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The Demon of Comparisons/The Antagonistic Link
http://www.smba.nl/en/events/seminar-the-demon-of-comparisons/
A Project by Electric Palm Tree
http://www.electricpalmtree.org/ept/
Saturday 4 April 2009 from 11:00 till 18:00
Venue: the Doelenzaal in the UB of the UvA, Singel 421-427 in Amsterdam
Speakers: Michèle Faguet, Patrick D. Flores, Vit Havranek, Hiroshi Yoshioka, Ahmad bin Mashadi and David Riff.
Curator: Cosmin Costinas in collaboration with Kyongfa Che and Binna Choi.
The seminar is conceived of as a space of dialogue between a number of writers, researchers, philosophers, and curators who have been committed in their practice to question underlying processes of history writing in a shifting cannon and a changing geography of artistic practice. Working on narratives and practices that lie on the borders of a (Western) canonical representation of art and its political dimensions, often at the fault line between forms of modernism, avant-garde urgencies, and the articulations of the political in the different cultural landscapes they are interested in, the speakers share an interest in the critical tools to be employed in their endeavours. Focusing on spaces with histories as different as Latin America, Eastern Europe, and South East Asia, the seminar will explore the ambivalence of comparative approaches, with all their strategic promises and critical traps.
more photo’s on Facebook from Grace Samboh
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http://universes-in-universe.de/english.htm
http://universes-in-universe.org/eng/nafas/articles/2008/past_forgotten_time
The Past – The Forgotten Time
Sharing Memories, Building Bridges
By Alia Swastika
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Wimo Ambala Bayang walks around the Sarinah shopping center with bread on the top of his head. People curiously look at him. Then, as his walk ends outside the building, he gives the bread to a becak tricycle driver regularly waiting for potential passengers there. Wimo asks the becak driver about his memory of the Sarinah shopping center. In turn, the becak driver invites a friend to join in the conversation. This friend says that ‘Sarinah’ is actually an acronym for “Siapa Anti Republik Indonesia Niscaya Akan Hancur” (those who are against the Republic of Indonesia will necessarily crumble).
Wimo’s video work called “Once Upon A Time in Malang (Jongos)” provides an interesting illustration of the relationship between history and contemporary daily life. Wittily, Wimo employs bread (representing “West”) as the metaphor in offering his finding regarding the “cultural policy” in the colonial period of forbidding native servants to position the food they serve below their mouths lest their breath will pollute, poison the food. In the moving visual imagery, Wimo creates a space where the past and the present, the young and the old, the construction of memory and the inclination to forget meet. Linking the Past “The Past – The Forgotten Time” is the title of a long-term exhibition project by Cemeti Art House from 2006 through 2008. This project started with our intention to reconsider history that has for long been a tool in the hands of ruling regimes that often make us feel powerless regarding our collective memory, especially when it comes to deal with the so-called “nation”. For this particular purpose of “The Past – The Forgotten Time” touring-exhibition project, we have worked together with researchers from the Department of History at the Faculty of Cultural Sciences of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta. The idea was asking artists to make works based on the findings of a research on the theme of “The Forming of Cities in Indonesia, 1930 – 1960″. We invited six artists to take part: Agus Suwage, Eko Nugroho, Irwan Ahmett, Prilla Tania, Wimo Ambala Bayang and Yuli Prayitno. What interests me regarding the creation process are the ways scholarly texts were interpreted by artists as expressed in the forms of visual images they create. The participating artists enriched and enlivened the data of the historical research with new interpretations and metaphors; by so doing, they expanded the discussion on the historical data and increased their relevance to current situations. The research text then inspired the artists to physically revisit certain historical sites (Irwan Ahmett went to Cirebon to see the present situation of Rumah Makan Bandung [Bandung Restaurant]), mining stories that remain unwritten by the researchers. Eko Nugroho created a metaphor of the snake-headed goat for the hybrid condition Indonesians were entering soon after the independence. Around the goat he set twenty crown-shaped objects as the metaphors for colonial rule. Prilla Tania created a video from her father personal collection of family photographs, to show how the common people take part in the process of documenting history. Agus Suwage’s painting is a representation of the role Yogyakarta’s King (Sultan) as a national hero as well as the beloved leader in the heart of his people. Yuli Prayitno’s installation is a reflection on the impact of modernization on Indonesian women, using high heel shoes as a symbol. The written texts of the research then saw their essence transform to visual subjects. From City to City, One Country to Another The exhibition has been presented