t r o m a r a m a

The Collectors Show: Chimera

2012-01-10T16:48:00.000-08:00

The Collectors Show: Chimera brings together major works of Asian contemporary art from private collections around the world. A tribute to the art patrons of today, the exhibition offers an insight into the breadth and richness of private art collections, introducing visitors to the personal visions and passions that shape them.

Titled Chimera, a deliberately evocative word that references both the mythological hybrid monster and the idea of an illusion, fantasy, or delusion, the exhibition presents contemporary art in all its various and hybrid forms, from painting to sculpture, to new media and interactive multi-media. The works selected eschew conventional spectacle in favour of a reflection on vision and visuality, offering up visually seductive surfaces tinged with undercurrents of anxiety. These artworks remind us of the spectres of our age – questions and issues which continue to haunt us and test our judgement at every turn and corner of our new millennium.

The Collectors Show: Chimera is a parallel event of Art Stage Singapore 2012 and independently organised by the Singapore Art Museum.

Featured Artists
Hamra Abbas
Sheba Chhachhi
Alfredo Esquillo Jr
Patricia Eustaquio
Bharti Kher
Tomoko Konoike
Yayoi Kusama
Lee Yong Baek
Li Hui
Lin Tianmiao
Takashi Murakami
Donna Ong
Rashid Rana
Raqib Shaw
Yasmin Sison
Tabaimo
Tromarama
Entang Wiharso
Yee I-Lann

more info click here

Pilgrimage

2011-12-05T22:39:00.000-08:00

Audiovisual installation
1 video projectors, 1 amplifier, 5 loud speaker, 1 sub woofer, HD, 16:9, colour, 5.1 surround, 4'18

2011

Exhibited at Biennale Jogja XI "Equator #1"

Jogja National Museum, Jogjakarta

25 Nov 2011 - 8 Jan 2012

Silent Dialectica

2011-10-04T23:15:00.000-07:00

1000 pieces of Maneki Neko parts, Bell, gold thread, paper, acrylic boards
2011

Exhibited at Medi(t)ation, 3rd Asian Art Biennial 2011

National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts

OK Video : Generasi Baru Seni Video Indonesia

2011-09-23T18:56:00.000-07:00

Medi(t)ation - 2011 Asian Art Biennial

2011-09-05T21:24:00.000-07:00

Curator: Iris Shu-Ping Huang

The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts (NTMoFA) will present the third Asian Art Biennial from October 1, 2011. Under the direction of staff curator Iris Shu-Ping Huang, this exhibition proposes the theme Medi(t)ation, a concept that reflects the trend across Asia towards an M-shaped societal structure and the related threats it poses, while presenting a strongly communicative Asian cultural stance and stressing methods for mediating conflicts and tensions.

Building upon the models established and developed by the previous two editions of the Biennial since its inception in 2007, the National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts encourages and supports in-house curators to conduct research and planning to actively establish a platform for Asian arts and culture exchange through proactive planning and participation, and to further firmly establish Asian aesthetics through international forums and academic presentations.

Medi(t)ation is a neologism coined especially for this exhibition. This term combines the two core concepts of mediation and meditation, stressing mediation of conflict while also standing for the longing for reconciliation inherent in the human spirit. Medi(t)ation refers to exploring changing Asian culture, and how artists search for a middle ground between traditional values and modern cultural development amidst widely varying extreme influences; and how they look for the room for "cultural mediation" over the course of reflection and shifting power structures, to establish their position in the anxious area of global cultural competition.

This exhibition enlists the participation of artists from 20 countries across Asia. Through various creative forms and types of works, they will reflect the cultural essence of Medi(t)ation, stressing subjective self-awareness, communication approaches in response to shifting realities, and means of adjusting to structural transformation. Teams of artists from such countries as Indonesia, the Philippines, China, and Taiwan will also be invited to undertake new on-site commissions, conducting social research surveys, lyrical transfer of everyday language and things, and the inspiration and responses of physical conduct as paths for analyzing Asian reality.

This biennial features 40 artists and collaboration groups, including Shi Jin-Hua, Lin Chuan-Chu, Hamra Abbas, Alfredo & Isabel Aquilizan, Leslie de chavez, E Chen, Parastou Forouhar, Shaun Gladwell, Nigel Heyler, Penny Hes Yassour, Ho Tzu Nyen, Dinh Q Le, Ahmet Ögüt, Sopheap Pich , Sara Rahbar, Raqs Media Collective, Shinoda Taro, Tromarama , Tsang Kin-Wah , Xu Tan, Yin Xiuzhen, Yuan Goang-Ming, Andrey Blazhnov, Park Chang Kyong, Bae Young-whan, Min Jung Yeon, Ohmaki Shinji, Aida Makoto, Tiffany Singh, L.N. Tallur, Guy Ben-Ner, Huang Ming-Zheng, Wen Chi-yi, Wawi Nabarroza, Aristarkh Chernyshev, Yee I Lann, Bani Abidi, Samsuddin Wahab, Alexander Ugay, and Michael Rakowitz.

The 2011 Asian Art Biennial will have its opening ceremony at National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts on the night of September 30. The exhibition officially opens to the public on October 1. The biennial's opening will be accompanied by an international Forum and Artist Talks dedicated to discussing Asian contemporary art.

"2011 Asian Art and Curator's Forum" will be held on October 2 and the participating artists at this year's Biennial will be invited to the Artist Talks on Oct. 1 for in-depth analyses on the links between their personal creations and the realities of present day Asia.

Medi(t)ation – 2011 Asian Art Biennial
1 October 2011–1 January 2012

National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts
No.2, Sec. 1, Wu Chuan W. RD.
Taichung 403 Taiwan, R.O.C.
Opening Hours:
Tuesday to Friday: 09:00–17:00
Weekends: 09:00–18:00
Closed on Monday.
Admission free.
T 886-4-2372-3552 #132
www.asianartbiennial.org
www.ntmofa.gov.tw

Membajak TV

2011-08-04T21:21:00.000-07:00

Invisibleness is Visibleness, MOCA Taipei

2011-06-26T21:34:00.000-07:00

Essay on MORE WE LESS ME

2011-06-14T01:41:00.001-07:00

The group Tromarama, consisting of artists Febie Babyrose (Baby), Herbert Hans (Ebet), and Ruddy Hatumena (Ruddy), is probably one of the Indonesian art groups receiving considerable attention from the art public, nationally in Indonesia as well as regionally. Their works have been well received because they show novel approaches, revealing the spirit of explorations in terms of their media, and of moving across disciplines. Their subjects are closely related with the cultural lives of the youth, presented through the play of signs or symbols that are invariably enchanting and entertaining. Almost all the works by this Bandung-based group use the technique of stop-motion animation, combined with a series of installations using elements from their stop-motion works, which make a considerable use of manual skills.

Consider, for example, the work titled Ting* (2008), consisting of stop-motion animations using tableware: porcelain mugs, cups, and plates that come alive, moving humorously. In the exhibition, the group presented such tableware overflowing from a cupboard. Previously, the work Serigala Militia (2006), a video-clip from the eponymous Trash-metal band, uses stop-motion animations with hundreds of woodcut images. The group then presented the series of woodcut panels as a work of installation. Tromarama is quite a young group, but their works have been presented in a range of international events and institutions, such as the 2^ndSingapore Biennale in 2008. In 2010, they were invited to hold a solo exhibition at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.

As a group, Tromarama naturally does not give emphasis to the solitary work of individuals, as would be expected for a single artist. The three artists work collectively in collaborations, involving knowledge-sharing, learning from one another, and creating consensus. Collectively, they form one entity motivated by a general concern or sharing a specific interest, or collaborating in certain projects. Baby explains that each individual artist in the group can actually propose ideas and with the consent of other members, the ideas would then be discussed and eventually put into action, giving rise to a work of art, with the individual artists having a distinct share of the collective effort. Armed with their experience of working together, they agree to present one special work for Asia One, Hong Kong International Art Fair 2011.

The work that they are going to present at Asia One is in the form of an installation of three crosses, with layers of radiographic or X-ray images of human bodies. The X-ray images are arranged over a plexiglass surface lit from below using a fluorescent lamp, making the X-ray images of the seemingly crucified body appear clearly. Between the three crosses there are texts saying “More – We – Less – Me”, which they also use as the title for the work. The white light on an all-black wall makes the work appear dramatic. This time, however, they do not present animated works.

The cross is a symbol taken from Christianity, referring to sacrifice. In the context of the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, the sacrifice is intended for the salvation of the human race. With the three crosses, however, the Tromarama members have no intention to talk about religious values. Rather, the crosses are viewed as sacrifice in the context of the individuality of the modern human. It is especially true for art practices, in which an individual value is venerated and becomes the center of the universe (in the classic Cartesian concept).

Crucifixion, in this case, is present as an allegory for us to talk about the issue of the “sacrifice” of the artists in regard to their individuality and identity, as well as to their experience of working collaboratively or collectively in a group. The text under the crosses seems to confirm that “We” would be better than “Me”. The text seems to serve as a statement from each individual artist in the group, saying that becoming “Me” would not be stronger than becoming “us”. It is a strong statement about collective and collaborative work.

There is a link between the statement of “We” and the X-ray images. X-ray images reveal the different densities and compositions of the photographed materials. The projection of X-ray images on the transparent film layer over the crosses give rise to a distinct sense of alienation upon seeing the shape of the human body. The densest parts of the body such as the skull and the bones seem whiter, while the softer parts such as the flesh would appear more translucent. These are actually X-ray images of the Tromarama members, or you can say that they are a kind of “self-portraits” of Baby, Ebet, and Ruddy. To them, these X-ray images are a means to reveal their respective self identity. By capturing their body using the X-ray technology, they create a certain ambiguity about their self identity, even alienating them.

Today identity is a constantly-changing construction, unrelated to the conventional concept. The self is no longer related with a certain truth about identity. In the contemporary society, identity has become a complex and layered issue. The poet Goenawan Mohamad once wrote in his column: “The self or I was always born slightly out of match, or even splintered. The self is defined by names, and language is a construction of symbols created by the society. Identity appears as differences, and differences appear due to comparison. The comparison is always like an unbroken chain, between X and others in the world.” The self and identity, therefore, become fragile; they are areas that one can re-engineered or re-arranged, reconstructed, as depicted in the action movie Bourne Identity, or like the result of a face-changing operation, or even the more radical sex-reassignment surgery.

The X-ray images of the bodies of Tromarama members become the others, or the alienated self portraits, because they are no longer recognized as representing known people. X-ray images are unlike mirror images that present reflections of the real. Rather, they provide scanned images of the body, projecting arrangements and visual compositions with different intensities. Foreign objects that might exist within the body, such as metallic objects, would be captured by the X-ray. Can we actually recognize ourselves through the X-ray images? How far would we recognize the reality of our body? Perhaps we would still vaguely recognize our internal structure to a certain extent: the shape of the bones or other physical marks that we carry.

