the art of video art: video art and ok. video festival

88 august - september 2011 89august - september 2011

Video Art

Video art and OK. Video FestivalThe Art of Video Artroy Voragen

PrillA tAniA, Ruang Dalam Waktu #8, Ini Ibu Budi, 2010, video

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PrillA tAniA, Beef Wellington With Mashed Potatoes and Local Organic Asparagus, 2011, video installation

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PrillA tAniA, Voluntarily Dictated, 2010, performance dan video documentation

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Anggun PriAmbodoBelajar Miring, 2010

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In recent times, video art has gone digital, viral and global.

Today, we live in a culture dominated by the visual, but we still

resort to language to analyze and interpret our visual culture. We

privilege language for the purpose of (theoretical) art criticism,

even though it is hardly possible to take the needed critical distance

now we are immersed in an abundance of images. As Guy Debord

put it: in the society of the spectacle, social relationships are mediated

by images. However, there is no need for artistic paralysis.

Video art, Frederic Jameson says, is not hierarchical, like painterly art

is, and it can play out connotations simultaneously. A ‘total flow’ of

seamless images is captured by video art, and space and time are joined

together, which makes video art a unique art medium. We cannot give a

clear-cut definition of video art, as the expressions through this medium

are too diverse. However, video art as a medium has three components:

institutions, technologies and artistic expressions.

There are many different institutions dealing with video art: art

schools, databanks, galleries, museums, artist initiative spaces such as

ruangrupa and Forum Lenteng in Jakarta; Ruang Mes 56 and House

of Natural Fiber in Yogyakarta; and Bandung Center for New Media

Arts; curators, art critics, collectors, auction houses, journals, such

as ruangrupa’s journal Karbon; websites, such as www.video-battle.

net; festivals, such as OK. Video Festival; conferences, such as the

recent Video Vortex in Yogyakarta; artists in residence programs (later

this year Tintin Wulia will go to Karlsruhe as a resident at ZKM or the

Center for Art and Media), and so on.

The technological part of the medium video art, to mention just a

few, are: from the analog VHS to the digital DVD, analog and digital

cameras, projectors, TV, video and DVD players, webcam, cell

phone, (editing) software, and so on.

And artistic expressions can take the form of single channel videos

projected as a single image, video installations (Krisna Murti’s Video

Spa is an example, which he calls a therapy through the medium of

video), taped performances (for example Fx Harsono’s Burn Victim,

which calls to our attention that the victims of the 1998 riots have

yet to find justice), online videos (artists working with single channel

videos can bypass galleries and museums by posting their videos

online), and so forth. What is expressed is too broad in scope to

summarize, it can range from political agitation to the very abstract. A

good artwork is ambiguous. Recently, I saw Phil Collins’ work at the

Singapore Biennale – with the appropriate title The Meaning of Style.


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tintin WuliAthree video stills from a video installation to be shown at oK! Video festival: “the most international Artist in the universe” (2011)

KrisnA murti, Video Spa, 2004/05, Video therapy, dVd, aroma therapy, variable

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KrisnA murti, Videohijab, 2011, multichannel video, water pond, 9 min (loop), approx 210 x 1200 cm (screen), commission work of Art Jog 2011

I watched this slow-paced, lyrical video three times in awe, but the

question, what does this video mean, is not the right question to ask.

We should be wary of technological determinism, a technology,

for example video, does not determine the style used by an artist.

Technology serves human needs and can therefore be altered to serve

artistic needs and these are multifarious. Just as technology has an impact

on style, so have stylistic needs an impact on the development and use

of technologies. Some technologies have become obsolete, others will

become obsolete in the future, others can be used for purposes other

than their intended design—artists Heri Dono, Jompet Kuswidananto and

Tintin Wulia do this—, and boundaries between technologies and their

uses might blur, as is happening between television and the Internet.

