The Tech-Poetry of Moving Image: in “Between”, “Relating”, and “Use”
Puisi Teknologi Gambar Bergerak: di “Antara”, “Saling”, dan “Pakai”
Host: Pingkan Polla
November 28th – December 4th, 2021 | festival.arkipel.org
Saturday, December 4th, 2021 | 13:00 | Forum Lenteng
Menurut legenda, saat pertama kali representasi kereta yang bergerak ke arah kamera diproyeksikan, gambar bergerak tersebut berhasil memberikan efek kejut, ketakutan, bahkan teror kepada sekumpulan orang yang melihatnya.[1] Penonton dalam sekejap ditawarkan oleh kekuatan sugestif gambar bergerak yang mengacaukan ingatan mereka dengan kenyataan dan representasi. Terlepas dari benar atau tidaknya mitos yang dipercayai dibuat sebagai agen pemasaran pemutaran filem produksi Lumiere Bersaudara, hal ini menunjukkan bahwa pada masa awal kemunculannya, filem dianggap memiliki kekuatan yang menakjubkan melalui ilusi yang diciptakan oleh gambar bergerak.
Dari pabrik Lumiere, filem kemudian dibawa ke benua lainnya, mengikuti jalur penaklukan tanah koloni. Filem menjadi bagian dari teknologi modern yang dipakai oleh subjek mahakuasa untuk merekam kultur yang di dalamnya terdiri dari ingatan-ingatan objek yang selamat dari aksi subjek yang destruktif. Rekaman diproses secara kimiawi dan membentuk representasi ingatan objek yang tersisa. Kemudian ia diinstitusikan, ditayangkan kembali atas nama pengetahuan peradaban yang terus-menerus dirawat oleh rezim kultural agar menjadi ingatan mengenai penaklukan.
Suatu hari, 130 tahun kemudian sejak kereta Lumiere pertama kali lewat di antara sorotan cahaya, ingatan atas rezim modernisme diproduksi ulang lewat gawai yang tersimpan di kantong-kantong sebagai konsekuensi dari keberjarakan dengan akses pengetahuan yang telah terkeruk. Sebuah karya seni video Jati Goes to Rotterdam oleh Otty Widasari menunjukkan bagaimana seniman merespons sebuah arsip filem produksi pemerintah Hindia-Belanda yang pada saat itu direkam dengan kamera film seluloid. Filem tersebut, yang telah dipresentasikan secara digital, ditampilkan di Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam. Si seniman, dengan kamera ponselnya, merekam ulang arsip tersebut dan menghasilkan replikasi baru. Ia kemudian menayangkan video rekamannya pada layar komputer yang diletakkan di beberapa sudut kota Rotterdam, hingga kembali ke lokasi awal tempat arsip filem kolonial dibuat, yaitu di hutan Jati di Pulau Jawa.
Aksi replikasi tersebut memunculkan lapisan-lapisan teknologi hari ini atas sebuah ingatan. Karya video tersebut, secara tidak langsung, mengubah medium teknologi gambar bergerak dan narasinya. Filem, yang awalnya merupakan hasil prosesi kimiawi, berubah menjadi gambar bergerak yang dihasilkan dari kumpulan jutaan pixel. Ingatan tentang kejamnya peradaban juga berubah menjadi ingatan atas lapisan kerja media. Narasinya pelan-pelan berubah. Ia tidak lagi membicarakan rezim kolonialisme yang menggunakan produk modern, melainkan rezim representasi yang diceritakan dengan langgam seni rupa sebagai diksi teknologis yang performatif.
Gambar bergerak, setelah melalui perjalanan panjang, tidak kehilangan kekuatan ilusinya. Secara turun-temurun ia mengalami penyempurnaan medium yang makin dekat dengan keseharian. Ia dikembangkan dengan cara mereplikasi kenyataan secara terus-menerus. Kenyataan yang kemudian terdeformasi tersebut, akhirnya terurai menjadi lapisan-lapisan yang membentuk sebuah rezim representasi. Di bawah rezim representasi, gambar bergerak makin menunjukkan khitahnya sebagai agen myth-form-action yang memuslihatkan dan mengejar realitas representasi yang bebas dikonsumsi dan dimaknai, tergantung pengetahuan subjek dan objeknya.
Pada kedelapan filem dalam kuratorial ini, kita melihat trajektori teknologi gambar bergerak yang menegaskan ingatan mengenai sejarah kekuasaan peradaban Barat, rantai konsumsi, puisi kontemporer, bahasa visual yang performatif, dan aksi pembesaran yang mengembalikan representasi visual kepada khitah digital. Trajektori ini menunjukkan rezim representasi yang selalu terikat pada sejarah kejamnya peradaban—bahwa representasi yang dikonsumsi adalah bentuk pemujaan yang terjadi dalam hubungan subjek dan objek. Subjek dan objek selalu didorong oleh rezim representasi untuk berhubungan dengan cara “antara”, “saling”, dan “pakai”. Posisinya relatif. Hubungan itu bisa menjadi destruktif atau kompromis, tergantung pada lokasi tempat sebuah narasi beserta ingatan lahir dan berkembang.