The X-ray images reflect an irony of the era, as they are the antithesis for human representation. Goenawan Mohamad once wrote about it, too: of humans who are “in group, or in solitary, waiting for information. Not in Eleusis, but through the rays from the television, films, computer screen anywhere. I see, therefore I am” (Catatan Pinggir by Goenawan Mohamad, April 11, 2011). Today images of the self, identity and the apparent external look, are always celebrated, commoditized, circulated, unceasingly and without limits, uncontrollable. Over the crosses, the body is crucified, marked with images of bones, with white light, and in several parts we see compositions of translucent images of objects. The bodies are present seemingly as the representation of the dark, empty selves, all bitterness and emptiness. The body returns to the nadir, and skin and flesh would come to nothing. Human is not special.

Is this the reality: the negative of the body, or the formless self?

What Tromarama presents through the work is different from what they have made so far, since they began their artistic career in 2006. This is the first time for them to create a highly personal work, presenting a statement of who and what they are, with their “identity” over the crosses. It presents the image of the self, full of sarcastic and ironic signs and symbols. The statement of “More We Less Me” might serve as an antithesis or negation of the existence of modern humanity that we have celebrated so far, or it can also present a play of signs or talking of the meaning of the portrait today, when the body has become a commodity.

Rifky Effendy, curator

References:

http://tromarama.blogspot.com/. Accessed in April 2011.
http://caping.wordpress.com/. Accessed in April 2011.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiography. Accessed in April 2011.

More We Less Me

2011-06-14T01:29:00.000-07:00

X-rays, stainless steel, plexi glass, LED strip
Variable dimension
2011

Installation shot of More We Less Me at Art Hong Kong 2011

Snapshot at Selametan Digital, Langgeng Art Foundation

2011-06-14T01:14:00.000-07:00

Instalation shot of Wattt?! at Langgeng Art Foundation, Jogjakarta

Essay on KIDULT

2011-02-20T17:34:00.000-08:00

WHEN PLAYING IS NOT ONLY A GAME

Not many people paid serious attention to concepts about playing. Playing is always considered to be related to hobby and have no significant value for life practices, only that it gives pleasure. Thus, playing is always related to pastimes, or leisure culture. Recent development had showed the shifting of role of playing as significant element in the creative industry, since this particular field always demands the new-ness, something fresh yet interesting. Younger generation of people has develop their passion on playing and hobby then encourage themselves to use the idea of playing as their main resource or artistic foundation.

Plays: Globality and Locality
Observing the artworks of the artists group Tromarama, I am inevitably impressed by how they play. There’s a new proposal on the concept and definition of the game itself. With fresh, humorous approaches that still challenges the imagination at the same time, I see Tromarama is representing a new and more personal approach to art, closer to the subject’s daily character.

The playful artworks of Tromarama enables for an intensive interaction with the audience. Working with three persons behind the screen, they are exploring on things close to their daily lives, with an imaginative approach and demonstrating high skills on technique and media all at once. Several artworks display a deep observation on daily objects with examples shown in Zsa Zsa Zsu that explored on buttons, or Ting* that explored on ceramic cups. A nearly balanced combination between manual hand-works in creating and playing with objects also the skill of processing the images with moving images, making Tromarama video works far from boring or exaggerating.

The ability of Tromarama to choose their approaches, including their seriousness in playing, seemed to be rarely found in other young artists of the same generation. A few times I observed, the artworks of many young artists, especially those who worked after mid-year 2000, what is called as non-political valued produced more arbitrary and incomprehensible artworks. Compared to the previous generation of artists who seriously processed social-political issues and making it a part of alignment and involvement attitude, younger contemporary artists tend to explore personal themes, related to their personal life experiences or reflecting what they see in their surroundings. Some of them successfully display their interpretation of the slogan “The personal is political”. While in term of the forms, they tend to adopt various visual tendencies that easily be found in other parts of the world. Because of the vastness of possibilities being “same and similar”, issues of “multiplied identity” becomes something that accompanies the exploration of the young contemporary artists today.

Now, in my point of view, Tromarama’s artworks seem to summarize the all-complicated demands into one proper and adequate form. Even though most of their works are not talking “the big narrations”, we could see that their works based on concept that is clearly articulated in their artistic practices. What is also important to be noted, working with a medium where globalism and internationalism is something nearly certain, with specific manner Tromarama managed to create an identity with their own way. If most artists are referring to identity as something local, where something local occasionally or simply refers to traditionalism, Tromarama is infact spared from this type of stigma. What so called ‘locality’ thus being reflected from the ideas, background or the narrations they built, not merely in the forms and aesthetic choices. On the choice of medium and narration, we could see in Tromarama’s works, we do not feel a sense of uniformity tendency that recently easily found in the works of young generation of artists. Their visual sensibilities clearly reflect their total involvement in the global youth movement, marked with the do-it-yourself spirit or the fantastic cross between the rebellious and the mainstream, the high art and popular forms.

*****
Tromarama’s quick rise in the Indonesian contemporary visual art does feel like giving a new energy for artists of the current generation, especially after they succeeded participating in many exhibitions of the international biennales, submitting their artworks in exhibitions in prominent contemporary art museums in several countries. Recently, they were the first Indonesians exhibiting in the Mori Art Museum Tokyo, Japan. I think their energy and creativity had given a quite important contribution in our contemporary art for the last decade, especially when we’re talking about new media art.

In the development of the market dominated Indonesian art, the absence of an authoritative institution related to the variety of medium and discourses, new media art tends to be seen as a marginal since its beginning until today. Although new media art had proven itself as a footpath to a global art, yet in reality public rarely seen a media art exhibition being organized with adequate quality, and presenting the important position of these medium is related to discourses and the aesthetics.

Their solo exhibition, KIDULT, presented in Tembi Contemporary this time is their first solo exhibition in Indonesia, which I think will be refreshing experience for Yogyakarta audiens because their display models are always interesting, creative and imaginative. In the midst of the bustles of preparing for insistent exhibition invitations, they return with a characteristic humorous irony: since the beginning, we can find from the title they chose. Kidult is a mix of two words; kid and adult, two categories that had always been seen as a binary opposition, standing apart from each other. Yet, in this exhibition Tromarama showed how both are complementary and intersecting categories.

They are recollecting the visual creation techniques learned as kids, as part of school lessons, which was more like a game. After an After, for instance, are created from a series of images worked on with a simple stencil technique, like the one taught at elementary school. Although this artwork speaks about something ‘spiritual’, an image of life after death, yet it was done in a light imagery with many spaces for interpretation. To create this artwork they dig for references from narrations developed in religions, or the scientific approach in science. With a minimalistic inclined visual model, this video shows the skilful handworks of the makers. Life after death is depicted more as imagined fragments, shreds of an event the audience must put together.

The same technique and approach are found in the work Borderless, made with embroidery technique turned into an animation. In this work we are taken in an adventure into the world of imagination that breaks our common order of logics. The concept of time and space is manipulated and played at, so we’re free in deciding how we’re moving and manifest ourselves in a space.

Another video, Wattt?!, utilizes a model of photograph moved using a stop motion animation technique. This video makes use of the daily items in their rented house, by taking the desk lamp as the main character. The nearly six minutes video is exploring elements of lights in our daily live, underlining the contradiction between dark and light, between the game and function.

The adult and the kid, these are juxtaposed not in theme alone, also in approaches. Like they had stated: It turned out from the discussion and experiments, we have deep interests in things that are childish or coming from the world of children. All the childhood memories are coming back in our age which had gone over half a decade.

We miss things that are pure, honest, the feeling of not scared being wrong. Choosing to see something and then mix it with imagination instead of considering and matching it with the already formalized knowledge in mind like adults do.

(e-mail conversation with TROMARAMA)

*****

This exhibition underlines the exploration of Tromarama in new media arts, especially related to various visual techniques and possibilities. When most video artists are concentrating on using the camera to record the reality, their effort to keep working with hands is a form of dialectic with technology. Technology is not accepted as something given, but reinterpreted, redisplayed with a new approach. I am thinking, in the midst of the simple narration they develop, I feel this might be a space of rebellion they’re offering. Is technology had created a distance between us and the memory of the past?

Alia Swastika

** This essay is published in TROMARAMA's solo show "KIDULT" catalogue. Published by Tembi Contemporary. Date of Publication: January 6, 2011

After an After

2011-02-01T21:44:00.001-08:00

Video animation with poster colour on paper
3 min 18 sec
2010

Installation Documentation

Exhibited at Tromarama's Solo Exhibition "KIDULT"
at Tembi Contemporary, Jogjakarta.
January 2011

Borderless

2011-02-01T21:35:00.000-08:00

Video Animation with embroidery on canvas
2 min 25 sec
2010

Installation documentation

Exhibited at Tromarama's Solo Exhibition "KIDULT"
at Tembi Contemporary, Jogjakarta.
January 2011

Wattt?!

2011-02-01T20:57:00.001-08:00

Stop motion animation with various lamp
5 min 48 sec
2010

Installation documentation

Exhibited at Tromarama's Solo Show "KIDULT"
at Tembi Contemporary, Jogjakarta
January 2011

Daydreaming #1

2011-02-01T19:07:00.000-08:00

72 drawing pen on paper, stainless steel, wood table, music box
2010

Exhibited at Tromarama's Solo Exhibition "KIDULT"
at Tembi Contemporary, Jogjakarta.
January 2011

15th Tallinn Print Triennale

2011-01-18T20:45:00.000-08:00

15th Tallinn Print Triennial
For Love Not Money
20 January - 8 May 2011
at Kumu Art Museum
Tallin, Estonia
http://www.triennial.ee/

Tromarama's Solo Show: KIDULT

2010-12-21T17:18:00.000-08:00

The exhibition will be held
at Tembi Contemporary, Yogyakarta
Opening 6 January 2011, 19:30 wib
Artist Talk 7 January 2011, 15:00 wib

Curatorial Note (VideoZone V)

2010-12-01T18:26:00.000-08:00

You and I, We’ve Never Been So Far Apart: Works from Asia Program 1

Positioning Asia, in particular Southeast Asia, beyond geographical borders, is more often than not a self-conscious exercise in constituting a unified field of practice characterised by commonalities that are held in opposition to a similarly constituted ‘other‘ – the ‘west’, or the rest of Asia (such as China, Japan, Korea and India for instance), that has as its purpose, the marking of difference. Given the sense of peripherality that Southeast Asia is associated with, culturally and economically, an obliging exoticism is generally seen as the least painful of routes. However, nonspecific differences bracketed into an imaginary category of ‘Asian-ness’ of the region, implies a fundamental unity that is simultaneously made contradictory with assertions of the cultural specificity of each nation state, where both the shared and distinguishable are if not non-existent at the level of its individuals and member states, are at least deeply problematic. Yet that is not to say the regional and nation state paradigms and narratives are not useful and efficacious in navigating within a global setting such as an international exhibition that expects it. It is thus with a certain disquiet that a few recent video works have been selected, less for their representativeness, and more for their ambiguous and inflected modes of expression within their own contexts. Nevertheless, such an undertaking is not without potential conflict of its own, as a selection is made of video artworks by artists who live and work in this ‘region’, with little effort given to expanding the category (as it would not challenge the form of mapping) – with an artist each from Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Myanmar, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and it is likely that casual readings will inevitably slip into formulations of ‘nation’ and ‘Asia’. While appearing to acquiesce to, and perhaps unable to escape from, this familiar mapping, an attempt is made to complicate a predictable conclusion: not all nation states of Southeast Asia are included; a couple – Vietnam and Myanmar, are deliberately privileged given their relatively less prominent cultural and economic visibility; the work of the Japanese artist is by virtue of collaboration with the Vietnamese artist; and Hong Kong, as a Special Administrative Region of China, is not of the Southeast region, yet it has a certain affinity with other parts of Southeast Asia given its colonial past. The desire for juxtaposing these artworks thus is to allow for other readings to emerge, to create a condition for reading, and not the reading itself.