in seven different places: Artoteek, The Hague; Netherlands Institute for War Documentation, Amsterdam; Cemeti Art House, Yogyakarta; Erasmus Huis, Jakarta; Rumah Seni Yaitu, Semarang; Biz-Art, Shanghai, and National Museum of Singapore (as part of M1 Fringe Festival) during January 2007 to March 2008. In the Netherlands, as told by Mella Jaarsma who curates the exhibition with me, she was involved in heated arguments with a senior Dutch journalist as well as some other people at the screening of Wimo’s video. The senior journalist questioned the validity of Wimo’s reference to the prohibition of carrying food to serve below the native servant’s mouth. The journalist said that there was never such a prohibition during the Dutch rule in Indonesia. In Yogyakarta, April 2007, everyday, we received a group of history students asking detailed questions about the artists’ works. I sensed that — perhaps because of their academic backgrounds, they were desperate for some definite and valid confirmation of their interpretations — there was a sort of fear among them to freely interpret the works. I often made this offer: rather than explaining the significations of each of the works according to me perhaps it would be better if the students just tell their interpretations to begin our discussion. Anyway, it was not easy to encourage them to take such offer. The world of art seemed to be so distant from their life that they found it hard to comprehend it. In Jakarta, the exhibition took place at Erasmus Huis, September 2007. On the opening night, a great part of the audience was of the generation born in the early period of independence, and some even had the experience of living in the Dutch colonial era. The exhibition in Semarang is among the most interesting ones in terms of audience’s response. Semarang audience was more interested in the artists’ creation process, especially concerning the ways the artists picked their symbols and then made works out of them. The exhibition in China took place at an alternative venue in Shanghai, BizArt. In addition to their being too well acquainted with commercial exhibitions or art events, the Shanghai art public has more exposure to mainstream artists. The focus of the discourse on the history of colonialism in Indonesia and its relevance to the formation of Indonesian identity is not familiar to the art public of Shanghai. But I think here just lies the high value of the exhibition: it discloses a previously unknown realm for the world to see, thus encouraging attempts to read “the other”. Initiating Bridges I sensed that every time I brought the exhibition to a new place, and to meet with a new audience, its layers of signification got enriched. There were always new significations and interpretations growing in discussions and conversations involving me as a co-curator, the artists and the ever-varying audiences. Most of the audience in a given place would always be “puzzled” in trying to connect the visual metaphors with the fragments of the research text as provided in the exhibition catalog. Fundamental questions on the reasons to choose certain symbols, for instance, urged the artists to ponder further on the significations of symbols and icons and the ways that they could help them to get connected with the audience, rather than letting the symbols emerge arbitrarily. This kind of exhibition evokes and expresses individual memory, provides space for personal interpretations, and the social contexts of this kind of sharing, offer wider meanings in living together. Alia Swastika
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Goenawan Mohamad reads the history of modernism in Southeast Asia as a figure-ground illusion of interwoven yet separate spaces that simultaneously reveal themselves while evading the visibility and legibility of power. In his essay, published in the Indonesian journal Kalam for the first time, he reflects on forms and shadows of this history from its intersections, struggles, and negotiations, and points to recent closings by nationalist and fundamentalist movements.
read the whole artikel
http://magazines.documenta.de/frontend/article.php?IdLanguage=1&NrArticle=267
Documenta 12 took place in 2007 in Kassel, Germany
http://documenta12.de/start123.html?&L=1
Roger M. Buergel is the artistic director of documenta 12
The artistic director of documenta 12 was Roger M. Buergel, an internationally active exhibition organiser and curator who was born in Berlin in 1962. Together with the art historian, Ruth Noack as curator, he, in line with the documenta’s claims, showed art from the most various regions of the world and in all conceivable media. The works should were not shown simply unrelated to each other in a line, but were put into relationship with each other.
The leitmotifs: Three questions posed for art but also for its public
To initiate such a productive exchange, the documenta posed three questions for art, and also for its public: Is humanity able to recognise a common horizon beyond all differences? Is art the medium for this knowledge? What is to be done, what do we have to learn in order to cope intellectually and spiritually with globalisation? Is that a question of aesthetic education and cultivation? What constitutes life, when everything is subtracted which does not belong essentially to life? Does art help us to penetrate to what is essential?