[1] Hellmuth Karasek dalam artikelnya yang dimuat di majalah terbitan Jerman Der Spiegel pada 26 Desember 1994 edisi ke-52, halaman 154, yang mengatakan “Yes, it caused fear, terror, even panic.”.
According to legend, the first time the representation of a train moving towards the camera was projected, the moving image succeeded in giving a shock, fear, and even terror effects to a group of people who saw it.[1] The audience instantly experienced the suggestive power of moving images that confused their memories of reality and representations. Regardless of whether or not the myth was created as a marketing strategy for the Lumiere Brothers’ film screening, this shows that in its early days, cinema was considered to have an amazing illusory power created by moving images.
From the Lumiere factory, cinema was then carried to other continents, following the colonizer’s path of conquering the colony’s lands. Cinema was part of the modern technology used by the mighty subjects to record a culture in which the memories of objects that have survived the destructive actions of those subjects. The recordings were chemically processed, and they formed a representation of memory of the remaining objects. Then they were instituted, re-broadcast in the name of the knowledge of civilization, which was relentlessly promoted as a memory of conquest by the cultural regime.
130 years after the train in Lumiere’s film first passed through the beams of light, memories of the modernist regime were reproduced through gadgets stored in pockets. This is a consequence of the gap in accessing the knowledge that has been taken away. A video artwork titled Jati Goes to Rotterdam by Otty Widasari shows how the artist responds to the archival footage produced by the Dutch East Indies government with celluloid cameras. The digitalized footage was shown at the Eye Filmmuseum, Amsterdam. The artist, with her cellphone camera, re-recorded the archival footage and produced a new replica. She then displayed the video recording on computer screens in several places, from the corners of the city of Rotterdam to the original location of the footage, namely the teak forest on the island of Java.
The act of replication brings out today’s technological layers of memory. Widasari’s video work, indirectly, changes the medium of moving image technology and its narrative. A film, which was originally the result of a chemical procession, turned into a moving image resulting from a collection of millions of pixels. Memories of the cruelty of civilization also turn into memories of the working layer of the media. The narrative slowly changes. It no longer talks about a colonialist regime that uses modern products, but about a representation regime. In visual arts, the latter is described as a performative technological articulation.
The moving image, after a long journey, does not lose its illusory power. From generation to generation, the medium has become much more refined and closer to daily life. It is developed by continually replicating reality. This deformed reality finally breaks down into layers that form a representation regime. Under the representation regime, moving images increasingly show their character as a myth-form-action agency that shows and pursues the reality of representation that is free to consume and interpret, depending on the knowledge of the subject and the object.
In the eight films in this curatorial, we see the trajectory of moving image technology that emphasizes the memory of the history of power of Western civilization, the chain of consumption, contemporary poetry, visual performative language, and enlargement actions that return visual representations to digital context. This trajectory shows a representation regime that is always tied to the cruel history of civilization — that the representation consumed is a form of worship that occurs in the subject-object relationship. Subjects and objects are always encouraged by the regime of representation to relate to the ways of “between”, “relating”, and “use”. Relative positioning. The correlation can be destructive or compromising, depending on the location in which a narrative and memories are born and developed
[1] Hellmuth Karasek dalam artikelnya yang dimuat di majalah terbitan Jerman Der Spiegel pada 26 Desember 1994 edisi ke-52, halaman 154, yang mengatakan “Yes, it caused fear, terror, even panic.”.
Film List
vulture
Filmmaker Phillip Hoffman (Canada)
International Title vulture
Country of Production Canada
Language English
Subtitle English
57 min, stereo, 16 mm processed to digital, color & B/W, 2019
Penegasan ambiguitas medium seni; gambar diam yang digerakkan atau gambar bergerak yang dibekukan.
An affirmation to the ambiguity of the art medium; animation of still image or stylization of moving image.
Philip Hoffman (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario) menyelesaikan pendidikan formal yang mencakup Diploma Seni Media di Kolese Sheridan dan Sarjana Seni Sastra di Universitas Wilfrid Laurier. Dia tertarik dengan pertanyaan tentang realitas dalam fotografi dan sinema. Saat ini, ia mengajar di Departemen Seni Sinema dan Media, Universitas York.