In a witty re-staging of a previous work The River of Ink (2008) at The Future of Exhibition: It Feels Like I’ve Been Here Before presented at the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore, July 2010, Shubigi Rao’s de-gendered and de-ethicised alter-ego, S. Raoul, is killed in a most banal fashion – “In what appears to be a tragic accident, S. Raoul tripped and broke his neck while attempting to negotiate space in a cultural context. The obstacle responsible for the fall is believed to be a collection of artefacts, survivors of violent acts of cultural genocide, collectively fished out of the River of Ink (also known as the Dustbins of History).”^{^[1]} Rao’s pithy summary of the mortal dangers of immutable cultural contexts highlights the perennial problem citing ‘Asia’ as teleological defence for presentation, if not its explanation. The question that needs to be asked is therefore less ‘what are artists doing’ in Asia, but ‘what else are artists doing?’ Ambiguous manifestations of cultural context, a burden alleviated by increasing reflexivity (a burden curatorial texts have a tendency to exacerbate), mark the video artworks selected. Deliberately loose, curatorially speaking, these artworks play on notions of distance, separation and proximity of assumed cultural contexts, in an attempt to produce aesthetics of dialogue, of shared yet individual subjectivity, exchange and influence.

Broadly, and briefly, the curatorial intent is for the selected video works to present as a whole a less trenchant view of the artists’ national and regional contexts than they could be made to seem to have, thus allowing the works to demonstrate with subtlety, sensitivity and humour, the true condition of the artists’ practice. Another conscious deliberation was for the video artworks to have a certain purposive employment of sound, music or ambient noise, though more to create an audience experience that would be highly sensitive to non-visual suggestion. In terms of subject, a few loose themes emerge, a sense of space (and time) in Hayati Moktar’s Penawar’s unhurried and muted observation of the clearing and closure of a family estate in Penang, that stirs with its sense of loss and longing. The home of multiple generations that has been the setting for family weddings, parties and social gatherings which various prominent public figures of the time attended, in Moktar’s hands, seems almost impossible to be emptied out; and Universe Just a Fathom by Tin Win Aung and Wah Nu, a reflection on Buddhist ontology that is inspired by invasive medical technologies, creates a compelling journey that escapes its simple visual aesthetic. Likewise, the collaboration of Japanese artist Takayuki Yamamoto and Vietnamese artist Hoang Duong Cam, On Each Milestone, fuses a fictional quest for an unspecified object with documentary research on an ethnic group, the Raglai of the Kingdom of Aman, now part of Vietnam, focusing on a Raglai musician’s performance not only of Raglai’s tradition tunes but also popular international tunes at a naturally preserved park.

Two video artworks explore notions of influence, drawing attention to the assimilation of cultures rather than resistance: Ho Tzu Nyen’s EARTH (((radio))) borrows from French post-Revolution aesthetics while sampling music popularised by the expanding American music culture and industry in the 80s and 90s, its far-reaching effects felt by his generation growing-up in Singapore; and Thai artist Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook’s The Two Planets series presents conversations and observations of Thai villagers encountering paintings by Jean-François Millet, Vincent Van Gogh and Édouard Manet, with the villagers themselves the subject of Rasdjarmrearnsook’s own monumentalization of rural folk.

Finally, on a lighter note but still on the topic of the blending of cultures, methods and imagination are Kwan Sheung Chi’s doing it with Chi… making an Exit Bag that caricaturises instructional home television programs popularised by global media with a more dire recipe; and Indonesian collective Tromarama’s Happy Hour, reminiscent of children’s fiction where objects come to life, depicts money on holiday, cheerfully forgetting their other more solemn role. While the banknotes are Indonesian, the tune they sing to is traceable to other historical and cultural trade and influence, that illustrates how economies in Southeast Asia are dependent on larger more powerful markets.

The selection of video works by these artists collectively defy reductive and simplified evaluation, and it is hoped that as the title suggests, beyond stock cultural characterizations and bland universals, different readings will surface that then serve to indicate that cliché differences and similarities aside, the distance between audience and artist (and between artists) isn’t so far, and perhaps did not require the artifice of mediation, of nation and Asian-ness, after all.

Curated by June Yap

Independent curator and write based in Singapore, previously with the Singapore Art Museum and the Institute of Contemporary Arts Singapore. Her curatorial work and research focuses on contemporary art practices in Asia.

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^{^[1]} In Passing: Visionary Felled by Tragic Misstep – Tragic death of Author, Thinker and Inventor S. Raoul allegedly caused by tripping over cultural artefact, Time Machine takes you to September 2006, Shubigi Rao “No Cover no Color” (2006) and “The River of Ink” (2008).

**This curatorial was taken from here.

VideoZone V

2010-11-22T00:38:00.001-08:00

Exhibition Update

2010-11-10T17:47:00.001-08:00

How to Turn Trauma into Video Art: A Brief Story of Tromarama

2010-10-15T03:22:00.000-07:00

How many people are willing and able to transform a traumatic experience into creative energy? Not many, presumably. Among the few are three art students from Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia—Febie Babyrose (a.k.a. Baby), Herbert Hans (a.k.a. Ebet), and Ruddy Hatumena—who have successfully come through a traumatic experience and made it into the start of a career in video art.

The story of this trauma began in 2006 during their last few semesters of university. Their days had become boring, perhaps because everything they did, all the assignments, had become routine. One day, a group of alumni and artists in Bandung (who formed the video production collective Cerahati Artwork) hold a series of workshops. They invited the participants—mostly university students—to appreciate and learn about the technical aspects of (music) video making.

Baby, Ebet, and Ruddy took part in these workshops as something new to do that moved them away from their university routines—at the time they knew one another but had not formed a group. Both Ebet and Ruddy were enrolled in the Visual Communication Department. Ebet specialized in advertising, Ruddy in graphic design. Therefore, both were comfortable working in the fields of animation, video, and film. However, Baby was far removed from these fields as her major was in printmaking: “They (Ebet and Ruddy) were the ones who introduced me to the works by the artist/film director Michel Gondry,” she later said.

The workshop gave the three of them new skills in the processes of video as a medium and an opportunity to make new work together, but also became an experience that the Tromarama members dubbed “a traumatic experience,” and which spawned the artistic name of the group.

The ‘trauma’ was experienced while completing the their first video project together, which involved producing over 400 woodcut panels to be used as the basic visual material for a highly-unique music video clip for the trash-metal group Seringai, titled Serigala Militia (2006). The woodcut images were transformed into moving images using stop motion animation.

They felt that the visual style of video clips by other participants in the workshop were largely homogenous: using a video camera, with similar visualization and presentation/staging. They wanted to produce a clip that maximized all the possibilities presented by the medium, while using ‘simple’ materials. Therefore, the trauma of creating hundreds of woodcut panels was actually their own doing, a result of their own choices.

For one full month, in the midst of completing a range of other university assignments, they worked towards finishing the video clip. Their collective name was based on this experience—the word ‘trauma’ was turned into the rhythmical sounding name: Tromarama.

Their hard work was not in vain however as Serigala Militia is indeed a unique and intriguing video clip. The combination of handmade images with rough lines, contrasting colors of the brownish yellow plywood panels and the black background form scenes of broken movement. All of this works in harmony with the pounding beats of Seringai’s music. This clip launched Tromarama’s careers as important members of the latest generation of video artists in Indonesia; whose work feels fresh, different, and captivating.

***

Video art, among a range of new media art, has long been recognized in the Indonesian contemporary art landscape. Bandung—the city where Tromarama live, work and studied—has a special role in relation to the development of video art in Indonesia, especially at the end of the 90s and in the early 2000s.

Krisna Murti is one Indonesian artist who has been a forerunner of video art and has untiringly worked to introduce video and new media art to Indonesia. He also lives and works in Bandung.

In 2002, Krisna Murti initiated and organized the first international new media art event in Indonesia; the “Bandung Film, Video, and New Media Arts Festival” (BAVF-NAF). This event captured the spirit of a new generation of artists in Bandung who held a great interest in video, film, and other technology-based new media, whether analogue or digital.

In the early 2000s, there was a proliferation of groups of young artists with similar interests in video/film/new media art, collaborating with one another within a network. Some of them only existed for a while before merging into other groups; some remain active today.

Some of these groups deserve to be given greater attention. The Bandung Center for New Media Art was established by a number of young artists in 2001. They hold discussions and video screening events and link artists with other communities from a variety of backgrounds, enabling them to collaborate in interdisciplinary projects involving three main disciplines: art, science, and technology. There is also the VideoLab group, who hold monthly video screenings in public spaces on the streets of Bandung. These events go by the name of CinematicLab. Another noteworthy group is VideoBabes, who share a more-or-less similar pattern of activities and the same focus, video art.

In short, in the early-to-mid 2000s, there were exhibitions, video screenings, and events in this area (“Bandung Music Video Festival,” for example) almost every year. In 2006, this development of video art and new media in Bandung was documented in a video compilation titled Bandung Timeline 2001 – 2006.

Another important event during this time was “Beyond Panopticon: Art and Global Media Project,” which took place in 2004, consisting of a number of video screening events with an international scope. This was organized by the young artists from the VideoLab group (Herra Pahlasari, Andri Mochamad, Prilla Tania, and Jordan Raspatie). What was rather special about this event was the venue. The event was not held in an art gallery, or any other venues that usually host arts and cultural events, as at the time there were almost no art galleries that were bold enough to present video works exclusively and routinely. It was therefore natural for the young artists working with new media to seek out or create their own spaces to start interacting with a wider audience. Therefore “Beyond Panopticon” was held in a mall selling electronics and computers, the Bandung Electronic City mall.

This choice of venue correlates with the social, economic, and cultural issues that were characteristic of activities of the youth and artists in Bandung at the time; similar situations could also be seen in other big Indonesian cities.

After the economic crisis hit Indonesia in 1997-98, bringing down the authoritarian New Order regime of Suharto, Indonesia entered a period of prolonged social, economic, and political crises. The economic crisis put pressure on middle-class urban Indonesians. The middle class youth dealt with the economic crisis by seeking out and taking part in a range of creative activities which then formed the basis for a ‘creative industry’ relying on social networks to distribute its various products. In Bandung, the range of activities was truly extensive. Some of these youngsters created and produced different functional objects based on simple product designs and computer software, as well as films, music, and videos. In Bandung, Yogyakarta, and Jakarta, many of these small enterprises are still going strong.

Technically, all the creative-productive activities were made possible thanks to the easy and cheap availability of computers and all kinds of pirated software and films in Indonesia—notwithstanding controversies regarding copyright. This provided the hardware and software to make graphic and multimedia work as well as access to thousands of films, from the past and present.

