curhat

menanggapi [link] dan [link]

menjalani hidup merupakan sebuah pilihan, dan juga sebuah proses pendewasaan. sempat terbersit pertanyaan yang meragukan tentang jerih payah berkuliah selama 4 tahun. apakah saya harus pergi tanpa sebuah tanggung jawab, atau saya harus bertahan walaupun ada gelisah di hati (ssah). tentu saya tidak boleh hanya diam, berserah diri pada waktu menunggu jawaban.

akhirnya saya menemukan titik agak terang, ketika saya bertanya kepada seorang teman ;si kurcil (kurator cilik, hehe);
"jadi sebenarnya kita semua hanya pemuas kebutuhan tersier orang2 kaya itu ya?"
(walaupun saya merasa seperti anak remaja yang mempertanyakan tentang agamanya (maafkan pengandaian yang terlalu berlebihan)

Karena memang, saya merasa bahwa dunia seni ini merupakan sebuah lembaga, di mana orang-orang elitis berkumpul.
tapi, ketika kita berbicara tentang efektifitas, mungkin kita bisa melihat Tisna Sanjaya. Menurut saya, ia seperti Robin hood, hmm atau si pitung. Metode ia berkontribusi adalah metode making amends. Karena selain ia memamerkan karya nya di galeri yang juga dicari-cari oleh kolektor-kolektor, ia juga memberikan sebuah kontribusi terhadap masyarakat di luar seni. Seperti, mural cigondewa, berbagai workshop, dan lain lain.

Selain itu saya melihat adanya kecenderungan berkarya yang merespon ruang. (contohnya jakarta 32 derajat, ok video, dan lain2) sempat terpikir untuk keluar dari berkarya konvensional untuk melakukan hal itu dengan argumen ingin jarak yang lebih dekat dan lebih mencangkup luas. tapi jujur, tidak mudah. karena saya terkadang miris melihat karya-karya seperti ini, yang jatuhnya 'tanggung'. (Ketika ia memaksakan sebuah karya untuk keluar galeri, namun ternyata masyarakat belum bisa menerima, dan pada akhirnya hanya menjadi sebuah objek aneh di tempat umum. jadilah sia-sia, karena tidak ada yang berhasil disampaikan).

keduanya sebuah pilihan. making amends, atau mendobrak garis batas. keduanya mempunyai resiko masing-masing. tapi satu yang yang saya pilih, saya tetap harus bertanggung jawab kepada pilihan yang telah saya buat 4 tahun lalu.

how to fake an art gallery conversation

descriptive writing #3

ehem ya, yang ke3. maaf dulu ah.

You are in a bright white walls room full of elitists. That means you are in an art gallery in an opening night. You remember queuing before. Waiting for your turn to fill the guestbook with you names and emails so that they can spam your inbox with event calendars. If you’re lucky you can get yourself a catalogue that usually end up in your toilet as a thing that you could read while taking a dump.
You realized that this very crowded situation is not helping you in understanding and appreciating the artworks, so you go out of the room heading to the open bar. With a glass of bintang on your left hand and a small paper plate full of peanuts on your right, you go to the amphitheatre where you can find some of your friends, teachers, and acquaintances, watching a performance. it usually is an emerging popular band.
Have no idea about what is the performer trying to show, you’re talking to your friends about the juiciest gossips on art world, or asking for some suggestion from lecturers.
Yet, you still feel lonely. Alienated by people around you, and drown with random thoughts. A breeze of Dago Pakar wind suddenly wakes you up from your contemplating mood. You put on your hood, and button up your shabby jeans jacket. With hands in your pockets, you’re walking pass the open bar, the guestbook, your friends, your teachers, the snobs, the mediocre, the butt kissers, and finally you reach the darkest area of the gallery.
The parking area.
There you don’t feel like before. This is where you feel most convenient. The sincere smile of the parking guy and his loyal and dedicated service for looking after your motorbike is indeed the most real contribution to society in this gallery area.

descriptive writing #2

baiklah tulisan deskriptif yang ke2. haha tidak bisa berhenti. stoop stooooop kania. tulisan ini terinspirasi dari banyak hal, dari high fidelity, how i met your mother, taxi driver, sampai seno gumira

