Questioning identity through video art

Asikin Hasan, Curator, Helsinki, Finland

Video art is not very well-known in Indonesia but it is the newest medium to feature at the International Contemporary Exhibition ARS-01 at the Contemporary Museum KIASMA in Helsinki.

The exhibition which was opened on Sept. 29 by Erkki Tuomioja, Finland's minister of foreign affairs, will run until Jan. 20, 2002. More than 70 artists from 30 countries are participating in the exhibition including those from India, the United States, Yugoslavia, China, Indonesia and Thailand.

This is not the first time that video art and other new mediums -- such as performance and installation art -- have been presented in major events. Other mega-scale events have also celebrated them including San Paolo Biennale, Havana Biennale, Kwang Ju Biennale, Bangladesh Biennale, Fukuoka Triennale and several others.

However ARS-01 confirms that these new mediums are relevant to describe today's problems. Apart from being able to enter the subtle areas of human's life, video can portray place, space and time in a more complete way, which brings us closer to reality.

Using a multicultural approach, the curators of the exhibition seemed to have taken maximum advantage of video art's possibilities.

Indonesian artist, Krisna Murti, presented a video installation titled Losing Face, a work that he included in the 1999 Bangladesh Art Biennale and the seventh Havana Biennale last year. This is a creation of process, which means an ongoing development based on new ideas found in different places.

In ARS-01, Krisna presented his latest version through a simultaneous use of a triple screen, where he is not only the subject who creates, but uses his own body as an object of his creation as well. His work is a blending of video art and performance art.

On the main screen -- the focus of the video -- he presented his performance in public spaces in Tokyo. On the second screen is his performance in Havana, while the third portrays a Balinese dog that is ceaselessly barking.

In this work Krisna represents and personifies himself with something, which may be related to questions of identity and nationality.

Queries concerning identity also echo through other works of video art in the exhibition.

The creation of Milica Tomic, a Yugoslavian female artist, can be taken as an example. On her giant-sized five-by-seven meter screen, dominating the exhibition, she portrays herself in a blood-splattered white gown.

Scars cover parts of her body, neck and face. The red color of blood and the white dress, the lovely face and the smear and streaks of blood on it, produces a strong contrast. Milica turns slowly like a model.

She mumbles to herself: "I am Milica Tomic," which she kept repeating in several languages, including in Indonesian: "I am Milica Tomic. I am an Indonesian." This immediately stupefies us in front of her work.

What is the relationship between Tomic, the blood-splattered gown, the body turning like a model, Yugoslavia and Indonesia? Was this the voice in doubt, an inability to identity oneself and a requestioning of identity?

What exactly is the meaning of Yugoslavia, Montenegro, Bosnia or Indonesia? Are these not mere names on the world map? But is it not also a fantasy transposed into reality, which in many cases appears with startling horror?

Apart from a deep message, the tendency to explore is clearly visible in this medium.

Another interesting example is the work of Anna Jermolaewa, a young Russian artist, titled Three Attempts to Survive. This three-minute video portrays a matrioska, a famous Russian doll. The video camera is pointed to a wall and then a three-by-three meter picture area appears.

The show begins and the dolls suddenly seem to be alive, moving slowly at first, but gradually moving faster and producing deafening sounds. Next the dolls collide into each other, some crashing to the ground and some rotating like tops. All the dolls have lost the war and the screen is again the white wall.

It certainly contained a sense of humor and entertainment, which clearly was not what Jermalaewa intended to convey. The unintended humor and entertaining elements are just side effects of her various explorations.

Today's art tends to present numerous fundamental problems in human lives. In mainstream art that has accepted video art as a new medium, it is obviously not another experimentation. It has become an idiom for uncountable ideas, including those considered almost illogical or unthinkable in the past.