Obviously, not all videos are video art. What is considered video

art surely has something to do with the videos in case, but it also

has to do with social conventions, institutional power and social

class. Boundaries between disciplines and cultural expressions

are only relevant for artists when they have to deal with above-

mentioned institutions. Moreover, since Indonesian video artists

do not have training in video art, because new or multimedia

departments at art schools are still too new, it comes natural to

them to work across disciplines.

Video artworks and other cultural expressions have a mutual

influence on each other. Some video artists are influenced by wayang;

eminent video artist Krisna Murti says that video as well as wayang

are arts of shadows. He is the first Indonesian video artist to sell a

work to a foreign art institute. In 1999 Fukuoka Asian Art Museum

bought the three channel video installation My Ancestors are Sangiran

Man. Some others are influenced by popular culture, for example

music videos or TV commercials (video art collective Tromarama sees

Michel Gondry as their hero); some video makers divide their time

between art and making music videos or commercials, for example

Muhammad Akbar. And some others find inspiration in architecture

or experimental films such as Ariani Darmawan.

Influence also goes the other way around. The Bali-based painter

Filippo Sciascia worked from video for his Video Painting Kadek

series. VJs sample images from popular culture as well as from video

artworks such as Indonesian VJ collective Biosampler. Like many


Wimo AmbAlA bAyAngOnce Upon a Time in ChinaA non-profit fiction video of someone falls down from the sky to China and leaps back to the sky, single chanel video 04:12”, kunming, 2005

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video artworks, some TV commercials no longer have a narrative

to promote a product and advertisements often do not display the

product. Some claim that some video games are art as well. Also, we

can consider some music videos as art, especially those videos in

which the music functions as a soundtrack to the images. An excellent

example of this is the award-winning video directed by Gustaff

Iskandar for Me and My Boyfriend by Mocca.

The history of video art began more than four decades ago in New

York when Nam June Paik started using his Sony Portapak camera.

In his early video work, Paik was very critical of TV; he said: “TV

has attacked us, it is time to attack back.” This aim is still relevant,

as TV, with its one-to-many, top-down communication, has become

even more powerful in recent decades. Recently in Jakarta, Krisna

Murti curated an exhibition at Gallery Salihara on this theme, titled

Hijacking TV. At this exhibition, Anggun Priambodo’s work Sinema

Elektronik (single channel, 2009) was presented. This video is critical

of how life is depicted in Indonesian soap operas, and Anggun plays

all roles in this mock trailer (he also sings the soundtrack). Another

recent critical video is Zizi (single channel, 2010) by Muhammad

Akbar, which I saw at the Voyeurism exhibition at Guerilla Gallery in

Bandung. In this video we can see the Liputan 6 SCTV presenter Zizi

– her full name is Zivanna Letisha Siregar – in close-up so we can see

all the imperfections in her complexion.

Another video art pioneer is Bruce Nauman, who explored the

relationships between the body and spaces. Bill Viola is against

the self-referential tendency in early video art. Looking at the

developments in early video art, Rosalind Kraus sees a narcissistic

tendency. A danger of art criticism is that a work of art is reduced to

one of its elements or is seen from only one perspective, for example

psychology. However, around the same time as Kraus diagnosed

video art (1978), sociologist Richard Sennett wrote The Fall of Public

Man (1974), in which he claims that narcissism, ‘the vanquishing of

separateness’, and bringing our private selves into public have had

negative impacts on the quality of public spaces in our cities. Video

art, though, had to go through this phase of experimentation and

exaggeration. The matter of public space, on the other hand, remains,

to which I return below.

Back in 1998 at the Metropolitan Museum for Modern Art in

Amsterdam, I saw the exhibition Bill Viola: A 25-Year Survey, which is

probably one of the best exhibitions I have ever experienced, video

art or otherwise. According to Margaret Rose, video installations are

“the most complex art form in contemporary culture.” She argues

that “the part that collapses whenever the installation isn’t installed is

the art.” Video installations, more than single channel videos, require

from us an interactive stance: we have to choose how to navigate

through the artwork. And this is an embodied encounter—of course

single channel videos are also not experienced merely with our

eyes, our literal, physical eyes or the metaphorical eye, i.e. the eye

of our mind or intellect—and when we accomplish an embodied

appreciation of art, we gain an enhanced experience of life. We are

alienated from art if there is no bodily encounter within space, as

philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty put it: “the world is around me,

not in front of me.”

