Jakarta; Dust and Glory

The Post Performance party at Stewart's place in Kemang.


Roi Vierra from Finland walking the streets of Jakarta before releasing them.


Hyperbolic Alpha Male in action, the opening of IIPAE2006.


SalahBi the man from Surabaya.
Notes from Jakarta:

7th – 13th November 2006
Jakarta
Indonesia International Performance Art Event 2006

As far as I can remember, the last time I was in Jakarta was when I was a child, maybe 4 or 5 years old. My parents brought us all for a short holiday to this city about an hour and a half from Singapore.

The 2 other cities in Java that I have been are Bandung and Jogjakarta, I am more familiar with Jogja as I have been there for a couple of times. I heard stories about Jakarta from friends in Jogja, but never I would have thought Jakarta would be this way.

One can only experience the feel of the city by being there and then.

I was invited by Atieq, the organizer of this event, a bubbly and positive individual I met last year in Singapore at Future of Imagination (A performance art festival in Singapore).

To think of it I am not sure why I wanted to be part of this event, which does not even pay me enough to cover my rent. Well, based on the fact that I frequently get a reasonable amount of artist fee for which as an artist I am so used to already.

But later I realized the whole idea of this whole event is genuine, not from the gallery, but the organizers and other participants involved in this whole event.

It came back to me when I started out in making art, the idea of making things happen, to find the possibilities.

I met so many interesting performance artists from Europe, Korea, Japan and of course, Indonesia and friends from Singapore. Performance Art is about networking, post-show party, and getting to know the country you are performing, that’s the whole beauty of it.

Performance art and Jakarta, where do we go from here? There were really interesting performance I would say, with the lack of technicalities and other aspect of this event. The performances were eclectic, meditative, intense, sweet, romantic, sad, purposeful, educational, meaningless, nonsensical and many other words that I could use for but at this point in time I am too lazy to use.

Coming back to the city, Jakarta is a really busy city, when I say busy, the traffic is really crazy, one can get stuck in the jam for 2 hours, if you want to get from one place to another like for example Siglap to the City, during peak hour. On my way to the gallery from the airport it took me almost an hour and a half, and for a non-peak hour period, it will take me at least 40 minutes at least.

Yesterday, Aries took me to a ‘Bajakan’ a pirated dvd centre, and hell yes it was helluva busy place to be, it was packed with people and the space was crammed and dinghy. We accidentally walked into a space where they were packing the dvds, and I could not believe my eyes, there were packing the dvds like packing sardines in tin cans.

He took me on his bike roaming around town, and the road was really mad, and the fumes from other vehicles were coming from everywhere, buses and scooter bikes, the pollution level is pretty high. But yet, people are happy and they are proud to live in the city.

The food by the roadside are really brilliant and they are really cheap, about a $1.50.

I met a bunch of artists from Surabaya, there’s this big haired manager/curator who called himself SalahBi, taken from the phrase Salah Biasa, in English Wrong Normally. He is such a character,I would say he’s a philosopher, comedian and an artist. He got so many things to say, and the way he says them, will just leave you cracking up. He is such a perpetual stoner, that you can’t see his eyes most of the time. And you are not sure, if he’s sober or that’s just the way he is.

I believe there were about 40 artists involved in this event, but I managed to talk to a few, something about performance art as a medium that makes me realized about humanity, despite our different cultures, ethnic groups, religion, nation, language, status, class or whatsoever. All of the artists are under one roof, expressing in a problematic medium that will always remain problematic by the masses or traditionalists alike.

A nation with full of corruption makes me sick, how does a society trust the authority, when the authority step the people on their heads and extort them for money. Corruption will not bring any good to anyone but it will just bring the country down. People will start to show unhappiness, and that is partly the reason no one trust the police here, because the police are like gangsters or mafias.

It is all about power and strength, when one has power, they act like god, when they act like god, they feel they have the ability to control. Its all about selfishness and destruction.