Philip Hoffman (Kitchener-Waterloo, Ontario) completed formal education which includes a Diploma in Media Arts at Sheridan College and a Bachelor of Arts in Literature at Wilfrid Laurier University. He is intrigued by questions of reality in photography and cinema. Currently, he teaches in the Cinema and Media Arts Department, York University.
Illusive Echoes
Filmmaker Zlatko Ćosić (USA)
International Title Illusive Echoes
Country of Production USA
Language –
Subtitle –
10 min, stereo, HD, color, 2019
Kerja teknologis yang memproduksi dan mereplikasi gema-gema warna sebagai perpanjangan mata untuk melihat lapisan-lapisan visual yang tak tercapai oleh mata.
Technological work that produces and replicates color echoes as an extension of the eye to see visual layers that the eye cannot reach.
Zlatko Ćosić (Banja Luka, Yugoslavia) adalah seniman video yang bekerja di berbagai media, termasuk filem pendek, instalasi video, proyeksi teater, dan pertunjukan audio-visual langsung. Karya-karyanya berkaitan dengan masalah identitas, imigrasi, dan kompleksitas hidup di lingkungan budaya yang asing. Karyanya telah dipamerkan di berbagai negara.
Zlatko Ćosić (Banja Luka, Yugoslavia) is a video artist who works in various media, including short films, video installations, theater projections, and live audio-visual performances. His works relate to issues of identity, immigration, and the complexities of living in unfamiliar cultural environments. His works have been shown in numerous countries.
Toranj
Filmmaker Silvestar Kolbas (Croatia)
International Title TheTower
Country of Production Croatia
Language –
Subtitle –
11 min 49 sec, stereo, HD, color, 2019
Trayektori digital yang mengalami pembesaran berkali-kali untuk mengembalikan representasi visual kepada khitah digital, yaitu piksel.
A digital trajectory that has been enlarged many times to return the visual representation to be the digital essence, that is pixel.
Silvestar Kolbas (1956, Kroasia) adalah seorang sinematografer, fotografer, dan sutradara filem. Ia lulus dari jurusan Film dan Kamera TV pada tahun 1982 dari Akademi Seni Drama di Zagreb. Kini ia pun mengajar di sekolah yang sama. Karya-karyanya juga kerap merefleksikan sifat media visual.
Silvestar Kolbas (1956, Croatia) is a cinematographer, photographer, and film director. He graduated in Film and TV Camera in 1982 from the Academy of Dramatic Art in Zagreb. Today he is a full-time professor at the same school too. His works often also reflect on the nature of visual media.
Murmur
Filmmaker Jan Locus, Stijn Demeulenaere (Belgium)
International Title Murmur
Country of Production Belgium
Language –
Subtitle –
10 min 21 sec, stereo, HD, B/W, 2019
Puisi Kedatangan Kereta Lumiere kontemporer.
Poetry of the contemporary Lumiere’s Arrival of The Train.
Jan Locus tinggal di Brussel. Proyek jangka Panjang yang dikerjakan fotografer dan pembuat file mini mempelajari kompleksitas masalah sosial-politik di dunia. Buku fotografinya antara lain Mongolia, De Bewegende Stad, dan Devoted. Karya-karyanya telah banyak ditampilkan dalam berbagai festival internasional.
Jan Locus lives in Brussels. The long-term projects of the photographer and filmmaker Jan Locus study the complexity of worldwide, socio-political issues. His photography books include Mongolia, De Bewegende Stad, and Devoted. His works have been shown in numerous international festivals.
Stijn Demeulenaere adalah sound artist dan field recordist. Ia membuat karya-karya instalasi, soundscape, performans, dan membuat desain suara untuk tari dan teater. Stijn meneliti hubungan antara identitas, suara, dan aksi mendengarkan. Karyanya ditampilkan di berbagai festival internasioal serta menerima berbagai penghargaan.
Stijn Demeulenaere is a sound artist and field recordist. He creates installations, soundscapes, performances, and does sound design for dance and theatre. Stijn researches the relationship between identity, sound and listening. His work was shown at numerous international festivals as well as received awards.
Livestock
Filmmaker Derek Jenkins (Canada)
International Title Livestock
Country of Production Canada
Language English
Subtitle –
12 min, stereo, 16 mm processed to digital, B/W, 2018
Ingatan sejarah modern dan kekuasaan yang bermuara di penggorengan.
Historical memory of modernity and power boils down on the frying pan.
Derek Jenkins adalah motion picture photographer dan teknisi lab yang tinggal di Hamilton, ON. Praktiknya berkenan dengan kreasi langsung tangan, bersifat personal, dan dokumenter, dengan minat pada isu pekerja, ekologi, dan reproduksi sosial. Filem-filemnya telah diputar dan dipamerkan di berbagai festival. Saat ini, dia bekerja di Niagara Custom Lab.