We also experienced this in the recent solo exhibition Java’s Machine:

Family Chronicle by multimedia artist Jompet Kuswidananto at

Selasar Sunaryo Art Space in Bandung. His installations are tangible,

complex and hybrid, i.e. by using mixed media he is able to show

a co-presence of multiple times, spaces, narratives, sounds and

images. Novelist Ayu Utami inaugurated the show by making

fun of postmodern critics’ use of terms like ‘juxtaposition’. Fluid

juxtapositions indeed characterize Jompet’s work—and it is safe to

claim that syncretism has been practiced in Indonesia long before it

became en vogue among French philosophers—but there is no need

to overintellectualize it. A close ‘reading’ of Jompet’s work will limit

the possibilities to actually engage with and experience his work.

In Against Interpretation, Susan Sontag argues that we need a more

sensual approach to art. Too much emphasizes is put on content or

meaning of the artwork, and she blames hermeneutics, i.e. the urge

to ‘read’ art, for the overinterpretation that tames art. Literary critic

Harold Bloom goes further by claiming that the “meaning of a poem

can only be another poem.” To paraphrase Margaret Morse: the

part of the artwork that collapses when only looking for content and

meaning is the art.

My proposal to appreciate video art sensually through an embodied

experience so our lives will be enhanced seems to suit the fifth theme

of the OK. Video Festival: flesh. The bi-annual festival has been

organized since 2003 by ruangrupa, an artists’ initiative founded

in 2000. The number of participating artists and visitors steadily

increased over the years. ruangrupa was initiated by artists, but they

do not see art as a separate realm from everyday life and they use

artistic interventions to provoke social change, specifically to improve

the quality and quantity of public space, particularly in Jakarta, where

ruangrupa is based. And it makes sense that ruangrupa turned to

video, as this art form is the most urban of all art forms.

For ruangrupa it is important to make a link between art and its

supporting technologies within the local context. Ade Darmawan,

co-founder of ruangrupa, states: “The context of this [festival] only

becomes meaningful if we see it as a part of an art phenomena taking

place in a specific geographic environment [and Indonesian video


tromArAmA, Wattt?!, 2010, stop motion animation with various lamp, 5 min 48 sec

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tromArAmA, Happy Hour, 2010, video animation with engraving on paper, 1 min. 56 sec.

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muhAmmAd AKbAr, A Journey to the Top of the Screen & Vanished in the Seemless Horizon, 2011

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art] goes beyond the art world as such, and is both a part of and

reflection on social life at large.”

The 2003 edition was the first and last festival that had ‘art’ in its

name, the name change supposedly signifies more openness to

video makers who do not call themselves artists, but that does not

mean that what they make is not art (and the main venue is still the

National Art Gallery). Agung Hujatnikajennong wrote in the 2007

catalogue that “the festival focuses on ‘video’ rather than ‘video art’,

by presenting video not as an aesthetic medium, but as a medium

of socio-cultural relevance.” Video is then seen as a medium to

empower. However, that new technologies are easier to use, does

not make them necessarily more democratic, and neither will it

necessarily lead to more interesting videos.

The French urban sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre

claims that festivals can create opportunities to (re-)claim the

streets of our cities. Festivals—understood from a political

perspective—can turn the world up-side-down, joyous moments

of spontaneity, of intoxication (at least as seen from the

perspective of normal times), of moments in which we can learn

the art of living, moments of DIY bottom-up politics. The topsy-

turvy world of Lefebvre’s festivals can be connected to his notion

of the right to the city. Lefebvre’s right to urban life is a call for

creativity: “the need for information, symbolism, the imaginary and

play.” This seems to fit well in what ruangrupa tries to accomplish

through their many different activities.