Meanwhile, the demise of the authoritarian New Order regime brought Indonesia into a process of democratization. The Indonesian middle-class gladly welcomed political freedom. Today, everyone can express their social, cultural, and political interests and needs. The production, distribution, and consumption of information has become accessible and open to anyone.

All of those factors led to the emergence of a highly independent new generation of artists working across disciplines and depending on their own vast social networks—globally and locally—with a good grasp of IT and new technologies. At the same time as this was happening in Bandung, similar communities were also emerging in Yogyakarta and Jakarta. This new creative network has been widely exposed to the Indonesian art public through OK Video, a biennial international festival which began in 2003, held by ruangrupa—a community of young artists based in Jakarta.

Since Krisna Murti held “BAVF-NAF” in Bandung in 2002, video art in Indonesia has grown to be quite extensive in terms of its players and audience. The members of Tromarama have grown out of this political and cultural environment in Indonesia.

***

The video clip for Serigala Militia first caught the public’s eye when it was presented in a group exhibition, “Bandung New Emergence #1,” in 2006 (Selasar Sunaryo Art Space, Bandung). From then on, Tromarama were given opportunities to create other video works, such as Zsa Zsa Zsu (2007) and Balonku (My Balloon, 2007).

All three music videos—Serigala Militia, Zsa Zsa Zsu, and Balonku—were created using ’unusual’ materials. Serigala Militia was made of a series of hundreds woodcut panels; Zsa Zsa Zsu, of arrangements of thousands of types of buttons with a myriad of colors; and Balonku, of a series of collage images using colorful bits of paper. These three music videos were the group’s visual interpretations of existing songs by others. And it is only in their work Ting* (2008) that they started to think of the narrative, visualization, and audio/music aspects as a whole.

Ting* was also made using stop-motion, affirming Tromarama’s confidence in creating video works using this technique, and at the same time showing their courage to keep on trying new things. The cheerful video depicts a range of white chinaware taking a walk in the city, before eventually returning to their ‘dormitory’, the kitchen cupboard. The work’s strong presence was enhanced by being screened within an installation of hundreds of real chinaware pieces.

These first four video works made Tromarama’s name and gave them access to a variety of video screening events and subsequently to art exhibitions in many galleries in Indonesia. However, they were not immediately convinced that the production of video art could have a bright future in Indonesian art.

After graduation, Ebet and Ruddy left Bandung for a while to work in Jakarta, while Baby stayed in Bandung. The future of the group became unclear, so much so that the 402 woodcut panels used to make Serigala Militia were almost destroyed. The hundreds of woodcut panels were a burden for Baby, who had to take care and store them while she was living in a small, cramped rented house in Bandung. Thankfully, the panels survived and the work was exhibited at the 2^nd Singapore Biennale in 2008. After this, invitations to present their works in a variety of exhibitions came one after another, from inside the country and abroad.

Prior to its exhibition here at the Mori Art Museum, Serigala Militia grabbed attention in the “Philagrafika” exhibition in Philadelphia, U.S., leading to a number of local and regional collectors expressing their interest in collecting Tromarama’s video works. All of these factors have convinced Tromarama to keep on working.

Currently Tromarama is still creating increasingly intriguing video works, as well as a number of installations. During an interview with me, the three of them agreed that the choice of media and form, whether video or installation, is made—often after long and fiery discussions and debates—because the media are considered to be the ones that can most aptly convey certain messages.

It is clear, however, that in the context of recent developments in contemporary art in Indonesia—which is still dominated by paintings and sculptures—Tromarama, with their video works, seem to represent a new generation increasingly open to, and familiar with, a myriad of new media to express their ideas and experience.

Enin Supriyanto (independent curator and writer, focusing on Indonesian contemporary art)

** This essay is published in MAM Project 012: TROMARAMA" catalogue. Published by Mori Art Museum. Date of Publication: August 1, 2010

Tromarama: Hand-Made Video Art

2010-09-28T20:44:00.000-07:00

Serigala Militia - Transcending the Conventions of Music Videos
I was astounded when I saw Serigala Militia (2006, pp.16-19) at the second Singapore Biennale in 2008. Lured into a room by the distinctive sound of heavy metal, I watched the unique animation projected onto the wall and realized that the images in the video were a series of carved woodblocks. Each of enormous number of carved woodblocks displayed had been individually filmed to create a stop motion animation work. The raw traces of the woodcutting tools, that confront the viewer and hint at the time and work involved in the process of producing the images and the furious beat gap that lies between the slow process of producing the images and the furious beat of the music. In fact, the pairing of woodblock prints and heavy metal music is, in itself, quite outlandish. The work is extremely pop, but at the same time is undeniably craft like and radical, and also has a retro sensibility. I'd never seen anything like it. The heavy metal music and the vocals, which were shouted out in Indonesian, also left an indelible impression.

I was immediately interested when I discovered that this was a music video created for an Indonesian metal band called Seringai by a group of three artists in their 20s, with the unusual name of Tromarama. The artist group was established while the members were students at the Bandung Institute of Technology - Febie Babyrose was studying printmaking, while Herbert Hans and Ruddy Hatumena were studying graphic design in the Visual Communication Design Department. It is clear, after viewing Serigala Militia, that this work is an embodiment of the skills and sensibilities acquired as a result of studying printmaking and design.

Serigala Militia only features two colors-the black surface of the painted plywood and the color of the wood revealed by the cuts into the surface-and arguably depicts a world that has been created with light and shade. The human figures are first depicted only as outlines. Shading is then added, and it is at this point that the figures suddenly acquire three-dimensionality, become 'animated' and start moving-given life as in the original meaning of 'animation'. As the areas between the legs or on either side of the figure are gradually carved away, the space becomes filled with light as a result of carving conveys movement. The way that moving images are created by adopting the basic technique of printmaking-shading and nuance created through carving with a simple format of highlighting certain sections-is deeply impressive. Serigala Militia represents the dynamic primal forces of creation.

Serigala Militia also represents a new interpretation of the medium we know as woodblock printmaking. Because works on paper involve the replication of printed images, they are usually not valued as highly as paintings. However, in Serigala Militia the woodblocks themselves are displayed as one off-works. They are no longer simply a means for printing images onto paper. Instead, the woodblock is both a unique two-dimensional work and the object and mode of expression. The adoption of this new perspective has the effect of transforming preexisting value judgement to effectively erase the boundary that lies between the 'lead role' and the 'support act'.

Tromarama has also addressed the specific purpose of this work-as a music video for a band -with integrity. The word "wolf" is shouted at the audience by the charismatic band Seringai, who enjoy a fanatical following in the Indonesian rock scene, encouraging their fans to stand up to authority, to free themselves from control, and to achieve autonomy. And, as if in agreement with this rebellious spirit, images of animal skulls, barbed wire, speedometers, handcuffs, and soldiers are scattered throughout the work. Meanwhile, the tracks of a military tank are transformed into the drummer's drumsticks, a chainsaw transformed into a guitar neck, and these images are organically integrated with the images of the performing band members. This sense of fun, unique to Tromarama, adds a playful sensibility to the driving sounds of hard rock. The creativity behind the ever-changing images is arguably only possible because the use of animation. In this way, Tromarama explore different ways of visually conveying a message through diverse perspectives, and select the most appropriate means of doing so for each work.

Focusing on All Things Small
In the music video Zsa Zsa Zsu (2007, pp.20-23), created by Tromarama for more pop oriented band R.N.R.M (Rock N Roll Mafia), large quantities of buttons and beads have been used to once again create another out-of-the-box single frame music video. In contrast to Tromarama's previous work, which featured a world created with light and shade, Zsa Zsa Zsu is a flood of color. The steadily changing colors on the screen, red, pink, purple, green, and blue, have the effect of imbuing time and space with movement. The buzzing vibration generated by the subtle differences in the colors of the buttons and beads is a perfect match to R.N.R.M.'s danceable electronic sounds. Tromarama effectively applies color to sound and air as a means of visualizing rhythm. The result is an absence of the master subordinate relationship between the people in the video and the background-after the figures are swallowed up by the buttons and beads, diverse shapes appear and are superimposed over each other, and curved lines appear and shift. In Tromarama's animated work, life is breathed into both living beings and patterns alike. Similarly, items that would normally be overlooked in a live-action video, such as keyboard keys, microphone stands, cables, and power points, acquire presence as they make their appearance in the work. That the video begins with the microphone cord being plugged in is symbolic. At the end of the video, multi-colored cords are connected to a power board. The images of the power points and cords hint at the electricity that is flowing through the equipment. Tromarama's magic, which has the effect of visualizing the electronics underpinning R.N.R.M's music, is nothing short of amazing.

Tromarama's perspicacity and creativity, in which the focus is on everyday items and events that tend to be overlooked despite the fact that they are essential components of our daily lives, also features in Ting* (2008, pp. 24-27). In this work, Tromarama has moved away from the music video format and has instead created a work that is even more unique. The leading role in the video is played by white porcelain mugs. Once again, Tromarama uses time and labor-intensive stop motion animation to depict a grand crockery adventure. This work is arguably underpinned by two themes - forms and patterns, and narrative. Tired of being used everyday, the mugs and plates escape from the crockery cupboard, walk outside and proceed down the street, hiding under dead leaves, eventually forming a circle in a field and dancing. This game that involves hundreds of pieces of tableware lining up, forming circles, and endlessly changing formation is amazing. One of the mugs then becomes a component of the whole, much like buttons in Zsa Zsa Zsu, while in another scene the same mug is imbued with its own personality. It falls over, it panics, and it gets excited, and this is vividly conveyed on screen. Both the mug and humans are depicted in the same way - from both a micro and macro perspective. We are all individuals who are members of an organization, or a dot in the cosmos, but each of us is precious and irreplaceable and individual presence emerges through Tromarama's close-up imagery.

The personal emotions of the Tromarama members have been incorporated into the drama that unfolds in Ting*. Tromarama temporarily suspended its activities after Ruddy Hatumena graduated and joined the workforce. Ting* is a commemorative work in the sense that it was created by the Tromarama members after they had reunited. The three types of mugs, which are making the most of their liberation from life's routines, represent the three artist. The dreams that we all have and the struggles that we all experience are conveyed with humor and lightness through the gentle perspective that Tromarama applies in its depiction of small objects.

Another characteristic of Tromarama's work worthy of mention is their consummate use of sound effect. Bagus Pandega created the clear, resonant sounds by tapping on a large number of water - filled porcelain cups, each cup producing a different pitch depending on the amount of water in that glass. It embodies a very artisanal quality that shares an affinity with Tromarama's stop motion animation. The sounds and rhythms, in perfect sync with the movements depicted in the work, represent an important element of Tromarama's practice that is not restricted to their music videos.

The Art Market and Indonesian Contemporary Art
I would like to touch on the Indonesian art scene that Tromarama is a part of. The Asian art boom that began during the last decade, triggered by an interest in Chinese contemporary art, has had a significant effect on the Indonesian art world. Works by Indonesian artist have fetched huge prices, as though reflecting what was happening in Chinese art, resulting in a rapid growth in numbers of both Indonesian and overseas collectors of Indonesian contemporary art. This was a new phenomenon that had not been seen in the 1990s. Meanwhile, art fairs held in China, Singapore, and Hong Kong had the effect of promoting both Indonesian galleries and artist.1 Numerous artist achieved great success as a result of the boom and many, who until recently had been so poor that they could barely afford to eat, were apparently able to build luxury homes and could be seen driving expensive imported cars.

