Roy Suryo, pioneer in multimedia documentation
By Ridlo Aryanto
YOGYAKARTA (JP): Is there any evidence possessing greater authenticity than a suspect's confession, a witness's testimony or an exhibit in a criminal case?
The Criminal Code says "no", but if the same question is asked of RM Roy Suryo, he will strongly reply "yes".
For Roy, 32, a multimedia observer who also teaches at the School of Media Recordings at the Indonesian Arts Institute (ISI) in Yogyakarta, an audio-visual record is valid evidence.
"Actually, the audio-visual technology is highly reliable as evidence but our legal system seems to find it difficult to recognize as a legitimate exhibit," said Mas Roy, as he is affectionately called.
In Roy's opinion, visual recordings will provide more certainty than evidence accepted by Indonesia's Criminal Code. To illustrate his point, Roy referred to the trial of a case in which a Trisakti University student rammed his VW car into a cordon of security officers during the 1998 general session of the Peoples' Consultative Assembly.
To obtain a clearer understanding of the incident, the judge could have referred to video recordings made by TV cameramen.
"It is true that, though remote, there is always a possibility that the recording has been tampered with. However, I am convinced that there is always truth behind technological sophistication. What I'm sure of is that a video recording is of greater authenticity than the testimony of the witnesses, who were fellow security officers, as this kind of testimony can always be fabricated," said Roy, who also teaches in the diploma program at the School of Social and Political Sciences of Gadjah Mada University.
Equipped with an awareness of the significance of historical moments recorded in televised news reports, Roy was prompted to renew his hobby of making video cassette recordings of televised news reports.
To most people this type of hobby may sound like the activity of someone who has very little to do.
It all began with a telephone conversation from Wicaksono, Roy's senior at the communications department of the School of Social and Political Sciences at Gadjah Mada University. Wicaksono, a science and technology editor for a Jakarta-based news weekly, called him at midnight on May 12, 1998 when Jakarta began to seethe with tension.
"A student has been killed today. Are you not interested in documenting this event?" Roy quoted Wicaksono as asking.
Roy took up the challenge. He connected a 34-inch TV with four video recorders. As a result documentation of historical moments of the reform era began. The four video recorders, which switched on automatically, would selectively record all television news reports in their entirety.
700 master recordings
The reports came from state television station TVRI, five privately-owned television channels and also foreign television stations including CNN and CNBC.
"Every morning, after dawn or at weekends, I edited the recordings. Important news reports are put together chronologically as one story on one Betamax video cassette master recording."
Today, Roy's collection of news reports during the height of the reform movement totals around 700 master recordings. They include reports on, for example, Soeharto's resignation (in five versions with different news angles), the May 14 riots in Jakarta and Solo, the sensational telephone conversation between then- attorney general Andi Ghalib and then-president Habibie, the alleged affair between Abdurrahman "Gus Dur" Wahid and Aryanti, as well as recent reports on the discovery of Tommy Soeharto's bunker.
Apart from relying on his own recordings, Roy also receives recordings about many events, exclusive or otherwise, from friends, students activists and other sources. It is often the case that owners of the recordings are scared of keeping the video cassettes themselves for safety reasons.
"Anybody may make use of the recordings in my collection. It's free of charge," Roy said.
Recording a television program was not an entirely new hobby to Roy. As a university student he was very fond of watching all sorts of television programs, collated with the help of his trusty video recorder. As he had a lot of video recordings of television programs -- ranging from World Cup soccer to music video clips -- Roy was like a data bank to his friends.
"I just had a simple idea: what I do now will surely be useful some day. Now the collection is often the source of material for my lectures," said Roy, who also teaches photography at Gadjah Mada University.
Owing to his deep interest in multimedia, Roy, who is a member of the Puro Pakualaman aristocratic family of Yogya, has had to "deal with" the Armed Forces Intelligence Agency (BIA, now Bais, the Indonesian Military Strategic Intelligence Agency).
It all began with his attempt to use his computer to verify the telephone conversation between Habibie and Andi Ghalib, which had caused quite a stir in the community. Today, he said, there is software which can be used to combine, edit and present a voice, complete with its amplitude, frequency and spectrum.
It was using this software that he tested three versions of Habibie and Ghalib's voice recordings obtained from friends and the Internet.
"One of the versions that I have is even more complete than the version BIA had. My version begins with Habibie lifting the receiver and ends with Habibie hanging up the telephone," he said.
For comparison Roy used the voice of Habibie and Ghalib in other events, and the recording of monologue actor Butet Kartarejasa's voice while impersonating Habibie.
Once everything had been fed into the computer program the process of analysis began. The result? It could be clearly seen that there was a difference in spectrum between Habibie's original voice and Butet's impersonation.
Furthermore, the spectrum of Habibie's original voice in another event turned out to be exactly the same as the spectrum of the voice speaking on the telephone.
"My conclusion is that the voice on the telephone was indeed Pak Habibie's. Roy intentionally did not test Ghalib's voice. "I have my hypothesis that if two persons talk on the phone there are only two possibilities: the two persons are the actual persons or both are frauds."
It was this finding that resulted in Roy having to do deal with BIA. He went to the intelligence headquarters on March 17, 1999 to explain his project.
He joked that at that time he shuddered at the thought of being kidnapped like (political activist) Pius Lustrilanang. His discussion with BIA members, however, took place smoothly and without any violence.
"What made me proud was that they agreed with my conclusion: the telephone conversation recorded involved the original voices of Habibie and Ghalib. I was even proud at being able to have a free lunch at the headquarters of BIA," Roy said, bursting into a hearty laugh.
Roy, who has been married to Ismarindayani for six years, is self-taught in the use of computer and other multimedia equipment.
He also devises programs, makes viruses and even dismantles and then reassembles his computers. Once he tried to seriously learn MIDI (Music Instrument Digital Interface) but then, as he felt he had no knack for music, he shifted to utility, which has inevitably required him to keep up with the latest technological developments.
"The consequence is that I must buy a new laptop computer every six months. Only lately did I realize that it was these laptops that made me a spendthrift," said Roy, adding that he preferred to buy a new laptop rather than the spare parts to upgrade his old one.
It was only three months ago that Roy realized he had 16 laptops and notebooks. As he could no longer accommodate them all, he sold some to his friends last month.
When asked how much he spends to satiate his hunger for multimedia, he said, "I have never counted how much. Everything is very expensive now. One good notebook computer costs between 10 and 20 million rupiah. But I've never felt I have sustained any losses. One thing is certain, I still nurture an obsession to establish a center for historical documentation in a multimedia format," he said.