Derek Jenkins is a motion picture photographer and lab technician based in Hamilton, ON. His practice is handmade, personal, and documentary, with an interest in labour, ecology, and social reproduction. His films have been screened and exhibited in many festivals. Currently, he works at Niagara Custom Lab.
Between Relating and Use
Filmmaker Nazlı Dinçel (USA)
International Title Between Relating and Use
Country of Production Argentina & USA
Language English
Subtitle –
9 min, stereo, 16 mm processed to digital, color, 2018
Ingatan ambigu relasi fetisisme disamakan dengan narasi kolonialisme.
Equating the ambiguous memory of fetishism relation with the narrative of colonialism.
Nazlı Dinçel atinggal di Milwaukee, WI. Di kota tersebut, ia pun kini membangun laboratorium filem yang dikelola seniman. Dia memperoleh gelar MFA dalam pembuatan filem dari UW-Milwaukee. Dia baru-baru ini menjadi rekan Institut Radcliffe 2019/2020 untuk studi lanjutan di Universitas Harvard, dan menjadi salah seoarang seniman penerima Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowship tahun 2019.
Nazlı Dinçel resides in Milwaukee, WI, where she is currently building an artist-run film laboratory. She obtained her MFA in filmmaking from UW-Milwaukee. She was recently a 2019/2020 Radcliffe Institute fellow for advanced study at Harvard University, and a 2019 Emerging Artist recipient of the Mary L. Nohl Fund Fellowship.
The Library of Water
Filmmaker Damon Mohl (USA)
International Title The Library of Water
Country of Production USA
Language –
Subtitle –
9 min, stereo, HD, color, 2020
Puisi tentang kehancuran peradaban.
Poetry on the destruction of civilization.
Damon Mohl (1974) adalah sutradara dan seniman multi-media, kini menjabat sebagai Asisten Profesor Seni Byron K. Trippet di Wabash College di Indiana. Dia lulus dari jurusan seni lukis di Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, dan mendapat gelar master dari University of Colorado, Boulder.
Damon Mohl (1974) is a filmmaker and multi-media artist, currently serving as a Byron K. Trippet Assistant Professor of Art at Wabash College in Indiana. He received BFA in drawing and painting from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, and MFA from the University of Colorado, Boulder.
DONT KNOW WHAT
Filmmaker Thomas Renoldner (Austria)
International Title DONT KNOW WHAT
Country of Production Austria
Language English
Subtitle –
8 min 7 sec, stereo, HD, B/W, 2019
Diksi teknologis yang performatif.
Performative technological diction.
Thomas Renoldner (1960, Linz, Upper Austria) adalah seniman, guru, sejarawan film, dan kurator. Ia telah mempelajari ilmu psikologi dan teori pendidikan di universitas di Innsbruck dan Salzburg serta mempelajari lukisan dan filem animasi di Academy of Applied Arts/Vienna. Filemnya telah diputar di berbagai festival.
Thomas Renoldner (1960, Linz, Upper Austria) is an artist, teacher, film historian, and curator. He has studied psychology and educational theory at the universities in Innsbruck and Salzburg as well as painting and animation film at the Academy of Applied Arts/Vienna. His films have been screened in many festivals.
About the Host
Pingkan Polla (lahir 1993, Magelang) menamatkan studinya di Fakultas Ilmu Sosial dan Politik, Universitas Indonesia. Dia adalah seorang seniman dan manajer program 69 Performance Club (performanceart.id). Karya performans Pingkan berfokus pada studi tubuh, media sosial, dan studi performans di ranah privat hingga publik. Pada tahun 2019, ia mengikuti program residensi pada festival Bangsal Menggawe di Pemenang, Lombok Utara, dan melakukan penelitian tentang persimpangan antara seni pertunjukan dan seni performans yang dimulai dari ruang privat ke ruang publik. Pada tahun 2021, ia menguratori Makassar Biennale dan melanjutkan studinya di Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK & Conservatorium), Gent, Belgia.
Pingkan adalah salah satu anggota tim selektor ARKIPEL Twilight Zone.
Pingkan Polla (b. 1993, Magelang) Bachelor of Science, University of Indonesia – Faculty of Social and Political Science. She is an artist and the program manager of 69 Performance Club (performanceart.id). Her performance works focus on body studies, social media, and studies of performance in the private to the public sphere. In 2019, she followed a residency program in the festival of Bangsal Menggawe in Pemenang, North Lombok, and conducted research on the intersection between performing art and performance art started in private space to public space. In 2021, she curated the Makassar Biennale and continue her study in the Royal Academy of Fine Arts (KASK & Conservatorium), Ghent, Belgium.
Pingkan is one of the selector members at ARKIPEL Twilight Zone.