Many curators and artists, however, feel uncomfortable with this situation. Curator Rifky Effendy is critical of the fact that painting is the predominant medium that continues to sell in the art market, and that an increasing number of Indonesian artists are capitalizing on the popularity of Chinese contemporary art by producing commercial art, or "art for sale" that is imitative of Chinese photo - realism and cynical pop.2 In the catalogue for the exhibition "Refresh", featuring young emerging artists in their 20s including Tromarama, curator Enin Supriyanto, a contributor to this catalogue, asserts that artists shouldn't attempt to reflect the biased preferences of the art market, and that they should instead adopt an uninhibited and more creative spirit - a "DIY" spirit.3

The extent of market influence is arguably also related to the special circumstances of the Indonesian art world. I visited Indonesia as part of my research for this exhibition, and discovered that few of the conventional art museums actively exhibit contemporary work. In contrast, the main venues for contemporary art are private galleries or alternative spaces, and the majority of contemporary art curators are freelance curators who are not necessarily attached to a specific institution. A curator is generally invited by a strong connection between the artist and curator, gallery and collector. The artist is arguably more susceptible to the influence of these immediate commercial connections, or the market economy, when the value of a work of art isn't assessed or exhibited purely in the context of public institution such as an art museum.

Given these circumstances, international exhibition play an important role in revealing the value of art beyond the valued determined by the market. Well - known Indonesian artists such as Heri Dono and Agus Suwage are keenly sought after by biennales and many other international exhibitions, while it was the Singapore Biennale that introduced Tromarama to the world. Tromarama doesn't produce 'painting for sale' targeted at collectors, so it was recognition by an international audience - that has a greater exposure to and therefore understanding of video art than an Indonesian audience - that encouraged the artists to continue producing art. Tromarama's sudden upwards trajectory in their international career resulted from curators from around the world seeing the group's work at the Biennale, just as I did.

The Regionality of Bandung
One of the topics of conversation amongst people in the art world in Indonesia is the difference between artist from Yogyakarta and those from Bandung. "Stories from Two Cities" (2010)4 curated by Alia Swastika for the Semarang Contemporary Art Gallery, is an exhibition that introduces 20 group of young artists based in these two cities. Tromarama was included as a group of artists hailing from Bandung. Although a simple comparison is impossible, I identified certain characteristics after viewing the works by artists from both cities. The works of artists from Yogyakarta tend to be inspired by comics and pop music, feature graffiti, or are colorful representational paintings. In contrast, the work of artists from Bandung are rich in symbolism and design underpinned with meaning, while many work in new forms of media rather than producing conventional paintings. The majority of the participating artists are graduates of either the Indonesia Institute of the Arts (ISI) or the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB). These two universities are enormously influential, and it is no exaggeration to say that the contemporary art scene in Indonesia owes its existence to these two institutions.

Traditional culture has been carefully preserved in Yogyakarta, the ancient capital of Indonesia, which is designated as a Special Region and is still the seat of the Sultan. ISI, the precursor of which established in 1950 when Indonesia was forging its national identity after winning independence, has a history of valuing tradition and realism. Meanwhile, Bandung was originally a highland town developed by the Dutch during the colonial period because of its cool climate and which eventually grew into a modern, Westernized city. Modernist thought and universal design language were taught from an early stage by Dutch teachers at ITB, which was originally established as the Technical High School of Bandung in 1920, and the cosmopolitan atmosphere that embraced all things new continues to define ITB today.

ITB's liberated environment is conveyed in the interview with Tromarama in this catalogue. The lectures at ITB include many of artists and curators, arguably making ITB an ideal place for learning about new developments and theories in art, as well as for networking and building connections in the art world. Video art is thriving in Bandung and in his essay in this catalogue Enin Supriyanto provides a detailed explanation this phenomenon, which is of particular interest as it describes what was taking place in Bandung immediately prior to the emergence of artists such as Tromarama.

Art as a Playground
While Tromarama adopts the new technology of video, there is always a focus on the hand-made. Tromarama's main focus has always been use to low-tech methods in which the traces of handwork are retained in the final work and to carefully video one scene at a time in process which can be compared to craft-making. Continuing to explore new materials, Tromarama has adopted the technique of Batik, a traditional Indonesian craft using wax resist dyeing, for the new work Extraneous (2010, pp.14-15) included in this exhibition. Creating Extraneous involved the members first dyeing 210 pieces of fabric, and then creating an installation featuring both the fabric and the animation created by filming the fabric. The theme is the sense of disconnection between the real world and internet - based virtual communication.

Batik has traditionally represented daily circumstances and historical events among its motifs and patterns, and this function inspired the members of Tromarama to attempt to record on fabric the contemporary issues that they themselves have experienced. Looking back at the history of batik provides a convincing demonstration that it is capable of adapting to this sort of new interpretation. The colors and patterns of batik have always reflected regional and class differences and they have undergone changes every time a different culture - Hindu, Buddhist, and Islam, for example - was introduced. Indeed, batik has, at various time, featured Dutch patterns during Dutch colonialist period, Chinese patterns influenced by Indonesia's ethnic Chinese, and even Japanese patterns during the Japanese Military presence in Indonesia during the Second World War. This indicates a cultural flexibility and diversity that is unique to Indonesia, a nation in which hundreds of ethnic groups and cultures coexist.

Tromarama is equally uninhibited and flexible. While the members retain a respect for and love of the traditions of handwork, they do not overly focus on artifice, nor is there any fear of adopting unconventional interpretation or techniques. Along with traditional Indonesian culture, Tromarama casually embraces aspects of American or Japanese pop culture and then rearranges it in its own unique way. The West's struggle between high art and low art and constructions of elaborate concepts are absent from Tromarama's art. I also doubt that they are terribly attached to the concept of creating 'contemporary art' or of being 'artists'. Tromarama simply uses art as an uninhibited avenue for experimentation, as a playground for the mind.

Although their future remains unknown, I hope Tromarama will continue to play in this way, with the members feeling the way forward with their own hands, unbound by the rules or styles of the global art industry. Because I believe that this is what Tromarama is really about.

Natsumi Araki (Curator, Mori Art Museum)

1. Agung Hujatnikajennong, “The Indonesian Art World in the Global Era,” The Mist: A Reflection upon the Development of Indonesian Contemporary Art (ex.cat.), Artsociates, 2010, pp. 8-11.
2. Rifky Effendy, ”The Mist: A Reflection upon the Development of Indonesian Contemporary Art (ex.cat.), Artsociates, 2010, pp. 2-7.
3. Enin Supriyanto, “D.I.Y and Be Happy,” Refresh: New Strategies in Indonesian Contemporary Art (ex.cat.), Valentine Willie Fine Art Singapore, 2009, pp.2-4
4. Stories from Two Citites (ex.cat.), Semarang Contemporary Art Gallery, 2010.

** This essay is published in MAM Project 012: TROMARAMA" catalogue. Published by Mori Art Museum. Date of Publication: August 1, 2010

MAM PROJECT 012: TROMARAMA

2010-08-02T21:34:00.000-07:00

Some snapshot from our solo exhibition at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo.
The exhibition will be held from July 24 - November 7, 2010.

exhibition space

curatorial

Zsa Zsa Zsu (left side) & Ting* (right side)

Serigala Militia video projection

woodblock installation

Extraneous video projection

batik installation

MAM PROJECT 012: TROMARAMA
24 July - 7 November 2010

Curator: Natsumi Araki
Curatorial Cordinator: Kayo Machino
Contributor: Enin Supriyanto
Photo: Kioku Keizo

for more exhibition information here

Extraneous

2010-08-02T21:22:00.000-07:00

rotoscoping animation with batik on cotton
installation of 210 pieces of batik
1 min. 14 sec
2010

video projection

installation detail 1

installation detail 2

Exhibited at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo
24 July - 7 November 2010

photo by Kioku Keizo

Press Release for MAM PROJECT 012: TROMARAMA

2010-06-02T05:58:00.000-07:00

The first press release for our solo exhibition next July at Mori Art Museum, Japan.
For further information about this exhibition click here. Enjoy :)

Format Ulang

2010-04-14T20:21:00.000-07:00

Format Ulang
Video, digital photo frame, wood table
2010

"Rearrange saturation" - Tromarama, 2010

Exhibited at
Crash Project: Image Factory
SIGIarts Gallery, Jakarta
Curated by Asmudjo J. Irianto
For curatorial text click here.

Review on Philadelphia City Paper

2010-04-02T19:26:00.000-07:00

Another review for our video works "Happy Hour" at Philagrafika 2010. Enjoy.

Last Chance
Catch it or regret it

by Holly Otterbein

After Philagrafika ends on April 11, will the city's galleries, curators, artists and art allies ever again be as harmonious? For the past two months, the inaugural fête celebrating all things print has pervaded seemingly every venue — and medium — in town. It's as if we've all been part of one giant, heretical, ink-stained collective consciousness — a nice change for a community that can feel disjointed and even, occasionally, at odds with itself.

Post-Philagrafika, Philly's arts scene should have more swagger: We know the city can host a print-themed triennial, so why can't it host something like the Whitney Biennial? Additionally, Philagrafika has given us a broader, more easygoing definition of print: Not only is digital photography "print," but so is video, confetti and performance art. It's these little things that should hold us over until the fest returns in three years ("unless it's back in two," says artistic director José Roca).

Of course, Philagrafika 2010's time of death hasn't been called just yet. Consider scurrying to the following shows — exemplars of the festival's Apollonian vibes — before it is.

Temple Gallery

Speaking of prematurely called deaths: Barthélémy Toguo's Heart Beat and Francesc Ruiz's Newsstand (pictured) both cast an eye on print journalism. Copies of the Inquirer, which Toguo scribbled over with a Sharpie, line Temple Gallery's walls, giving viewers a visceral sense of being silenced. Meanwhile, Ruiz constructed a life-size, Philly-style newsstand, complete with original Philly-style newspapers, magazines and Lotto tickets — things he believes are already relics. "Newsstands are the closest thing we had to Internet before it existed," he says. "They are places where you can access all kinds of information, and they are also places of exchange. I think it is necessary to begin to preserve them. Maybe we should create a Museum of the Newsstand." Ends April 11, Tyler School of Art, 2001 N. 13th St., 215-777-9000, temple.edu/tyler/exhibitions.

Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts

Faced with a society too wrapped up with money, Indonesian-based collective Tromarama bravely resisted making art about its cash-hungry brethren that was pedantic or atrabilious. Instead, Happy Hour is a lighthearted video imagining that money — long the impetus behind unhappiness, suicide and war — has tired of carrying the weight of the world on its shoulders, and enjoys some much-needed R&R. Likewise, urban detritus king Mark Bradford's Untitled (Dementia) pokes fun at a makeshift ad for Alzheimer's sufferers in L.A., but doesn't dwell on its sadness. Ends April 11, Samuel M.V. Hamilton Building, 128 N. Broad St., 215-972-7600, pafa.org.

