In ARKIPEL 2019 - bromocorah, International Competition

Spatial Memory in the Mechanical Bodies
Memori Spasial Dalam Tubuh Mekanis

Host: Syaiful Anwar

Thursday, August 22, 2019 | 19:00 | GoetheHaus

Salah satu contoh ironi yang paling pahit adalah bagaimana sejarah akan berulang. Dalam perkembangan dokumenter, kehadiran tubuh dan ruang sebagai refleksi atas penyimpanan peristiwa dan gagasan di waktu lampau adalah moda usaha artistik dalam menawarkan dan memaknai kembali sejarah primordial dari subjek-subjek latarnya. Kehadirannya kerap kali menjadi representasi aktual dalam menarasikan kisah; susunannya memungkinkan munculnya peluang tafsir dan dialog baru sesuai bacaan kita hari ini. Usaha untuk mendapatkan tangkapan mekanis di setiap bidikan, yang kemudian disusun di atas bangunan realitas, membuat mereka istimewa bagi proses pendedahan realitas itu sendiri. Permainan dan persilangan antara representasi subjek-objek dan si perekam menjadi ikatan biologis dari realitas yang terbekukan dalam bingkaian mekanis itu, demi menunjukkan kebenaran filemisnya.

Dua filem dalam kuratorial ini, Come to Me, Paradise dan Last Night I Saw You Smiling, mencoba melihat peluang-peluang tersebut. Bagaimana makna-makna terselubung di dalam jalinan narasi faktual mengimajinasikan ruang baru kepada publik, bahwa, yang ada hanyalah kebenaran filemis.

Come to Me, Paradise menangkap dan menyusun isu pergulatan kemanusiaan dari ekspresi tubuh-tubuh para buruh migran yang menjadi pembantu rumah tangga dalam menghadapi situasi sosialnya. Sutradara juga cukup jeli melibatkan partisipasi dari subjek-subjek filem, yaitu dengan mengumpulkan rekaman ponsel pribadi para buruh. Rekaman-rekaman personal itu disertakan ke dalam filem sebagai cara untuk melihat secara alamiah dialog antara kamera dan subjek. Observasi dengan pendekatan partisipatoris tersebut memungkinkan sutradara untuk membongkar perspektif nonauteur. Sementara itu, bidikan-bidikan dari kamera drone menjadi cara untuk melihat ruang sosial yang melingkungi tubuh-tubuh migran. Pengelolaan moda artistik inilah yang menjadi refleksi timbal-balik dari situasi sosial yang mereka hadapi; sebuah penyusunan afirmatif mengenai suatu proses yang berlawanan.

“My solitude is the same as the other women because all the videos they make are forever stored in my cache”
“Once transmission back home is completed, they still live inside me”
(Teks dari filem, Come To Me, Paradise)

Sejalan dengan filem pertama, sutradara Last Night I Saw You Smiling menyuguhkan narasi dari representasi citra biologis dan figurasi ruang. Kamera menjadi saksi langsung detik-detik akhir dari pembongkaran tempat tinggal bersejarah, serta peristiwa relokasi para penghuninya. Filem ini menghadirkan bidikan-bidikan detail yang secara cermat mengobservasi situasi dan aktivitas sosial di lingkungan tersebut. Contohnya, ialah di awal filem, saat kamera membidik lorong panjang dan kegelapan gedung ketika anak-anak bermain. Juga adegan setelahnya, saat seorang pejabat pemerintahan memberi tahu setiap penghuni tentang prosedur keuangan mereka sambil mengawasi proses relokasi tersebut. Bidikan berlanjut kepada para penghuni lain yang terlibat dalam obrolan.

 

Dengan sadar, sutradara menempatkan sang juru rekam suara ke dalam bingkai kamera, mengikuti pejabat tersebut saat melakukan pendataan warga yang akan dipindahkan. Kejelian dalam membangun narasi ini juga akan kita lihat lewat lapuknya sistem dan infrastruktur tersebut.

Melalui bingkaian lain, misalnya obrolan-obrolan antar-penghuni, baik para senior yang termangu mengingat bagaimana bangunan itu mengalami masa kediktatoran Khmer Merah di waktu silam sebagai pangalaman alamiah, pun penghuni dari generasi selanjutnya yang sibuk berkemas. Sambil berkemas untuk pindah, gestur-gestur tubuh para pencerita ini mengalami rasa kecemasan tentang generasi yang telah kehilangan sebagian dari akar mereka— rumah mereka dan perasaan aman mereka. Hal ini tergambarkan juga tatkala ada sisipan gambar yang menyelami masa-masa lalu, sutradara menghadirkannya lewat bidikan ke foto-foto lama, juga lagu-lagu pop lawas yang meraung dari apartemen yang tersekat oleh tembok-tembok yang mulai rapuh. Ini bukan hanya sekadar perasaan nostalgia, juga bukan semata perasaan akan kehilangan akar diri, melainkan rasa cemas para penghuni ketika harus berdamai kembali di masa depan, masa yang juga terbingkai dengan rapuh dalam tiap bidikan mekanis filem ini.