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http://mes56.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/anonymous-project-by-angki-purbandono/
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Punkasila Heavy Metal Band – Indonesia
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KyCr38nqaOI
http://www.myspace.com/punkasila
Formed by Melbourne-based artist Danius Kesminas in 2006, PUNKASILA is a fluid and collaborative project which includes graduates and current students from the Indonesian Art Institute (ISI) in Yogyakarta. PUNKASILA play custom-made, hand-crafted mahogany guitars simulating hybrid M-16s/AK-47s and wear camouflage-patterned hand-painted batik, tailored as military fatigues. PUNKASILA’s debut album, “Acronym Wars” was released in Indonesia in 2006. PUNKASILA give voice to the cacophony of acronyms representing the disparate political, military, religious, cultural and bureaucratic organisations that constitute the Indonesian body politic. Since Soekarno’s reign, acronyms have represented a real site of ideological struggle. Between 1950 and 1965 this phenomenon was defined as the period of “acronym wars”. PUNKASILA have set these acronyms to a frenetic, progressive-punk-rock idiom. Each song repetitively iterates a specific acronym, invoking its popular inversion using plesetan – a peculiar Indonesian word play or subversive double-speak. The name, PUNKASILA, which literally means “punk principles”, derives from Pancasila, the five ideological tenets devised by Soekarno as propaganda to create a unitary basis of Indonesian nationhood. Although PUNKASILA’s repertoire and appearance as a cultural outlaw militia suggests provocative intent the project is more a celebration of new-dawn, post-reformasi openness than critique, ambiguously straddling the fault between taboo, parody and humour. By demonstration, on the basis of the song list the CD was prohibited to replicate in Indonesia and the band have been previously censured at gigs. PUNKASILA have performed throughout Java and their numerous fans are from a wide-ranging demographic that includes the Sultan of Yogyakarta, Hamengkubuwono X, who has purchased a copy of Acronym Wars (which is possibly on high rotation in the princesses quarters). PUNKASILA’s abbreviated Repertoire (with accompanying plesetan inversion): TNI: Tentara Nasional Indonesia (Indonesian National Military), Tikyan Ning Idab-Idabi (Poor but Adorable) PNU: Partai Nahdlatul Ummat (Islamic Community Awakening Party), Partai Nunut Udud (Party for Taking Cigarettes from your Friends) TURBA: a conflation of Turun ke Bawah and Turuk Babi (Down to Earth, Pig’s Vagina). Turun ke Bawah was a leftist ideology of the 1950’s and 60’s for the political and cultural mobilisation of the populous. It was later used by the Soeharto regime to spread New Order ideology to the villages. KOPASSSUS: Komando Pasukan Khusus (Special Force Command), Komando Pasukan Suka Susu (Milk Lovers’ Force Command/Tit Lovers’ Force Command) PKI: Partai Komunis Indonesia (Indonesian Communist Party), Penggemar Komik Indonesia (Indonesian Comic Fans), Penggemar Kaos Indonesia (Indonesian T-Shirt Fans), Partai Kaos Indonesia (Chaos Party of Indonesia), Penjahat Kelamin Indonesia (Indonesian Sex Offender) RPKAD: Resimen Para Komando Angkatan Darat (Army Para-Commando Regiment Command), Rampung Kenthu Anake Duwekmu (We have Sex but the Child will be Yours) PUNKASILA Cell Operatives: Adhik Kristiantoro: hand-crafted mahogany gun guitars & garuda emblem carving relief “Le’War” Warsito: metal tripod guitar stands Pak Manto: hand-made, batik lined, embossed guitar cases Drs. Muhajirin & Oct. Yoyok Suroso: hand-painted 5m x 3m PUNKASILA banner Abdul Sy.: camouflage patterned, hand-painted batik & 5m x 3m batik banner Nia-Nia: batik tailored military fatigues Terra Bajraghosa: PUNKASILA video animations “Iwank” Erwan Hersi Susanto: PUNKASILA comics Pius Sigit Kuncoro: PUNKASILA wayang puppets “Jiyot” Heri Sukowati: electronic noise machines Antariksa: acronym consultant Iwan Effendi: PUNKASILA dictionary of 28,000 Indonesian acronyms Wok the Rock: posters Gentong: logistics and arak supplies Production and sound engineering: Dave Nelson PUNKASILA WOULD LIKE THANKS TO : all the people who help us ,TONY KASMINAS n family, gintas and allice, lithuanian house, melbourne city, DARRENKNIGHT GALLERY, nickolas champber,out loud studio, jackpot resto, queen street, GALLERY OF MODERN ART BRISBANE, DING DONG LOUNGE, THE HISTRIONICS, MELBOURNE BITTER, XXXX,and legendary PROFOST STREET 52 YEAH!!!!!!
