Book & The Arts

Coco Lovers/By Adji SoedibjoFor many Jakartans, road-signs, graffiti and endless traffic snarls are some of the familiar sights and sounds of Jakarta's hustle and bustle, and trapped bumper to bumper in traffic across virtually every part of this smog-choked city is disturbing to most. To this end, a group of young Jakarta-based artists found an outlet to express their frustrations in the creation of various objects against a backdrop of street "music", unique sounds and street noise captured and recorded from various sources.

The curator, Annisa Rahadi, an art theory graduate student at the Bandung Institute of Technology explains, "It is an exhibition of contemporary art and music called Hybrid Project and it involves the collaboration of musicians, composers and artists from various backgrounds, channeling their creativity through different topics reflecting their own aggravations with life in Jakarta."

Coco Lovers, by Arif Hidayat and Kevin Ivan Renardy, consists of six teak-hued boards of different shapes forming almost a perfect pyramid depicting the city's fault scenes. Each board tells a different vignette of Jakarta's pollution such as ojek riders greeting one another, passengers stuck in traffic jams, smokers blowing clouds of smoke and elderly women picking crops against a backdrop of smog spewing factory chimneys.Koleksi Doa Di Ruang Kota/By Adji Soedibjo

Andi Rharharha dan Hasrul are featured in a work titled Koleksi Doa Di Ruang Kota or Collection of Prayer in the City, based on their observations of the city's signs within the context of commercial street signage. It's a long-standing tradition for many to have prayer themes conveyed through company names, especially by Indonesians of Chinese descent, who often incorporate horizontal prayer or hope in company names such as Lancar Jaya or Smooth Success, Sumber Karya or Work Source, Sinar Terang or Bright Light. Some people prefer the inclusion of vertical prayer like Al Barkah or Doa Ibu (Mother's Prayer). Indonesia has seen recent changes in both corporate nomenclature and signboard names. More and more businesses use the business proprietor's name. In some cases, the need to advertise a corporate strategy forces many businesses to adopt a more generic name at the expense of a unique identity.

The Alphabad/By Adji SoedibjoPutriani Mulyadi displays her work, The Alphabad, based on her frustration with the prevalent traffic jams. She highlights her work by creating a series of long, snaking pastel-hued plastic letters across the gallery with the following message, "When in a traffic jam, I tend to get mad and I scream shit, chinch, asshole, stupid, damn, and I can go on and on and on."

Isrol Triono and M. Arham Aryadi fused their ideas to come up with Cerita Lima Titik, about 5 districts in Jakarta. Isrol comments, "It took us 3 months. We started by going around Jakarta then we brainstormed on our experience of the City. From seeing the sites several times, I discovered parts of Jakarta such as central, north, south, east and west which I then presented in video." He adds, "There are similarities and differences in Jakarta. In terms of similarities, most of the city buses don't stop at intended bus shelters and this bad habit can be seen in all five areas of Jakarta. In terms of differences, each bus has a unique route."

He created a PCB (printed circuit board) installation of Jakarta after he saw a google map of the City. Isrol further states, "That's what I perceived about Jakarta and decided to use PCB since its parts are interconnecting, a perfect medium to portray Jakarta."Cerita Lima Titik/By Adji Soedibjo

The street artist, Andi Rharharha portrays monochromes entitled "Jakarta a city that is easy to control" on the gallery's wall using graffiti. Quoting some of his notable text: "raped by a mini bus driver, flood, trespassing bus lane, bathroom renovation costs 20 billion".

The accompaniment of contemporary music is best classified as either contemporary art music or new music. The various compositions reflect the artists' individual attitudes and perspectives on today's urban conditions. Their music can be radical, even subversive, beyond music's traditional aesthetic and compositional patterns.

Graffiti/By Adji SoedibjoWitnessing this exhibition is quite fascinating as we get new perspectives from this collaboration of artists, composers and musicians. Living in this hard and tiring city, many Jakartans take their challenging lives for granted, and this group of talented young artists certainly telegraphs some fresh ideas and new paradigms.

Hybrid Project runs from January 20 to 30 at Bentara Budaya, Jl. Palmerah Selatan No. 17, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. daily.