One of the most bitter examples of irony is how history will repeat itself. In documentary development, the presence of the body and space, as reflections of the retention of past events and ideas, is a mode of artistic endeavour in offering and redefining the primordial history of its background subjects. Its presence often constitutes an actual representation in narrating a story; its structure allows the emergence of new interpretations and dialogue opportunities compatible to our reading today. The effort to get a mechanical capture in every shot, which is then arranged on the construction of reality, makes them special for the process of dissecting the reality itself. The play and the cross between the subjective-objective representation and the recorder merge like a biological bond of the reality that is affirmed in the mechanical frame, in order to show its cinematic truth.

Two films in this curatorial, Come to Me, Paradise and Last Night I Saw You Smiling, seek to address these opportunities. How the meanings which are veiled in the fabric of factual narratives give imagination of new expanse to the public, that is, what exists is only the of cinematic truth.

The first film captured and constructed the issue of the struggle for humanity from the expressions of the bodies of migrant workers who became housemaids in dealing with their social situation. The director is also quite keen to involve the participation of film subjects by collecting personal cell phone records of the workers. Such personal recordings were included in the film as a way to naturally see the dialogue between the camera and the subject. The observation with a participatory approach allows the director to reveal the non-auteur perspective. Meanwhile, shots from drone cameras were a way to see the social space that surrounds migrant bodies. This management of this artistic mode is a reciprocal reflection of the social situation they face; it’s an affirmative arrangement of an opposing process.

“My solitude is the same as the other women because all the videos they make are forever stored in my cache”
“Once transmission back home is completed, they still live inside me”
(Dialog excerpt from Come To Me, Paradise)

In line with the first film, the director of Last Night I Saw You Smiling presents a narrative of the representation of biological images and figurations of space. The camera bears witness directly to the last seconds of the demolition of historic residences, as well as the relocation of its residents. This film presents detailed shots that carefully observe the situation and social activities in the environment. For example, at the beginning of the film, when the camera was aiming at the long hallway and the darkness of the building while the children were playing. Also, the following scene, when a government official notifies every occupant of their financial procedures while overseeing the relocation process. The shot continued to the other residents involved in the conversation.

Consciously, the director puts the sound recordist into the camera frame, following the government official during the data collection process of the residents who will be moved. Carefulness in developing this narrative will also be seen through the obsolescence of the system and infrastructure.

Through other framings, for example, is the inter-residents conversation, that is both the senior residents who were stunned to remember how the building experienced the Khmer Rouge dictatorship in the past as a natural experience and the junior residents of subsequent generations who were busy packing. While packing to move, the body’s gestures of the narrators experience a sense of anxiety about the generation that has lost some of their roots—their homes and their feelings of security. It was also illustrated in some images remembering the past. The camera captured the old portraits, while the old pop songs sound from the apartment covered by the broken walls. It is not just a feeling of nostalgia, it is also not just a feeling of losing one’s roots, but of the anxiety of the inhabitants when they have to reconcile in the future, a time that is also fragilely framed in each mechanical shot of this film.

Film List

Lumapit Sa Akin, Paraiso

Filmmaker Stephanie Comilang (Canada)
International Title  Come to Me, Paradise
Country of Production  Canada
Language  Tagalog, English
Subtitle  English

26 min, stereo, HD, color, 2017

Potret tentang kehidupan koloni para pekerja wanita rumah tangga Filipina yang tinggal di Hong Kong. Melalui eksperimentasi gambar dan suara, narasi filem menggabungkan peristiwa dokumenter dan fiksi ilmiah. Bingkaian kamera drone berperan menjadi narator sekaligus momok, yaitu sebagai perantara penyampai pesan digital tentang eksistensi aktivitas keseharian para pekerja wanita tersebut yang tersimpan di dalam video ponsel untuk disampaikan ke rumah-rumah asal mereka. Berkumpul di setiap hari Minggu, hari yang menjadi ritual membuat pesan bagi mereka dan bersosialisasi antar koloni di ruang publik. Mulai dari bermeditasi, berbincang, memanjakan diri hingga membuat ruang-ruang baru di kolong-kolong tingginya bangunan megah gedung-gedung di Hong Kong dilakukan, hanya sekedar untuk mengingatkan kembali akan identitasnya.

A portrait of the life of Filipino women domestic workers who live in Hong Kong. Through the image and sound experiment, the film narrative brings together documentary events and science fiction. The frame of drone camera acts as a narrator but a specter as well, that is a medium to deliver digital messages of the existence of those workers’ daily activities stored in the cellphone video, to be delivered to their origin homes. They are gathering every Sunday, a day that becomes a ritual of making messages for them and of socializing among the colonies in public space — starting from meditating, chatting, pampering oneself up to creating new spaces underneath the height of Hong Kong’s buildings, only to remind them of their own identity.

