Diyanto's Para Pencari #5 (The Seekers): 150 x 460 cm, acrylic on canvas, 2008. (JP/Ary Hermawan)American psychologist and guru Timothy Leary dismisses emotion as "the lowest form of consciousness". Emotional actions are the most contracted, narrowing, dangerous form of behavior, he says.
Emotion is associated with anger, joy and fear that make human reasoning become feeble, indecisive and blind. Thus, we often hear the saying that one should never involve emotion in decision making, for he/she will never be able to think clearly. But this is the view of reductionists.
Human beings, however, have emotions. Though they are often played down as inferior to reason and cognition, emotions are actually what defines and differentiates human beings from other beings, for emotions elevate the subject.
In arts and religions, where the involvement of emotion is crucial, human beings are liberated and able to overcome the confines of language and the senses that imprison their consciousnesses. That is why German philosopher George Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel considers art and religion as the highest spiritual achievement of human beings.
But art has changed. In the digital age, the media of art is no longer confined to in-hand forms, like the use of canvas and paint brush, by which the process of art-making is more intimate and the produced artworks reflect -- or can be said as being the embodiment of -- the emotions of the artists, as they are involved in the process.
Visual Art magazine and Galeri Nasional Indonesia are holding an exhibit that attempts to evaluate the place of emotion in today's arts. Titled "E-motions", the exhibit runs from July 18-27, presenting artists like Ay Tjoe Christien, Diyanto, Entang Wiharso, Hanafi, Ibrahim, Krisna Murti, Teguh Ostenrik, Tisna Sanjaya and Yani Sasatra Negara.
German artist Daniel Kojo and American artist Ruth Frisch Dealy are also participating in the exhibit, which is part of the celebration of the magazine's birthday in June.
Gallery chairman Tubagus "Andre" Sukmana said the issue of emotion was "a hot subject in the development of Indonesian contemporary art. It is interesting to discuss the process of making arts and the problem of emotional expression in arts amid the ever-growing influence of digital technology".
To talk about emotions in art is not a simple matter. It is more than just acknowledging the artist's attitude and worldview, curator Rizki A. Zaelani says, and it should not be related simply to the feelings of human beings in daily life like anger and sadness.
"Aesthetically, emotions are attitudes and reactions (of the artists) towards the way the world is represented as being, and how it is related to other representations and reactions," he says.
"Therefore, every emotional statement in arts requires a reflection of the world to be represented in the artworks in certain ways."
Some of the artworks, like those of Ay Tjoe Christine and Nyoman Erawan, are expressive. In Christine's More and Handcuff Please! and Erawan's Tarian Para Korban (The Dance of the Victims) painting series, the clear white or blue backgrounds are contrasted with darkened red and blue lines that look like stains, symbolizing agony, grief and anger.
Diyanto and Entang Wiharso seem to relate emotions with human bodies. All their works displayed in the exhibit contain images of eerie human bodies, a surreal depiction of the banality and the absurdity of human existence.
The image of a group of men with unrecognizable faces carrying beacons in the dark in Diyanto's Para Pencari is as uncanny as the image a goat-headed female in Wiharso's Undiscovered Identity.
Their works clearly depart from the Cartesian tradition that separates reason (or soul and emotion) from body or gesture.
"Feeling is a subjective aspect of something that can be physically observed as a physical response," says Bali-based art critic Hardiman.
"In this exhibition we can easily see the inseparable correlation between emotion and body. And, that's the reason why body images in this exhibition can be translated as the significance of emotion."
Art is indeed to be experienced, not thought through with logic. Visitors to the exhibition are thus encouraged to use their emotions to experience the works on display.
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