Against this white backdrop a shadow of a man sitting on a chair and typing at a desk is projected through an LCD projector hung on the ceiling, accompanied by the sounds of an old typewriter.

All of a sudden two girls and their two parents enter the room. “Can we take pictures here?” the girls excitedly ask an attendant sitting in front of the room.

After receiving a nod, one of the girls makes poses while the other takes pictures. Their father records them using his video camera, while their mother is busy directing, with the exhibition attendant giving suggestions.

“This is my first time at ARTJOG. For the girls, it is not. They have been here before, so this time they asked me to come along with them,” Mona, the mother, said, adding that they came from Surakarta, Central Java.

The same excitement was shown by many other visitors, who also took photos of each other inside the room that housed an artwork by young artist Bandu Darmawan. The artwork was displayed as part of this year’s ARTJOG, the biggest art event in the country.

Bandu, 29, is one of three recipients of this year’s Young Artist Awards, presented to artists under 33 years of age participating in ARTJOG. This year marked the 11th time the annual event has been held since 2008.

The other two recipients are Meliantha Muliawan with his Vague Shapes in the Light #1-#9 and Fajar Abadi’s who presented Everlost. Bandu’s work is entitled Pernyataan Tidak Tertulis (Unwritten Statements).

ARTJOG’s curator Bambang “Toko” Witjaksono said that the three were selected because they were considered to have exceeded the artistic achievements of their generation.

Another consideration was whether their artworks suited this year’s theme “Enlightenment: Towards Various Futures”. “What they understand about enlightenment can be seen from the artworks they created,” Bambang said.

He added that through the Young Artist Awards, ARTJOG sought to give room for young artists to shine at the annual event. Each recipient received Rp 10 million in cash as a reward.

Bandu said through “Unwritten Statement” he wanted to allow the audience to feel the presence of an object by just seeing and listening to signs of its existence. In this case, a shadow is created because the light is blocked by the presence of an object.

By using the projector he was experimenting with uniting the shadow of a real object with an audio recording of it.

“With this technique I can present the shadow of a man without the presence of the object,” Bandu said.

Bandu considers the use of technology in art to be its own medium and that each medium has its own message to convey.

“For this work, I considered the projector to be the most suitable medium to represent my idea,” he said.

He also expressed his appreciation for the ARTJOG team for providing a designated room for the participating artists, along with the specific paint, lighting and size according to their respective artworks.

“That way each artwork can be presented optimally,” he said.

In response, Bambang said the curator team had sought to give the participating artists the greatest chance to express themselves through their works according to the selected theme.

This includes the use of technology in the display of the artworks, such as lighting, sound system and projection technologies. He also said that thanks to this approach, ARTJOG had for the last several years received sponsorships from technology-based companies, including LCD projector producers.

Spokesperson of technology company PT Epson Indonesia, Nolly Dhanurendra, said that for this year’s ARTJOG, Epson had provided 30 LCD projectors of between 4,000 and 10,000 lumens for display purposes.

“Some are interactive, which allows us to write or draw using the Epson projectors,” Nolly said.

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