Print Center

In the Print Center, Space 1026's artwork looks vastly different than it does in the collective's Chinatown digs. The yurt it constructed for Philagrafika (pictured) lacks the abrasive, overstimulating qualities that can sometimes hamper the collective — and not because the Space trashed its tried-and-true eyeball, pyramid and intestine motifs, but rather because the yurt is alone, isolated from a barrage of other wacky Space 1026 works. Additionally, this piece speaks best to the fest's congruency: An exhibit by the Argentinian group Eloisa Cartonera is inside of Space 1026's yurt, like two Russian nesting dolls tucked into one another. Ends April 11, 1614 Latimer St., 215-735-6090, printcenter.org.

The article taken from here. Published: Mar 23, 2010

Review on The New York Times

2010-03-15T20:26:00.000-07:00

Philagrafika 2010 and our new works "Happy Hour" video being review by The New York Times. Here's the article. Enjoy.

What Is Printmaking Today?

Philadelphia Dares to Ask

by Ken Johnson

PHILADELPHIA — The fine art of printmaking is not what it used to be. To produce printed images using tools more sophisticated than potatoes and rubber stamps once required the esoteric knowledge of an alchemist and the manual skills of a surgeon. Today anyone with the right software and a good color printer can make infinitely reproducible images that are hard to distinguish from professionally made drawings, paintings, montages, commercial illustrations and other sorts of pictures. Which raises the question: What should a major, international exhibition devoted to contemporary printmaking entail?

Going by “Philagrafika 2010,” the first in what its organizers hope will become a triennial citywide festival here devoted to the print in contemporary art, the technical possibilities are unbounded. “Philagrafika” includes etchings and woodcuts, vinyl graphics, comic books, videos and complicated, conceptually driven projects intended to raise social consciousness.

Philosophical questions remain. As new mediums proliferate and lines between genres dissolve, you may wonder if there is any value in maintaining printmaking as a separate artistic category. The festival’s chief overseer, José Roca, an independent curator from Colombia, does not equivocate about what he sees as the demise of the traditional print. In his introductory essay in the festival guidebook he asserts, “Fixated on defining the realm of printmaking based on technique, some printmakers have printed themselves into a corner, away from the center of contemporary artistic trends.”

Mr. Roca’s mission is to expand — indeed to explode — received definitions: “Exposing the print component in sculptural, environmental, performance, pictorial and video works and highlighting their relevance to contemporary art” is his goal.

With exhibitions taking place in almost 90 galleries and other sites around the city and works by more than 300 artists on view, “Philagrafika 2010” presents viewers with a daunting challenge. But the core of the event, titled “The Graphic Unconscious,” is doable for day trippers. It consists of five exhibitions at five different institutions and collectively includes 35 artists.

Those most connected to traditional craftsmanship are at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. Here, in a handsome show organized by Julien Robson, curator of contemporary art at the academy, Kiki Smith’s sensitive, etched portraits of young men in big hats would be no surprise to Rembrandt. But he might be confounded by her large, sloppy collages incorporating passages of etching, glued-on paper scraps and glitter depicting, for example, a woman fighting big snakes.

A huge woodcut by the German artist Christiane Baumgartner presents an image of bombers from a World War II propaganda film. Its fine, horizontal lines indicate that the image was copied from a television screen. If Gerhard Richter made prints, they might look similarly moody and ominous.

An enormous composition of carved-wood panels and large prints by Orit Hofshi, an Israeli, pictures a shadowy figure walking into a desolate, rocky landscape punctuated by architectural fragments, while the Philadelphia artist Pepón Osorio offers a celebration of life and death in the form of an image of his mother’s X-rayed head ink-jet printed onto a thick bed of glued-together confetti.

Two artists, one American and one Chinese, riff on different kinds of verbal signage. Mark Bradford’s thickly layered works reproduce signs advertising help for people with Alzheimer’s disease; faded and disappearing letters visually pun on memory loss. And Qiu Zhijie’s rubbings of Chinese characters quote sayings of rulers like Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek to politically subversive ends.

Here the most technically tricky and entertaining work is by an Indonesian group called Tromarama. Using its own finely etched copies of Indonesian currency, Tromarama created a short stop-action music video in which the leaders portrayed on various bills lip-sync to a bouncy tune called “Happy Hour.”

Works in an exhibition organized by Lorie Mertes, chief curator at Moore College of Art and Design, stray further from fine-art traditions. Made by a stenciling technique, a 40-foot-wide, black-and-white outdoor mural on a wall of the Moore’s main building by the British artist Paul Morrison pictures a fantastic, montaged landscape of trees and flowers lifted from a variety of fine-art and popular sources. Gunilla Klingberg, of Stockholm, has created a vast, Neo-Pop mandala in orange vinyl whose pattern consists of familiar commercial logos — Target, Kmart and others. It has been applied to the front windows of the college’s facade to form a radiating, see-through screen.

In an indoor gallery, Virgil Marti, a Philadelphia artist, has covered the walls with silver paper bearing an ornate, floral pattern that turns out, on closer scrutiny, to be made up of skulls and bones, to create a gleaming, environmental memento mori.

In another gallery the Brazilian artist Regina Silveira has flooded the walls and floors with gigantically enlarged, black vinyl images of insects. It is an eye-boggling, walk-in nightmare. And in a connecting corridor Betsabeé Romero who works in Mexico City, presents prints made by rolling inked old tires that she retreaded with images of birds onto yardslong lengths of paper.

Projects at the Tyler School of Art’s Temple Gallery in a show organized by Sheryl Conkelton, an independent curator, do more still to stretch the definition of printmaking. A Danish team called Superflex has set up a workstation where students are assembling cube-shaped hanging lamps whose paper sides, spit out by an online printer, bear photographic images of copyrighted lights by famous designers. It is a provocative comment on theft and intellectual property rights.

Making points about information overload, Francesc Ruiz, of Barcelona, Spain, has recreated an outdoor newsstand and stocked its shelves with satiric fake magazines, while Barthélémy Toguo, of Cameroon, has covered the walls of a separate space with newspaper pages that have all their words blacked out. In a dark room a hypnotic video by the South Korean Web-art group Young-Hae Chang Heavy Industries uses big, block letters appearing in infectiously punchy rhythms to tell a violent story of three young misfits visiting the border between North and South Korea.

At the Philadelphia Museum of Art politics meets surrealistic fantasy in a two-artist show organized by Shelley R. Langdale, an associate curator of prints and drawings at the museum. In one gallery Óscar Muñoz, of Colombia, shows a quartet of floor-projected videos in which photo-silk-screened pictures of people from newspaper obituaries float on the surface of water in a white sink. As the water runs out, the images become distorted and go down the drain; then the process reverses and the anonymous faces recohere. The videos poignantly symbolize the tragically ephemeral quality of life in some parts of the world.

In a gallery next door a short animated film by the Japanese artist Tabaimo explores psychoanalytic territory. Called “dolefulhouse,” it shows giant hands installing miniature pieces of antique furniture in a dollhouse. Then octopuses start coming in through the windows, tentacles proliferate like vines, and the house fills with water. Normal consciousness is swamped by previously repressed psychic energies.

The longstanding tradition of populist printmaking is updated at the Print Center in a show of 14 artists and collectives organized by the center’s curator of prints and photographs, John Caperton. Eric Avery, a Texas psychiatrist as well as an artist, has wallpapered the lavatory with small, cartoonish prints illustrating how to use male and female condoms. Woodcuts by Sue Coe illustrate and protest against cruelty to animals. A Chicago collective called Temporary Services presents cheaply produced booklets containing miscellaneous information, including one about illegal devices concocted by prison inmates using legal materials. Upstairs, the Philadelphia collective Space 1026 has constructed a yurt using its own printed fabrics within which people may read, converse and lounge.

The upshot of all this is intellectually stimulating but inconclusive. Is printmaking dead, or is it reborn? Is it a meaningful category at all anymore for contemporary artists who revel in mechanically produced imagery of all kinds and fearlessly use and misuse whatever tools are at hand? If you think these questions matter — and there are good reasons to think they do — you need to plan a trip to Philadelphia.

“Philagrafika 2010” runs through April 11 at various galleries and museums across Philadelphia.

philagrafika2010.org

The article taken from here. Published: February 4, 2010

Snapshot at Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic Unconsious

2010-03-15T20:09:00.000-07:00

Happy Hour video and 49 pcs engraving on paper

the detail

Happy Hour video exhibited at
Fischer Gallery, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia

Serigala Militia video

the woodcut

Serigala Militia video exhibited at
Morris Gallery, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art, Philadelphia

All photo taken by Philagrafika Team

"CRASH PROJECT: Image Factory"

2010-03-10T02:52:00.000-08:00

a group exhibition by 20 artists.

Curated by Asmudjo Jono Irianto.

SIGIarts Gallery

13-28 March 2010

Saturday, March 13^th 2010,

Lunch gathering & Artist Talk start at 12 noon until end.

Ade Darmawan

Agan Harahap

Agung Nugroho Widhi

Anang Saptoto

Angki Purbandono

Aqiq AW

Davy Linggar

Deden Hendan Durahman

Dimas Arif Nugroho

Edwin Roseno

Hafiz

Hendry Foundation

Indra Ameng

Indra Leonardi

Jim Allen Abel

Julia Sarisetiati

Mateus Bondan

Muhammad Akbar

Oom Leo

Reza Afisina

Tromarama

Wimo Ambala Bayang

Happy Hour

2010-02-26T18:30:00.001-08:00

Happy Hour
video animation with engraving on paper
49 engraving on paper, music by Panji Prasetyo
(1 min. 56 sec)
2010

Exhibited at
Philagrafika 2010: The Graphic Unconsious
Fischer Gallery, Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art
22 January - 11 April 2010
Philadelphia, USA

Never Ending Resolution

2010-02-11T19:00:00.000-08:00

Never Ending Resolution
315 x 64 x 10 cm
candles
2010

"only time that prevents human live up to expectations"
Tromarama, Semarang 2010

Snapshot @ Halimun the mist, Lawangwangi Art and Science Estate

2010-02-07T18:28:00.000-08:00

being exhibited at
Lawangwangi Art and Science Estate
Jl. Dago Giri no. 99, Warung Caringin-Mekarwangi
Bandung

22 January - 22 February 2010
Opening Hours
Tuesday - Friday 10.00 - 17.00
Saturday & Sunday 12.00- 17.00

Tobacco (adoption series)

2010-01-27T17:28:00.001-08:00

Tobacco (adoption series)
stop motion animation with oil on canvas
video loop, 102 oil on canvas
2010

Psilocybin (adoption series)

2010-01-27T16:56:00.000-08:00

Psilocybin (adoption series)
stop motion animation with acrylic on wood
video loop, 120 acrylic on wood, music by Abi Raditya
2010

Halimun the mist

2010-01-27T01:08:00.000-08:00

Inaugural Exhibition of Lawangwangi

January 22nd 2010 - February 22nd 2010

HALIMUN, the mist

Sebuah refleksi perkembangan seni rupa kontemporer Indonesia

Gemuruh perayaan kapital dan sosial seni rupa kontemporer sejak tiga tahun belakangan ini, menciptakan wajah seni rupa Indonesia sangat dinamis sekaligus menjadi pengalaman baru dalam sejarah perkembangan. Untuk pertama kalinya terjadi kolaborasi berbagai elemen dunia seni dalam memproduksi identitas seni rupa Indonesia, menambah kegairahan dan kedinamisannya. Gravitasi medan sosial-kapital seni rupa saat ini, secara langsung dan tak-langsung menciptakan iklim dan arah perubahan yang mempengaruhi praktek seninya.

