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Jakarta 32 degree Celsius A chaotic city in the eyes of its youths
Entering the National Gallery in Central Jakarta for the Jakarta 32 degree Celsius exhibition, first you would be greeted by a haunting singing sound
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Entering the National Gallery in Central Jakarta for the Jakarta 32 degree Celsius exhibition, first you would be greeted by a haunting singing sound.
As you enter deeper and walk past the colorful visual arts, you hear the sounds of buses, the honking of cars and motorcycles and bustling people.
The sounds effects as well as the visual arts are to convey the chaotic atmosphere of Jakarta, afflicted by the increasing loss of free and comfortable public spaces.
This is how young artists in Jakarta view the city.
The Jakarta 32 degree Celsius project is a biennale on visual arts aiming at providing a forum for university students in Jakarta and displaying the latest works of young artists.
Organized by Ruang Rupa, a non-profit arts foundation, the 2008 project is the third to be held, attracting 173 submitted works by students from 16 universities in Jakarta.
Special presentations of the works of eight young Jakarta artists, including Arief Rachman, AP Bestari, Heri Bertus and Bujangan Urban are also on display.
Opened on August 16 with performances by Jakarta indie bands, the exhibition will run to August 29. On the closing of the Jakarta 32 degree Celsius, Ruang Rupa will announce the award winners of the biennale.
Five award winners will have their works toured to cities such as Bandung, Surabaya and Yogyakarta. Kapitalindo, the band once forbidden to play by the New Order regime for being too critical of authority, will play at the closing party.
Artists are experimenting with the themes of identity, space, mass culture and history through various types of work of art including paintings, art installation, graphic design, sculpture, photography, videos and sound engineering.
The haunting sound was the result of sound engineering by Lily Adi Permana, while the noisy city sounds, entitled Shortcut, were from a video by Erwin Hermawan. Shortcut is a video of people crossing a pedestrian bridge.
The videos presented in the biennale were the results of a workshop carried out by Ruang Rupa. Some 11 interesting videos on the artists' social surroundings in Jakarta are exhibited.
Aditya Fachrizal Hafiz produced a unique video depicting the sounds of traveling vendors calling for customers. The sounds are uniquely composed into a beautiful rhythm.
"This one is interesting as it shows how vendors and customers have somehow reached a consensus on what the sounds mean. A cling on a glass bowl refers to a baso meatball vendor, while a wooden knocking noise signifies a mie goreng seller," project coordinator Indra Ameng said.
Aditya also exhibited two photographs representing the use of urban space by Jakarta youngsters. One of them is a picture of punk teenagers sitting in front of a 24-hour Circle-K.
The use of multimedia appears most frequently in works on the theme of space aiming at interactivity. The works of Carterpaper and Syahrul Amami are examples.
Carterpaper created new sign systems, dubbing them "resign system", to signify places where perennial phenomena are located, such as spots where sex workers hang out; where potholes exist; or where speeding is prevalent.
Meanwhile, Syahrul Amami, painted the road in which the local administration patched potholes. He painted the patched roads, leaving them looking like bandages on wounds.
Most participating artists worked on the theme of identity showing satirical humor and depression.
One interactive art installation was typical of university student style, trying to reflect the desperate desire of university students to get their degree. The desperation is translated into a human size picture of a faceless person in a college graduation gown so that visitors can have themselves photographed wearing it.
One of the works by Kemala Putri conveyed a positive outlook. She used watercolor on paper to paint faces of people laughing in her work All u Need is Laugh. On the concept description it says: "This work is created to encourage audiences to smile. By smiling you can briefly forget about your problems".
It is true. Jakartans can laugh for a while at least until they are reminded of the city's problems by the sound of the cars honking and the buses rattling along.
Jakarta 32* Celsius
August 16 to 29
11 a.m. to 9 p.m.
Galeri Nasional Indonesia
Jl. Medan Merdeka Timur 14, Jakarta