However, where has the art gone? There is a lot of talk about

technology, the spectacle, the lack of genuine public space and

the need for social change by pragmatic and playful but subversive

means. If we were to make a word cloud of all curatorial essays

published in the OK. Video Festival catalogues, we would see that the

most prominent terms are discursive: ideas, discussions, discourse,

debates, information, concepts, messages, and so on. However,

(video) art is so much more than these discursive elements.

Rony Agustinus writes in the 2003 catalogue that in Indonesia there

is a “gap between modern art and modern technology,” which is

a gap, he claims, that cannot be bridged, “European grand ideas

entered the Dutch Indies as ideas without their material base; while

products of European technology arrived as materials without

their ideological histories.” But why should Indonesian artists care

about these terms borrowed from Marx? If there is a gap, it is one

between, on the one hand, what curators say and, on the other

hand, what artists do. Marx also said that “everything is pregnant

with its contrary.” And this can be shown in art.

Krisnu Murti writes that an “artist is always faced with the tension

of the choice between metaphoric expression or direct action.

Ade Darmawan and ruangrupa seem to have chosen the second.”

However, this dichotomy is too stark. The relationship between

art and politics is a precarious balancing act; both art for art’s sake

and art as politics are problematic. In the former, art becomes

compartmentalized from life. The latter does not do justice to what

artists could accomplish. What artists could accomplish is the

creation of new metaphors by showing that what we take for granted

is not something that comes from nature but is a social construction.

The work of Jompet Kuswidananto and Tintin Wulia come to mind,

the former challenges us to consider history and tradition as far

more complex; the latter stirs up ideas we have taken for granted

concerning borders (of the nation-state and the self). At the upcoming

OK. Video Festival, Tintin Wulia will present the video The Most

International Artist in the Universe (2011). Over the years, she has

made by hand passports of a staggering 140 different states. With a

sense of humor, she tells us about the contingency of citizenship: if

96 august - september 2011

roy Voragen is a bandung based writer

Fx hArsonoBurn Victim, 1998(video taped performance at Cemeti Art house)

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Phil Collins, The Meaning of Style, 2010, single channel video

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she would have been born in the same place but in different times she

could have been Dutch or Japanese.

Just as art is not an autonomous realm in life, it is also not a good

idea to see art merely as a tool, for example for social change. While I

agree with ruangrupa’s goal and that (video) art can play a part in this,

(video) art, on the other hand, can be so much more. And if, as Krisna

Murti does, we ask whether ruangrupa has been successful if social

change is the goal, we, unfortunately, have

to answer with a ‘not yet’: public space in

Jakarta has only deteriorated in recent years.

Fortunately, ruangrupa’s festival has other

goals; in order of ambition: we can learn to

understand how our visual culture functions;

we can learn to understand and appreciate

video art; and the festival can offer a platform

to artists. While the number of enthusiastic

visitors has nearly quintupled since 2003,

time will have to tell whether the first two

goals have been accomplished. The festival is

most successful in its third goal.

The festival offers an excellent platform for

artists (the number of participants has nearly

doubled since 2003). To mention only a few

Indonesian artists (participants come from

dozens of different countries): Krisna Murti

(who recently showed his new work Videohijab

in Yogyakarta, which was commissioned

by ArtJog, showing that each person, while

looking the same, is different), Tromarama

(i.e. traumatized by images; this group

consists of Febie Babyrose, Herbert Hans and

Ruddy Hatumena, they recently had a solo

exhibition at Mori Art Museum in Tokyo), Tintin

Wulia, Prilla Tania (she is also a member of

VideoBabes and VideoLab), Wimo Ambala

Bayang (he is also a member of Ruang Mes 56),

Anggun Priambodo, Muhammad Akbar (he is

also a member of VideoLab). And many, many

others have found a platform at OK. Video

Festival. The festival offers a forum for artists to

connect with each other, with (foreign) curators

and (domestic) collectors. In the past year or

two, young Indonesian collectors have started

to collect video artworks and hopefully they

will continue to do so.

I am looking forward to the upcoming OK. Video Festival to

experience a great many videos in the flesh.

the art of video art: video art and ok. video festival

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