Salah satu gejala yang jelas adalah munculnya mannerism, atau suatu bentuk dan gaya artistik yang dianggap paling mapan, terjadi dikalangan para perupa dengan kuatnya pusaran pasar. Suasana ini menciptakan suatu lapisan tanda-tanda yang merabunkan, mengecoh dan mengganggu pengamatan kita terhadap kualitas karya , apakah terhadap totalitas makna, jelajah artistik dan wacana filosofisnya. Suasana ini seperti membentuk lapisan kabut yang menyelubungi suatu tempat- atau dalam istilah sunda; halimun - yang menyelimuti, menyelubungi dan menghalangi pandangan, namun kita masih bisa melihat sesuatu dengan batasan jarak pandang tertentu, tergantung dari tebal dan tipisnya lapisan kabut tersebut. Halimun menjadi metafor untuk menjelaskan gejala medan sosial-kapital seni rupa Indonesia saat ini.

Pameran HALIMUN muncul untuk mengajak kembali melihat perkembangan seni rupa didalam suatu pusaran lapisan nilai. Dari karya-karya 50 perupa Indonesia, baik generasi muda maupun seniornya. Perkembangan secara individual maupun kelompok-kelompok seniman. Ada beberapa lapisan atau bagian besar pengelompokan dalam pameran inagurasi Lawang Wangi ini. Pertama karya-karya dengan komisi khusus yang dipesan oleh Andonowati, sang pemilik Lawang Wangi. Karya - karya perupa seperti Mella jaarsma, Teguh Oestenrik dan juga karya-karya yang site-spesifik untuk merespon ruang dan arsitektur dari galeri.

Kelompok karya para perupa dengan watak realisme baru dan foto-realisme tiba-tiba mendapatkan tempat yang khusus dalam perkembangan terakhir. Kelompok perupa seperti TAXU - Denpasar dan Abstraks - X Bandung yang berawal dari sebuah semangat dan kesadaran perbedaan dari suatu praktek dominan. Begitupun dengan munculnya karya-karya berbasis objek dan medium keramik serta media baru, yang menjadi gejala dalam praktek seni rupa saat ini.

Rifky Effendi
Curator

*curatorial text taken from here

Participating artist:
Yogie Achmad Ginanjar, Cecep M.T., Guntur Timur, Dikdik Sayahdikumullah, Willy Himawan, Radi Arwinda, Wiyoga Muhardanto, Beatrix, Tromarama, Dadan Setiawan, R.E. Hartanto, Tisna Sanjaya, Cinanti ‘kenny’ Johansyah, Prilla Tania, Nurdian Ichsan, Nadia Savitri, Tisa Gracinia, Albert Yonathan, Desziana, Monika Ary Kartika, Hari Cahaya, Herra Pahlasari, Arin Dwihartanto, Tommy A.P., Iman Sapari, Yusuf Ismail, Isa Perkasa, Deden Sambas, Adhya Ranadhireksa, Irman, Faisal Habibi, John Martono, Hilman Hendarsyah, Anggara, Mella Jaarsma (Commissioned), Made Widya Diputra (Commissioned), Kadek Agus Mediana, Suklu, Gde Mahendra Yasa, Ketut Moniarta, Dodit Artawan, Agus Sumiantara, Teguh Ostenrik (Commissioned)

JAKARTA CONTEMPORARY CERAMICS BIENNALE #1

2009-12-28T03:56:00.000-08:00

Ceramic Art: In Between

North Art Space, Ancol , Jakarta
19 December 2009 - 20 January 2010

Curated by: Asmudjo J. Irianto and Rifky Effendi

For further information about the exhibition here

Snapshot @ JAKARTA CONTEMPORARY CERAMICS BIENNALE #1

2009-12-27T23:29:00.000-08:00

The Installation

The Process

Landlord

2009-10-02T01:57:00.000-07:00

soil and sand
180cm diameters
2009

Praxis Space, Lasalle College of Arts, Singapore
1 October - 13 October 2009

This exhibtion was part of Tropical Lab programme
presented by Lasalle College of Arts, Singapore

" it's nice to have a house with a garden in it, rather than a flat with a beautiful carpet "
- Tromarama, Singapore 2009 -

Snapshot at Tropical Lab Singapore

2009-10-02T01:43:00.000-07:00

Tropical Lab Exhibition @ Praxis Space & Project Space
Presented by Lasalle College of Arts, Singapore
1-13 October 2009

Tropical Lab draws together selected student artist from UK, Switzterland, Prague, UAE and Indonesia to examine and present their responses towards nature and culture, urban and the suburbia, traditions and modernity in Singapore.

Retrieval Project : The Process

2009-08-24T22:30:00.000-07:00

The Retrival Project, was done in three different place. Bandung, West Java ; Ubud, Bali ; and Jakarta. It took about six days to complete the project. About 146 people participated, it was a new experience to see how random people react when we ask them to draw, they usually say that they can't draw, but in the end they just can't stop :)

Retrieval Project

2009-08-24T21:59:00.000-07:00

147 mini pillows
2009

Research has shown that people forget things for one of three reasons

They don't get it in the first place.
They had it, but they lost it.
They have it, but they can't find it.

These mistakes reflect a failure in one of the three mental processes necessary for memory:

Acquisition
Storage
Retrieval

Or as we like to call it:

Getting it in.
Keeping it there.
Getting it out!

Retrieval is the process of finding information stored in your memory and bringing into consciousness.

" Throughout this project, we try to provide space for the people we meet to remember their imaginary friends. We ask them to take five minutes out of their busy lives to reflect awhile on these memories or hopes. To depart from logic into imagination." – Tromarama

Life's good

2009-07-26T15:36:00.000-07:00

00:03:09
stop-motion animation with various media
2009

OK VIDEO COMEDY, Jakarta

2009-07-26T12:35:00.000-07:00

OPENING:

Selasa, 28 Juli 2009 / 19.00 wib

Galeri Nasional Indonesia

Jl. Medan Merdeka Timur 14, Jakarta Pusat

FESTIVAL:

29 Juli - 9 Agustus 2009

Jam buka: 10.00 - 20.00

Kurator: Aminudin TH Siregar

PRESS CONFRENCE:

Friday, 24 July 2009 / 15.00 WIB

Galeri Nasional Indonesia

Further information here

A Window to the World, Hiroshima

2009-07-19T00:11:00.000-07:00

Video screening at Hiroshima City Museum of Contemporary Art, Japan
From 18 July 2009 - 13 September 2009

Further information (japanese only) here

Behind the scene 'A' by me

2009-06-26T21:13:00.000-07:00

Comissioned work for 'A' by me

2009-06-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

Stop motion animation with various media
00:05:39
2009

Snapshot at We're All Millionaires, Jakarta

2009-06-25T22:40:00.000-07:00

3000ex

2009-06-12T12:56:00.000-07:00

stop motion animation with wool thread
00:01:41
sound by Duto Hardono
2009

Our next exhibition @ Jakarta

2009-06-04T19:20:00.000-07:00

June 13-27, 2009

Opening Party: June 13th, 7 PM
A.O.D. Art Space Panglima Polim V/38 Jakarta
"We’re All Millionaires" is a group show of contemporary artworks that are to be sold for 1 Million Rupiah. The exhibition concept aims to poke fun at the cultural misconceptions of the term “millionaire”, and address the oddities of art economics and ownership status.

Curated by C&C Projects for A.O.D. Art Space

Participating Artists:

Ahmad Nursalim
Albert Yonathan
Andriew Budiman
Andro M. M. Napitupulu
Annisa Utami
Archer
Arthur Paath
ASTRONAUTBOYS
Carolina Montejo
Christina Phan
Danang Hadi Phe
Darbotz
Dhanny Sanjaya
Farid Rakun
Fauzy Prasetya
Harry Mahardika
Irfan Wahyudi
Julia Sarisetiati
Karna Mustaqim
MEI.collectiv (Jessica Resmond & Jorge Bachman)
Mohamad Haikal Azizi
Muhammad Akbar
M Hendra Permana
Nuri Fatima
R. Yuki Agriardi
Rega Ayundya Putri
Soni Irawan
Tandya Rachmat Sampurna
The Slyndicates
Theresia Agustina Sitompul
Tisa Granicia
Top Changtrakul
Toto Nugroho
Tromarama
Widi Yanto
Yaviz Basalamah
Zulkifi

Artist Wanted - VOTE FOR US

2009-05-22T07:58:00.000-07:00

More info: http://artistwanted.org/tromarama

Snapshot at C Arts Show, Grand Indonesia

2009-04-26T19:31:00.000-07:00

Snapshot at HYBRIDIZATION, North Art Space

2009-04-26T19:06:00.000-07:00

C Arts Show

2009-04-26T04:05:00.000-07:00

Exhibitions on Contemporary Art

April 23 - 26 2009

Lower Ground, East Mall

Grand Indonesia

Jl. MH. Thamrin No. 1

Jakarta

Aspirin (Adoption Series)

2009-04-15T07:56:00.000-07:00

stop motion animation with charcoal on canvas
video loop
2009

behind the scene : aspirin (adoption series)

2009-04-15T07:32:00.000-07:00

HYBRIDIZATION

2009-04-12T07:08:00.000-07:00

INAGURATION OF

NORTH ART SPACE

Pasar Seni Ancol Jl. Lodan Timur No.7
Jakarta 14430 T. 62.21.64710319

HYBRIDIZATION

a group exhibition by

Agus Suwage
Agus Sumiantara
Albert Yonathan
Andy Dewantoro
Arie Dyanto
Davy Linggar
Fx Harsono
Galam Zulkifli
Hanafi
Harris Purnomo
Heri Dono
Indra Leonardi
Irwan Bagja D.
Jompet
Ketut Moniarta
Mahendrayasa
Ngk Ardana
Prilla Tania
Romi Arman
Saftari
Sapto Sugiyo
Soni Irawan
Tromarama
Yani Maryani

curated by Rifky Effendy

on Friday, April 17, 2009 at 6.30 PM

officiated by Dr.Ing.H. Fauzi Bowo

the exhibition current until May 3, 2009 Daily 9 AM - 7 PM

Cross Animate

2009-04-02T00:05:00.000-07:00

(click image for larger view)

Cross Animate

2 April 2009 - 10 May 209

space*c coreana art & culture complex , Seoul, South Korea

participating artist: blu, rastko ciric, bu hua, wiliam kentridge, ito zon+aoki ryoko, simone massi, laura neuvonen, regina pessoa, tromarama, and many more.

for further info in bahasa korea click here

behind the scene Bandung Art Now

2009-01-28T04:16:00.000-08:00

Bandung Art Now, National Gallery, Jakarta

2009-01-21T18:02:00.000-08:00

Bandung Art Now

2009-01-03T12:55:00.000-08:00

January, 7-17 2009

Curated by
Aminudin TH Siregar
Heru Hikayat

Opening
Wednesday, January 7
Galeri Nasional Indonesia
Jl. Merdeka Timur no. 14
Jakarta Pusat
7.30pm