“… We are all sensitive people sugar...”
Marvin Gaye’s passionate soulful voice gives company on the lonely nights.
Glares of city lights are reflecting on the front mirror of the car looks like rivers of colors, just exactly like Martin Scorsese had drawn in his taxi driver movie.* No wonder most of the taxi driver can be considered wise because they usually contemplate a lot.
He’s a Muslim, you can pick it up from the tasbih hanging on the rearview mirror. No, wait, or a Chinese Muslim if you see his photo on his ID in the front. Well, It’s common in the end of 90s to leave a clue to the people that you’re a Muslim to avoid misjudging that could lead to unpleasant acts.
There’s a thick book peeking from the sun visor. Seems like a novel to you. He’s quite educated you think, not many people in Indonesia reads. Also the Jakarta Post, Kompas and Pos Kota behind the driver seat, says it all. He tells you it’s one of his services to the passenger.
A bare whiff of vomit from previous passenger gives him nausea. After says sorry politely and gets permission from you, he turns off the ac, opens the window, and lights his halfway cigarette from after dinner smoking time.
The digital clock below the ac window tells you it’s 2 am. Mom always said that there’s no good things happen after 2 am. But here you are in a backseat of taxi, having a very nice conversation about your problems, politics, society, and other popular issues with a very nice guy. It’s actually true that taxi driver is bartender on the road. Well, without the alcohol of course.

*from SGA seni dan air seni nya supir taksi

descriptive writing #1

dibawah adalah tugas menulis deskriptif yang sangat saya benci. jujur saja, saya tidak begitu suka membaca sesuatu yang sangat detail mendeskripsikan sesuatu. membuat imajinasi saya 'terkungkung' dalam tulisan itu. hehe, mungkin terlalu berlebihan. mungkin saya hanya malas. tapi pada akhirnya tugas ini selesai juga karena sebenarnya detail ruangan yang dideskripsikan dibawah adalah studio impian saya. walau tokoh 'she' disini sama sekali bukan saya.

There is a very significant imaginary gap between the house where she and her parents live in and the attic where she’s actually nesting. It is a typical contemporary family home with the cold, modern and minimalistic style. Just like the people in it.
While just by going upstairs carried by an indistinct sound of rock music, we are actually escaping a depressing and impersonal place to another different dimension. It’s a place where you would feel so vibrant and also a distinctive form of tranquility.
Just after you open the door and smell a bare whiff of nicotine as a result of combination from bad air circulation and of course the lack of health risk awareness, the first thing that would caught your attention beside of the loud noise from Joe Strummers’ strumming skills is the cluttered corner that she always calls as ‘the body’ section of the room.
Yes, she always told her friends that the attic is parted in three sections, just like human: the head, the heart, and the body.
‘The head’ is where she gets all the inspiration from her reference books, movies, music, and the Internet. Surprisingly, the books, the DVDs, and the CDs are arranged neatly and in order. Even the CDs are organized autobiographically. That means if she’s looking for Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dreams CD, she has to trace back her memory to 1993 when her ex gave it as breakup compensation.*
‘The heart’ is where she’s processing all of the information she gets from ‘the head’, so it would someday turn into an idea or maybe if she’s lucky, a work of art. Most of the times, her friends are having some deep discussions or just hang out in this corner. It’s where you can find a coffee table, an old shabby beanbag, and a brilliant multifunction piece of furniture called sofa bed, facing the TV and the ant farm next to it.
Behind the TV as its background, there is a big handcrafted Ganesh tapestry that she got from her backpacking to India. She thinks it Gives a very whimsical semiotic feels, while Ganesh is believed as the deva of intellect and wisdom, and yet TV just kills most of your brain cells.
‘The body’ is where she does all of her works. Parted in two sections by a waist-high cabinet full of art supplies from oil to watercolor paint, brushes, varnishes, etc: wet and dry. ‘Dry’ is where she does her drawing, supported with a drawing table and a light box to trace photos, that area is restricted from all liquid things. Even coffee. On the ‘wet’ section across the drawing table you can see an easel and a very big sink next to it. The sink was forcedly made to fit in the room just for cleaning all the art supplies after she’s done doing her painting.
All of those three parts are knitted together by a bunch of previous artworks hung on the wall. They unintentionally decorated the attic just in an inspiring eclectic way. Each things, each objects in the attic, is telling a story about her.
Indeed, her art studio is a self-portrait.