Stephanie Comilang adalah seniman yang tinggal dan bekerja antara Toronto dan Berlin. Dia menerima BFA dari Ontario College of Art & Design. Karya-karya berbasis dokumenternya menciptakan narasi yang mencoba menelaah bagaimana pemahaman kita tentang mobilitas, modal dan tenaga kerja dalam skala global dibentuk melalui berbagai faktor budaya dan sosial. Karyanya telah ditampilkan di Ghost: 2561 Bangkok Video & Performance Triennale, S.A.L.T.S Basel, UCLA, International Film Festival Rotterdam, dan Asia Art Archive di Amerika, New York.

Stephanie Comilang is an artist living and working between Toronto and Berlin. She received her BFA from Ontario College of Art & Design. Her documentary-based works create narratives that look at how our understandings of mobility, capital and labor on a global scale are shaped through various cultural and social factors. Her work has been shown at Ghost : 2561 Bangkok Video & Performance Triennale, S.A.L.T.S Basel, UCLA, International Film Festival Rotterdam, and Asia Art Archive in America, New York.

Yub Menh Bong Keunh Oun Nho Nhim

Filmmaker Kavich Neang (Cambodia)
International Title  Last Night I Saw You Smiling
Country of Production  Cambodia
Language  Khmer
Subtitle  English

78 min, DCP, Dolby 5.1, color, 2018

Rekaman fisik terakhir si pembuat tentang situs huniannya di hari-hari terakhirnya — Gedung Putih Phnom Penh. Ia merupakan hunian petakan bagi ratusan keluarga dan menjadi arus budaya karena kepadatan komunitasnya. Melalui obrolan dengan penduduk senior dan ayahnya, pembuat filem menghadirkan cerita-cerita perjalanan dan peristiwa bersejarah di Kamboja yang melekat pada tiap tembok Gedung Putih. Sekarang, tembok itu rapuh dan roboh, seiring dengan bunyi mesin-mesin penghancur, dan para penghuni lama harus segera pindah. Keintiman terhadap bangunan yang telah menjadi akar bagi para penghuni untuk mengenal dirinya, kini berubah menjadi kecemasan dan kehilangan seiring dengan pertanyaan tentang bagaimana cara ‘berdamai‘ dengan masa depan.

The last physical recordings from the filmmaker regarding the final days of his home – Phnom Penh White House. It was home for hundreds of families and a cultural current due to its dense community. Through conversations with senior residents and his father, the filmmaker brings forth stories of historical journeys and events in Cambodia, embedded in every White House’s walls. Now, those walls are fragile and will collapse, as the sounds of crusher machine came while the residents must move away. Intimacy toward the building that has become root of its resident has become an anxiety and loss, as the question on how to ‘make peace’ with the future rises.

Kavich Neang (1987, Kamboja) mempelajari Musik dan Tari sebelum lulus dari studi Desain pada tahun 2013. Pada tahun 2010, ia menyutradarai filem pendek pertamanya, A Scale Boy, sebagai bagian dari lokakarya filem dokumenter yang dipimpin oleh sutradara Rithy Panh. Pada tahun 2014, ia ikut mendirikan perusahaan produksi independen bernama Anti-Archive. Fiksi pendek ketiganya, New Land Broken Road (2018), adalah bagian dari omnibus Asia Tenggara yang ditayangkan perdana di Singapura.

Kavich Neang (1987, Cambodia) studied Music and Dance before graduating in Design in 2013. In 2010, he directed his first short film, A Scale Boy, as part of a documentary film workshop led by filmmaker Rithy Panh. In 2014, he co-founded the independent production company Anti-Archive. His third short fiction, New Land Broken Road (2018), is part of a Southeast Asian omnibus which premiered in Singapore.

About the Host

Syaiful Anwar (Lahir di Jakarta, 1983) adalah seorang pembuat filem dan penata kamera. Golden Memories (2018) merupakan filem fitur keempatnya. Sebelumnya ia menyelesaikan Dongeng Rangkas (2011), Elesan deq a Tutuq (2013), dan Harimau Minahasa (2015). Ia juga banyak terlibat sebagai penata kamera di dalam filem-filem fitur produksi Forum Lenteng, seperti Naga yang Berjalan di Atas Air (2012), Anak Sabiran Di Balik Cahaya Gemerlapan (Sang Arsip) (2013), Marah di Bumi Lambu (2014), dan This Is My Home, Come the Sleeping (2019).

Syaiful Anwar adalah salah satu anggota tim selektor ARKIPEL bromocorah.

Syaiful Anwar (Born in Jakarta, 1983) is a filmmaker and cinematographer. Syaiful Anwar (Jakarta, 1983). A filmmaker, has made three feature documentary before Golden Memories: Dongeng Rangkas (2011), Elesan deq a Tutuq (2013), and Harimau Minahasa (2015). He was also cinematographer in many Forum Lenteng feature documentary such as Naga yang Berjalan di Atas Air (2012), Anak Sabiran Di Balik Cahaya Gemerlapan (Sang Arsip) (2013), Marah di Bumi Lambu (2014), and This Is My Home, Come the Sleeping (2019).

Syaiful Anwar is one of the selector members of the ARKIPEL bromocorah.

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