Book Launching
Bandung Art Now
Saturday, January 17
3pm

Organized by
Langgeng Gallery

Adhya Ranadireksa
Albert Yonathan
Andry Moch. (alm)
Ay Tjoe Christine
Budi Adi Nugroho
Cinanti Astria Johansjah
Dikdik Sayahdikumullah
Deden Durahman
Dendy Darman
Duto Hardono
Faisal Habibi
Gusbarlian
J. Ariadhitya Pramuhendra
Mujahidin Nurrahman
Nurdian Ichsan
Prilla Tania
Radi Arwinda
R.E Hartanto
Roumy H. Pesona
R.Yuki Agriardi
Syagini Ratnawulan
Tinton Satrio
Tisa Granicia
TROMARAMA
Wiyoga Muhardanto
Yusuf Ismail

tromarama and friends at unkl347 book launching

2008-12-29T20:51:00.000-08:00

at first we were a bit worried with the projector, it didnt really work like we imagine it to be. but luckily for us the magic came by, and we started playing with our friends.

plain paper + marker + crayon + mini dv + haha!

what a joyfull night! thank you unkl347! thank you amigos!

tromarama plays with their unkle

2008-12-19T03:43:00.000-08:00

AFTER TEN YEARS, FRIENDS CALL US UNKLE
BOOK LAUNCHING
an exhibition of UNKL347’s work design book

Saturday, December 27th 2008
at Gedung FBB
JL. Asia Afrika No. 90 Bandung

7 pm till 10 pm

Live Visual Installation by:
Alami_Cworkshope 4 unkl
Chainsmokin'bastard (UVG/Bio Sampler)
LMS vs Arbwork
Tromarama

After party by Black Flake
“tonight's disco-to-die-for”

start from 10 pm till 2 am

Dj's :
Adit RNRM
Adi Whatnot
DxxxT
Egga & Lxxxtroneek
Jimmy Heartache
Kulki
Sutuq
Zeke Khaseli & Aji Denials

There will be limited giveaways from your uncles.
So shine up, slick up, dress up neat and don’t be late!

REFRESH: new strategies in Indonesian contemporary art , Valentine Willie Fine Arts Singapore

2008-10-20T22:40:00.000-07:00

An article of the exhibition can be read here,

posted by Ng Yi-Sheng

European Film Festival: Europe on Screen 2008

2008-10-20T11:26:00.000-07:00

Balonku Screening Schedule:

1. GOETHEHAUS

Goethe-Institut Jakarta
Pusat Kebudayaan Jerman Jakarta
Jl. Sam Ratulangi 9-15
Jakarta 10350, Indonesien
Saturday, 25 October 2008, 17:00

2. CCF JAKARTA / Pusat Kebudayaan Prancis
Jalan Salemba Raya 25, Jakarta 10440

Saturday, 25 October 2008, 17:00

more info here

REFRESH : New Strategies in Indonesian Contemporary Art at Valentine Willie Fine Art Singapore

2008-10-19T10:30:00.000-07:00

The process

Zsa Zsa Zsu instalation

ting* instalation

The Gallery

Our next exhibition

2008-10-10T07:12:00.001-07:00

Tromarama: Serigala Militia

2008-09-28T23:48:00.000-07:00

by Joselina Cruz

Music videos as an influential aesthetic form were embraced by cultural institutions as early as the late 1980s. Spawned by MTV’s coming of age, music video has come to cross over into art with work by artists such as Laurie Anderson and Pipilotti Rist. In 2003, Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon was invited by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, alongside Anderson and Rist, to curate a selection of music videos from between 1965 to 1985 [1]. Such precedents have allowed younger artists to experiment with the form and come up with their own formulations.

Formed in 2004, Tromarama is a tightly knit group of young artists coming from design backgrounds, who are now actively using music videos as a site for exploring various media. By employing the stop motion technique in animation, the group has produced three music videos for bands in a range of genres (indie, jazz and thrash metal). Tromarama’s videos are characterised by their use of unlikely materials and techniques alongside the language and media of high technology. In a recent video made for the indie band RNRM, they used buttons, sequins and colourful beads to animate the band. The result - a rich and shimmering moving canvas. All their music videos are marked by the implicit monotony necessary to the craft and the method of stop motion.

The video Serigala Militia (2005-2006) was produced for a thrash metal band from Jakarta, Seringai (which means ‘grin’ in Bahasa Indonesia). Their music, heavy, noisy and gritty, is a subgenre of heavy metal music. Thrash metal lyrics are often directed to social issues coupled with an attitude of aggression. Tromarama’s video for Seringai utilised 450 plywood boards to create a woodcut animation. The rough grain of the wood and that of the etching’s unevenness associated with the metal group’s music typified by their use of high-speed guitar riffing. The video (the song is dedicated to Seringai’s fans) has an almost nostalgic quality with its sepia tone, despite the bluntness of the music. The perfectly smooth transitions belie the work behind the images. In the Biennale, these boards are installed together for the first time, and the whole room becomes the storyboard for the video. Tromarama recognise that their work has a continuity outside the space of the monitor and the video installation becomes the context wherein the video is to be seen and experienced. The clandestine tricks of technology no longer hide the rough movements in between transitions, the mistakes are there in full view. Here too, however, we can explore the work frame by frame, present at the moment when music, craft and technology are bound together in what has now become a commonplace feature of contemporary culture - the music video.

Note:

Kathryn Weir, ‘Jump Cut: Music Video Aesthetics’ in Video Hits: Art & Music Video exhibition catalogue, Queensland Art Gallery, 2004, page 38.

Joselina Cruz
Independent curator and writer, working between Manila and Singapore. Formerly curator at the Singapore Art Museum and the Lopez Museum in Manila. Co-curator of the 2nd Singapore Biennale 2008.

(Courtesy of the Singapore Biennale 2008. Text published in the event's guide.)

taken from universes in universe

A decade of Selasar Sunaryo: Questioning art(ist)

2008-09-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

Features - September 21, 2008

Aminuddin Th Siregar, Contributor, Bandung

The Selasar Sunaryo Art Space (SSAS) in Bandung marked a decade of presence in the country's art scene last week. The anniversary, celebrated in a low-key ceremony, leaves a lingering question: Where is the gallery heading?

SSAS celebrated with an exhibition, "Redefining Art", involving 33 artists and two artist groups as well as the launching of an accompanying monograph, A Decade of Dedication: Ten Years Revisited.

Journalist and author Goenawan Mohammad opened the exhibition on Sept. 5. The schedule of events proceeded informally and peacefully in stark contrast to the SSAS' opening ceremony back in 1998.

The SSAS, founded by veteran artist Sunaryo, was officially established under great emotional tension with a dash of dramatic performance art, for the event was intertwined with the ongoing social and political upheavals of that year. During the opening ceremony, Sunaryo covered all his works set out for display at the gallery, symbolizing his concern for the country's plight, and literally washed his hands as a symbol of his attempts to detach himself from the misery his compatriots faced.

In short, the SSAS has served as a personal arena in which Sunaryo could reflect and express his concern over the country's political and social situation. The SSAS has also become known as the place to showcase images of a vulnerable country where democracy remains a distant dream. At the same time, the gallery offers a response to the country's stalling infrastructure development.

The very same year, 1998, saw a critical, tearful phase for the country as it headed toward a new democracy.

From the current exhibition title, "Redefining Art", it is easy to infer the substance being explored. But it seems this exhibition is also being used to measure how artists comprehend their artistic efforts. Though the exhibition catalogues are full of artists' verbose explanations of what they understand art to be, their lengthy opinions convey nothing but one common problem faced by artists nowadays. How could that happen?

We all know the effect of the current art market -- how art debates on the brink of the most crucial, problematic situation in history, questioning what is art and what is not.

Art critics may say we are too mired in the terminology of art, but this simple question is hard to answer or may never be answered. While artists and some art critics are busy seeking answers, the art market has come up with a modest definition of art. Art is a commodity. That's it.

This distorted view of art then replicates, touching other professions in the art world: curators, critics, collectors, dealers, gallery owners, scholars and even the artists themselves. "Redefining Art" then is a timely reflection to challenge the commoditizing of art and the artists producing it, in the face of artists' eroding commitment to social purpose, thematic innovation, media explorations, experimental works and much more.

Out of dozens of prominent artists taking part in the exhibition, including Agus Suwage, Handiwirman, Heri Dono, Rudi Mantovani, Tisna Sanjaya and Yunizar, it seems only the works of Asmudjo J. Irianto, Sunaryo, the Tromarama group and Yusuf Ismail are outstanding. In his fiberglass and paint Melting, Sunaryo presents a melted white frame whose drippings nearly touch the floor. He is sending a critical message about how the art market works in the country.

Famous for his satirical works, Asmudjo, also widely known as a curator, shows his latest work Alakazam: Seni Rupa Kontemporer!. In this work, a portrait of a mini Asmudjo gazes at a piece of art hanging on a gallery wall. With Alakazam, Asmudjo strikes right to the heart of the problem: art exhibition and its contribution to the people.

Yusuf Ismail's Call Now is an interactive video. The screen offers a phone number. If you call the number, automatically another visual is displayed.

The work is not pretentious, it merely demonstrates how technology can be used in a work of art. But it also reflects the era in which younger artists like Yusuf Ismail live. With new art exploiting digital media, Yusuf, if he is consistent and loyal to what he has been doing, can compensate for the scarcity of artists specializing in this media. While his peers are busy pleasing the art market with their use of conventional media, Yusuf takes new media art seriously and is willing to go the extra mile to explore its beauty.

Tromarama is a group of three artists; Herbert Hans. Febie Babyrose and Ruddy Alexander Hatumena, all graduates of he Bandung Institute of Technology. This group showcases Ting*, created using stop motion animation. Though a low-tech method, the visual results are astonishing. Tromarama plays with hundreds of pieces of ceramic tableware, arranging them so they move and tell stories.

The video is screened on the corner wall of the SSAS, almost in obscurity, but the ingenious placement manages to draw a bigger crowd.

Nevertheless, the exhibition's theme and the works displayed are not well correlated, which means the participating artists did not fully grasp the theme. This is regrettable for the artists missed their chance to propose works that could have pushed the boundaries between art and not-art.

The artists tend to resort to a common medium which has been uncontestedly accepted as art. Many of the works are conceptually staid, offering nothing new. One decade on for SSAS, the gallery has done much, spearheading the country's art scene and advocating discourse on contemporary art here. Alas, its long and provocative presence are celebrated with a distracting desire to define art. On the contrary, I think it is time to define what an artist is -- what role do they take when their compatriots are facing messy political and social dilemmas like today? Let's redefine artists.

The writer is a lecturer at the Faculty of Art and Design, Bandung Institute of Technology

A Decade of Dedication: Ten Years Revisited
Exhibition: 5 Sept - 5 Oct 2008
Selasar Sunaryo Art Space
Jl. Bukit Pakar Timur No 100, Bandung
Email: selasar@bdg.centrin.net.id
www.selasarsunaryo.com

taken from thejakartapost

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