*high fidelity

saya butuh bukti nyata

jengkel dengan dunia seni.
"gila, karya dia laku 50 juta ya"
kanvas ukuran 120x90 itu
akhirnya berada dalam genggaman seorang kolektor kaya

mencoba menjadi orang awam saya bertanya.
what makes it so special?
tentu saja proses dan ideologi yang ada di dalamnya, katanya.
maksudnya proses apa?
menjilat kurator?
membuka percakapan dan memperluas jaringan?
ideologi asal bapak senang?
selera pasar?

lalu apa hasil konkrit yang bisa saya berikan kepada masyarakat sebagai seniman?

saya merasa seperti seorang 'golput' kebanyakan

tahu apa yang tidak dimaui
tapi juga
tidak tahu apa yang dimaui

inilah buah yang dipetik akibat dipupuk Tugas Akhir dan disiram insomnia.

German and France in 2 weekends

I've spent my two weekends with watching plays.

the first one is

Unter Eis,

written by Falk Richter
directed by Wawan Sofwan from 'Mainteater'
one word to describe this piece is : dreary
well, it's quite heavy for first timer like me.
it was about a financial consultant that felt so isolated and alienated by his world,
wrapped with multimedia stuff (audio and video by kineruku).

one scene that i love was when the main character was in an airport lounge, and the plane was waiting for him to board. and he felt very contented that everyone was irritated by his 'nonexistence'

the work was so German-ish i felt like i was in a lecture.
but maybe i just wasn't in the mood for contemplating about the madness about industrial culture or the western's meta-system of economy. hehe..

but what can i say, mainteater successfuly gave me a vision :
from learning to watch, to >> watching to learn,

quite amazed by the power of the theatrical performance,

the next weekend, I decided to watch a free performance from
'Accrocrap'

it was called
Petites Histoires.com

this one was : whimsical

when street hip-hop dance meets theater
it's like bringing an everyday object into the gallery
well, maybe it's too harsh to say that.
but yes, i consider it like the lowbrow art of theater.
it's yummy, delicious, and enjoyable.
there was some breathtaking moments due to their acrobatic movements.

how could i not enjoy it when there was 5 topless guys dancing on the stage.
haha kidding.

aside from the all the stunning choreography,
the story was about childhood memories,
althought it was in mixed-of-averylittleenglish-and-french,
but i still could feel a little bit carried away..hehe..
but trust me, everything connected with childhood, you could touch everyone's
personal side. (just like my final assigment. haha)

the images are courtesy of
1.http://www.beritaseni.com
2.http://www.ccfjakarta.or.id

porn vs sadistic images

ok, let's look at that image very carefully. first time i found it on a search engine, i knew straight away, it's one of Jenny Saville's piece. yes, it also reminds me of Holy Bible. second thought was "holy sh*t, what a brushstrokes". then i used it as a background wallpaper for my phone, and also a profile picture for my YM.

days gone by.. and one day, a friend sent me a link , BBC news, about how people in supermarkets decided to wrap the cd, with the inappropriate, sadistic, disturbing cover image as the consideration.
..
.....
..............
......
well,, it does look like a girl who just hit by a train. but somehow, i didn't realized it at the first time. that guy who sent me the news said that he thinks that it looks like child abuse, and had mixed feelings about that painting. well, in my most objective thoughts,
maybe it's the idea of bringing a piece of art
(in this case = painting, and not classified as public art) that should be hung in the gallery ;a legit institution to appreciate the work of art;
to the supermarkets and record stores that disturbs most of the folks.
anyway, i still see it as a piece of work. not a disturbing somekind-of-porn that should be wrapped up. what do you think?