PUNKASILA are: Danius Kesminas: megaphone and hand grenade microphone “Hahan” Uji Handoko Eko Saputro: radio transmission vocals Rudy “Atjeh” Dharmawan: KSP Stehr AUG, 5.56mm guitar “Iyok” Prayoga Satrio Utomo: KSP Zastava M80, 5.5mm guitar Janu Satmoko: KSP hybrid M16/grenade launcher bass Prihatmoko “Moky” Catur: drums and amplified ballistics Gde Krisna Widiathama: anti-keyboard satellite signals Wimo Ambala Bayang: modified communications devices.
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Indonesian Acronyms
http://old.thejakartapost.com/resources/acronyms.asp
Indonesians have a history concerning acronyms ( see the list)
and you will not find the latest organisations who are much in the news lately
the AKK (National Alliance for Freedom of Religion and Believe)
or FPI (Islam Defenders Front).
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http://www.tempointeractive.com/
TEMPO is a weekly magazine (also in english) with critical opinions and reviews about the todays situation in Indonesia.
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Jakarta-Indonesia-Urban Blog
http://tbelfield.wordpress.com/2008/06/
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http://afeministblog.blogspot.com
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15 years Cemeti Art House Exploring Vacuum
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http://www.ethische-perspectieven.be/page.php?LAN=N&FILE=ep_book&SID=310&ID=0
Edward Wadie Said (1935–2003), vermaard Amerikaans theoreticus van de literaire kritiek en politiek activist, werd in Jeruzalem geboren in een christelijk Palestijns-Libanees gezin. Tot zijn twaalfde leefde hij deels in Jeruzalem en deels in Caïro. In 1948 week de familie Said definitief uit naar Caïro waar de jonge Edward lessen volgde aan het Britse Victoria College. Op 15-jarige leeftijd werd hij naar Mount Hermon School in Massachussets gezonden en voltooide hij zijn opleiding in de Verenigde Staten met een B.A. aan Princeton University en een M.A. en Ph.D. (Engelse literatuur) aan Harvard University. Deze rusteloze periode in zijn leven heeft Said beschreven in de autobiografie Out of Place: A Memoir (1999).
In 1963 werd hij benoemd tot Professor of English and Comparative Literature aan Columbia University (New York City). Literatuur was zijn hartstocht. Zijn eerste boek, Joseph Conrad and the Fiction of Autobiography (1966) werd door hemzelf omschreven als een poging tot fenomenologische kritiek, waarbij hij verwees naar Sartre, Merleau-Ponty en Husserl. Het was niet zomaar een beschrijving van een reeks anekdotische gebeurtenissen in het biografische genre van ‘… in life and letters’, maar werd een studie van Conrads leven via analytisch tekstonderzoek.
