responses to the present condition in Indonesia. Sigit's work is called Indonesia -- Discount Up To 50%.

On the screen you could see members of the Cabinet, but the picture was intentionally blurred. The screen showed 10 children -- real children, not illusionary ones -- and an old man in white. First, the children played small bamboo flutes and were seen vying for something, shouting in turn, "Pull" with "Pulling each other" as the response on the screen. Scenes of rioting, automobiles on fire, a blurred picture of Soeharto moving up and down while the phrases "thieves steal, poor thieves, poor people", flashed on screen. Once in a while, dark shadows of shadow puppets played by the children from behind the screen appeared.

In the course of the performance, the audience could see what Bintang and Sigit were doing. They could, for example, see Bintang ask Sigit to help him do something with the other computer. Prior to the performance, the audience could see Bintang, Sigit and the crew busy plugging in cables, and once in a while striking the keyboard of the computer or instructing the computer to do something. Sigit and Bintang, both students of the School of Fine Arts and Designing at Yogyakarta Indonesian Institute of the Arts (ISI), are a couple Indonesian artists who create their work through the instruments of cybertechnology.

A decade ago, people may not have been able to imagine how big the influence of the computer would be on areas such as the fine arts, performing arts, music or photography. Technology has advanced very rapidly, however, and introduced changes to the arts in forms previously unimaginable. Bintang and Sigit's performances from the evening of Aug. 20 at the French-Indonesian Institute (LIP) in Yogyakarta will later be presented on the internet from Sept. 17 in the Worldwide Video Art Festival, which will be participated by, among others, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Chile, the Netherlands, England and Costa Rica. The websites to visit are http://surf.to/on(e)line and www.dds.nl/~gatefoun/confer.htm. On Sept. 17, Bintang and Sigit, along with Heri Dono, will also perform at Cemeti Art Gallery in Yogyakarta. The three are Indonesia's first virtual reality artists.

The computer has not been fully received by Indonesia's art world. It is still considered something weird and unusual to make its full appearance as a work of art. People might regard the show as instantaneous, unauthentic, soulless and without aura. But this was a signal that the era of multimedia arts, the era of "click art", has arrived. It is necessary, therefore, for us to prepare a new logic to be able to appreciate this new kind of art. Bintang and Sigit's logic of art creation differs from that of conventional and manual art. Today's aesthetic discourse has drastically changed: from manual art like statues, paintings and graphic drawings into multimedia art, which is all digital, mechanical and interactive in nature.

The choice of medium by Bintang and Sigit has the consequence of change in message, symbols and narration methods. In short, what usually prevails in the manual art world has become meaningless in Bintang and Sigit's works, which offer a fresh way to look at art.

Manual artwork seems to recognize only two choices: the originals and the fakes. Bintang and Sigit's works have crushed those boundaries because their works were created by a means of copying and taking materials here and there. All is very much instantaneous. Bintang reiterated that. "The most pleasing thing about a computer is its instantaneous and swift nature. If we need a picture, we do not need to make a drawing or take a photograph. It is enough for us only to take clip art or look for a particular picture in a magazine and then scan it. In the same manner, if we need some music, we can simply take it from compact discs, cut the music into parts and blend these parts."

To paint a picture, for example, the requirement is that one must have a specific capability, but the computer has done away with this requirement. One does not need a high level of manual technical capability to be able to make outstanding and difficult effects. This proves that Bintang and Sigit's artwork is egalitarian. Of course, all this does not necessarily mean that their works are easier and less serious than manual painting works. The egalitarian character of arts of this kind is inherent to the medium chosen by Bintang and Sigit. In the end, the success of an artwork is determined by these two things: the capability of an artist to present symbols to the viewers and the extent of the magic effect which may be passed by these symbols to other people.

Another important feature not found in other forms of manual art is that this work is easily editable and revisable.

This new form of multimedia, or click art, has also introduced a new method in collecting artwork. There will no longer be sole owners of famous paintings. There will no longer be any auctions of legendary artwork. Some day, when Bintang and Sigit have recorded their works on a compact disc, anybody who can afford to buy the CD may collect their artwork. They can play the CD in their bedrooms. Indeed, Bintang's and Sigit's works have been designed to be reproducible. They are examples of a replica art.

It is now time for manual art to find fresh forms which the computer cannot think of. Following the introduction of photography, new forms of art came up: cubism, abstract paintings, Dadaism and so forth. One important thing that click artwork does not have is a break with space and time. Bambang and Sigit's recent performance had their space and time context only when there were performed live. When they are put on the internet, they become virtual works without any relation with space and time.