Images produced during the Pikapika workshop at Common Room in Bandung

The sun had gone down and the air was cool and moist last Wednesday as the first drops of rain fell and people found seats in the open lounge area of Common Room in Bandung.

The darkness was what Tokyo-based artist Monno Kazue from the creative group Tochka had been waiting for.

Kazue, who is doing a two-week residency at the artist-run space, also had a plan for the roomful of people.

Armed with a handful of flashlights with various colorful beams -- white, yellow, green, red and blue -- Kazue directed the 15 people in the room to create a short animation.

She told them to draw pictures in the air using the flashlights. Then, she captured the images on her Nikon D.70 camera, the shutter speed of which had been set to "bulb".

Faces, flowers, bodies and writing made from colorful light were then captured in a single frame.

The group of people continued flashing their lights while Kazue gave directions in simple Indonesian. "Mulai," (start) she said, and then told them to stop after a couple of seconds.

Kazue and her partner from Tochka, Nagata Takeshi, will then edit the after-images and arrange them into a short movie, called Pikapika.

"Pika means light in Japanese so Pikapika is about playing with light," Kazue said.

Tochka, founded in 1998, introduced this collective concept of making animation using flashlights in 2005. The duo whose work includes animation, comics, and illustrations using experimental methods has now participated in film festivals and multimedia festivals around the world.

Kazue said they had the idea of making animation from after-images of flashlight drawings for a party. "So that everyone can join in the activity," she said. They uploaded the short movie on the video-sharing website Youtube and got a good response.

In 2006, the group won awards at the 10th Japan Media Art Festival and at the Ottawa '06 International Animation Festival.

One of Tochka's works is a five-minute animation with objects drawn from lights in a parking lot, in a restaurant, in an alleyway, in a park and in a room with filled with graffiti.

Kazue said that a five-minute film uses around 2,000 pictures.

The interesting thing about Pikapika is that it is a collective work, in which people of all ages can participate. It brings together people from different backgrounds without having to worry about communication barriers. "It makes people come together to create something," Kazue said.

She said that it was interesting to meet people from different backgrounds and see what kind of drawing they produced using the flashlights.

Participants in the Pikapika workshop at Common Room giggled while doodling with their lights. They were most amazed when seeing the results of their work on Kazue's digital camera.

The participants did not mind the rain when they had to take an angkot (public minivan) from Jl. Kyai Gede Utama, where Common Room is, to Kebun Bibit to doodle under the bridge there. They also played with their flashlights inside the angkot.

Tochka is in Bandung to participate in "KITA!!: Japanese Artist meet Indonesia". The event is being held by the Japan Foundation and brings together the work of 24 Japanese artists.

Held in Jakarta, Bandung, and Yogyakarta from this month to May, the event commemorates 50 years of friendship between the two countries.

The duo held workshops in Common Room and the Bandung Institute of Technology's (ITB) Gallery Soemardja from April 9-14. They showed the results in Common Room on April 14 and are preparing for a repeat screening at Bandung's Selasar Sunaryo Art Space on April 21.

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