In zijn nieuwe voorwoord van 2003 schrijft Said dat Orientalism (ik geef de voorkeur aan de Engelse titel) in de eerste plaats een boek is over cultuur, denkbeelden, geschiedenis en macht, eerder dan over Midden-Oostenpolitiek tout court (blz. 10). Oriëntalisme is volgens hem een halfmytische constructie die sinds inval van Napoleon aan het einde van de achttiende eeuw talloze malen is geschapen en herschapen door een macht die gebruik maakte van een doelmatige vorm van kennis en wetenschap om de Oriënt te definiëren en vervolgens te bevestigen dat dit nu eenmaal de aard van de Oriënt was, en dat we hem dienovereenkomstig dienden te behandelen. Deze definitie van de Oriënt (de oosterling kan zichzelf niet besturen, hij is van nature lui, hij is sexueel geobsedeerd…) noemde Said zeer racistisch en hij was een van de eersten om die aan de kaak te stellen. Oriëntalisme – en oriëntalistiek – was volgens hem verre van objectief of wetenschappelijk: het was in wezen een functie van kennis, macht en duurzame controle over de bevolkingsgroepen die de imperialistische westerse mogendheden (eerst Frankrijk en Groot-Brittannië en daarna de Verenigde Staten) wilden overheersen. Het kwam die mogendheden goed uit dat over de Oriënt uitsluitend in culturele stereotypen werd gedacht. De uiterlijke vorm van het stereotiepe beeld wordt namelijk altijd beheerst door een of andere versie van de gemeenplaats dat als de Oriënt zichzelf zou kunnen vertegenwoordigen, hij dat zou doen; omdat hij dat niet kan, moet de beeldvorming haar werk doen, vooral ten behoeve van het Westen, maar faute de mieux, ook voor de Oriënt. ‘Sie können sich nicht vertreten, sie müssen vertreten werden’ schreef Karl Marx in Der Achtzehnte Brumaire des Louis Bonaparte (1852) en Said koos dit citaat als motto om aan te geven hoe door de kolonisator over de volkeren van het Midden-Oosten werd gedacht (Marx viseerde wel een Europese situatie).
Om zijn stelling betreffende de overheersing door het Westen en de verdrukking van het Oosten kracht bij te zetten, schetst Said in het eerste deel van zijn boek het terrein dat wordt bestreken door het woord ‘oriëntalisme’ met als voorbeelden de Franse en de Britse beleving van het Nabije Oosten, de islam en de Arabieren. Het is kenmerkend dat in deze eerste periode (einde 18de – begin 19de eeuw) de Oriënt steeds tegenover het Westen wordt geplaatst, waarbij duidelijk een geografische lijn tussen beide gebieden wordt getrokken en Europa als machtig en duidelijk omlijnd wordt voorgesteld, Azië als verslagen en vaag. Dit leidde in Europa tot de idee dat de Oriënt lethargisch en onveranderlijk was, totaal verschillend van het Westen waarvan een grote dynamiek uitging.
In het tweede deel van zijn boek verengt Said zijn blikveld tot de moderne oriëntalisten en tracht hij de ontwikkeling van het moderne oriëntalisme te achterhalen via een grotendeels chronologische beschrijving en via de beschrijving van een aantal kenmerken die gemeenschappelijk zijn aan het werk van belangrijke dichters, kunstenaars en wetenschapsmensen. Hierin beschrijft hij ook de opkomst en de ontwikkeling van het oriëntalisme tegen de achtergrond van de intellectuele, culturele en politieke geschiedenis.
In het derde deel van Orientalism schrijft Said hoe langer hoe meer als de politieke activist. In dit deel behandelt hij de periode van de grote koloniale expansie in de Oriënt, die culmineert in de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Deze laatste hoofdstukken beschrijven ook de verschuiving van de Britse en de Franse hegemonie naar de Amerikaanse. Het is zijn bedoeling om de huidige intellectuele en maatschappelijke werkelijkheden van het oriëntalisme in de Verenigde Staten aan te geven. Hierbij gaat hij onder meer hevig te keer tegen historicus en Princeton University professor Bernard Lewis die het niet eens is met Saids stellingen en die stevige polemieken met hem voerde, onder meer in de New York Review of Books. Dat Orientalism naar het einde toe steeds ‘politieker’ wordt, heeft ook Said aangegeven in een interview met Mark Edmundson in 1993: ‘So Orientalism is not just a vicarious experience of marvels of the East; it is not just vague imagining about what the Orient is, although there is some of that there. But it really has to do with how you control actual populations; it is associated with the actual domination of the Orient, beginning with Napoleon.’ (Gauri Viswanathan [ed.]: Power, Politics and Culture: Interviews with Edward W. Said, Bloomsbury, 2001, blz. 169) In datzelfde interview geeft hij bovendien aan dat Oriëntalism een deel is van een drieluik waar The Question of Palestine en Covering Islam bij aansluiten, een duidelijke aanwijzing dat hij Orientalism als politieke boodschap bedoeld heeft.
Intussen is Orientalism een onmisbaar discussiestuk geworden wanneer het gaat over politiek en cultureel kolonialisme, imperialisme, alsmede stereotypering en onderdrukking van volkeren. Het is goed dat het nu in Nederlandse vertaling beschikbaar is.
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