Video Art Festival, the first of its kind

Video Art Festival, the first of its kind

John Badalu, Contributor, Jakarta

This week, Galeri Nasional in Central Jakarta will not be the
same place as you may have imagined before, at least from the
public perspective.

Expect a room full of TV screens or walls reflecting huge
images, like walking through a TV shop with loads of displays, as
the Jakarta Video Art Festival goes on air. The main exhibition
hall is divided into four different rooms with themed video art
on politics, mass culture, private/public space and
body/identity.

Ruangrupa, the organizer of the Jakarta Video Art Festival, is
an artists' initiative that focuses on the integration of fine
arts, the urban community and contemporary culture. Unlike other
art organizations, Ruangrupa builds and provides space in areas
where video artists were usually not allowed to show their work.

Over many years, the television culture of Indonesia has
become strong, but unlike Western artists who countered the
existence of TV, Indonesian artists simply took TV for granted as
a new medium.

"Most of the time, we are connected to moving images on a
daily basis, so this is why we want to give a different
perspective through this video art festival. It's a different
viewpoint, and we hope the public will have a different
perception after attending and watching all the videos in the
festival.

"Organizing an event that can be justified conceptually and
technically is not an easy task. This festival involves a lot of
existing elements, but we needed to do extra work to meet all the
different visions from artists, academics, government
institutions, the organizer, and public and private
institutions," said Ade Darmawan, director of Ruangrupa.

There are about 60 video art pieces from 15 countries in the
festival played, continuously in a looping cycle. Some
international arts organizations have also joined the force with
their own presentations. Among the participants are PULSE from
South Africa, Videotage from Hong Kong and Videoart Centre from
Japan.

All will present video art from all over the world, each with
their own, unique characteristics. PULSE, for instance, does not
limit themselves to the video art medium, but also utilizes other
mediums and techniques to provide audiences with a broad spectrum
of contemporary culture. Videotage (Video and Montage) is more
specifically focused in developing video and new media, while
Videoart Centre is dedicated to the development of video art and
temporal genres.

Curated by Ade Darmawan, Indra Ameng, Hafiz and Farah Wardani,
most of the entries were selected from media art festivals and
database archives from several different countries. There are
even a few reels of research videos.

The concept behind the festival is seen through the expression
of language and in the depiction of contemporary issues.

For instance, take a look at Krisna Murti's video Beach Time.
The video captures women in their jilbab, or Islamic headscarves,
enjoying swimming in the sea. For some people, seeing jilbab-clad
women going for a swim is an unusual image, and this video might
provoke some reactions from the audience.

"We went for a road show early this year to Bandung, Malang,
Purwokerto and Yogyakarta as a sort of a warm-up to the
festival," said Indra Ameng.

"We held some presentations and discussions to measure the
enthusiasm for the festival, and we tried to find some video art
pieces that we had never seen. The result was quite overwhelming.
For instance, we got this video called Dangdut Koplo from Martin
Kristanto, that we find very interesting. It's about the dangdut
phenomenon and exploring what goes on backstage."

Dangdut is a popular musical genre mixing Arabic and Indian
influences, while koplo is an illegal drug.

Apart from the main exhibition and presentations from several
video art organizations, there are workshops, a discussion on
video art and contemporary culture, talks by the artists and a
separate section on music videos. Ruangrupa is planning to
release a compilation of the video art after the festival and
touring to a few other cities in Indonesia.

Hopefully, this festival can be a platform for promoting
Indonesian artists abroad and a medium of cultural exchange.
Sadly, though, the government does not see this event as an asset
-- no funding whatsoever were contributed by any government
institutes.

I-BOX:

The Jakarta Video Art Festival will run from July 7 to July 20
at Galeri Nasional Indonesia, Jl. Medan Merdeka Timur 14, Jakarta
Pusat.

Opening hours: Monday to Friday, 1 p.m. - 5:30 p.m. and 6:30
p.m.- 9 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday, 11 a.m. - 5 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.
- 10 p.m.

For more information, contact Ruangrupa, Jl. Tebet Barat Dalam
I, No. 26, Jakarta 12810, Tel/Fax (021) 829 4238. Email:
ruangrupa@cbn.net.id. Website: www.ruangrupa.org