“The city is not only a language, but also a practice”
—Henri Lefebvre, in Writings on Cities, 1996



The exhibition space of Jakarta Punya! became so lively that afternoon. In August 3 – 10, 2010, the new exhibition space that usually presents Jakarta knickknacks and whatnots to support the Indonesian creative industry through tourism was full of a variety of installation works. On the wall next to me, to the left of the entrance, is the text: “The Urban PLAY exhibition: when designers playing [sic] in their city”. This was an exhibition of works by Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina. Inside, one could see numbers indicating the nine visual projects that the artists have made, as well as a series of projections on the wall and cheeky exclamations in handwriting. The two of them turned the commercial exhibition space into a common playground, a miniature of their activism idea about public awareness of the urban space. This was a project that the artists have been preoccupied with for three months.

The nine projects were recorded in a series of video works. One of them shows Tita Salina and Irwan Ahmett(or Iwang) talking in a building construction store, while directing several bricklayers to re-arrange the piles of wooden beams sold in the store. With the re-arranged timbers, a pair of seats facing each other and a table gradually came to being and every passers-by was welcome to use them. The store space became like a laid-back living room. Another video work was shot in the area of Pasar Minggu, South Jakarta, presenting the orange umbrellas that are commonly found in the market sheltering the hawkers. Irwan and Tita asked the sellers to twirl their umbrellas simultaneously. When they presented the video recording of the event, they deliberately accelerated the twirling of the umbrellas, making the umbrellas seem to be dancing on the screen.

Their works reveal a distinct character, and the artists-couple, Irwan Ahmett (35) and Tita Salina (37), also represents a peculiar case of urban citizens. That they are residents of Jakarta no one could deny. The city, however, still begs to know her residents better. Irwan and Tita know their city as best as they need to—but is that really enough? As a graphic-designer duo that goes by the name of AhmettSalina, they have often posed questions of personal happiness through their campaigns. Consider their previous projects, Change Yourself (2005) and Happiness Project (2008). What is going to happen if they now choose to present a series of similar questions by using the urban space?

To answer this, AhmettSalina began this projecteven before they started planning for the exhibition at the Jakarta Punya! gallery. From May 2010 to August 2010, they regularly uploaded their works in the Urban PLAY series onto the site owned by Desain Grafis Indonesia (DGI, or the Indonesian Graphic Designers). The exhibition at the end served more as a closure and a celebration for the nine works in the series.

The uploading of the video documentations indicates that the artists duo was not satisfied: they felt that they needed to be re-acquainted with their city, Jakarta, without pretending that it would be of any use. Like any other good acquaintanceship, the process acquires its best form percisely because the artists have left it open-ended. Visitors to the site would be able to see the conclusion of each of the works, but like AhmettSalina, they would not know what was going to happen in the next work.

The artists tried to appreciate Jakarta through the concept of ‘play’. AhmettSalina believes that the cheeky and childlike qualities of the city residents must again be brought to the fore, not only to help the residents deal with the pressures of the big city, but also to reveal the city’s character. AhmettSalina believes that happy individuals would together create a better communal life. Is there still any doubt about their belief in happiness?


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Before we proceed with the examination on the nine works, it might be a good idea to pose some questions so that we can look at the underlying motives of this project. Those of you who are impatient can immediately click the links to the video works and observe the pictures of the projects. Those of you who are patient enough can stay with me and pose the questions.

The first question would be: “Playing what?” They played with their city, without ignoring their expertise and profession. Typography, for example, was often used as an object of the play in the series. The decision to re-present the process of playing through photography and video works was also due to their awareness about their creative medium; an awareness that they have acquired from their profession.

The next question is: “Playing where?” We all know how Jakarta suffers from a dearth of public space, especially playing space. The only remaining “public spaces” are the malls and the streets. The street, for Shiraishi, is a place for “people who do not know one another and therefore are not bound by any social relationships” and a ‘fearful’ place for Jakarta’s middle and upper classes. But it is precisely to the street that AhmettSalina invited us to go and play. It is a choice made to help people realize that perhaps their fear of the street has no basis.

Indeed, the street is not a clean, cool, and controlled place like the mall. The street is hot, dirty, and ugly. But by stating that the value of life does not depend solely on economic exchanges, perhaps we can welcome other values that we have been unaware of, values that are more humane in nature.

Eventually, the final question is: “Why play?” The concept of playing itself can be used as a strategy to make the citizens more aware of their rights. We do not have to look too far behind into the past—the previous century offers examples of how the concept of playing was used in flexible manners. Consider, for example, the search for humanist in-betweening spaces by Aldo van Eyck as brought up in his “urban in-fill playgrounds” in The Netherlands. Then there was also the Situationiste Internationale group who employed the strategy of psychogeography with critical and playful techniques to bring back the power into the hands of the citizens, to empower the citizens as they relate to the city space. Today, we can see the popular interventions by skateboarders and urban jumpers who assign meanings to the urban formal infrastructure by employing their bodies through their playful activities. It is in such a context that AhmettSalina’s work, Urban PLAY, seems to continue the thread of idea about the city space as the playground for its residents—not only for the present, but also for Jakarta as a city, a place.

People have an increasingly greater trust in games as the medium that would replace the more mature and conventional media used to convey ideas, such as books and films. We are, afterall, also homo ludens, “a playing man”. In the words of Michael Fergusson, founder of Ayogo studio specializing in developing casual and mobile games:  “We learn better, we socialize better, we work more productively and gain greater satisfaction from that work, when we play.”

In the series, the adult AhmettSalina becomes like a child playing in thekindergarten sandbox. They invite us to join them in the sandbox. Who knows, the sand might beplentiful enough for us all and can be given to more people, distributed into the classes where formal teaching takes place: the kind of education that has the objective to make us all the same, uniform and obedient.

It was with the desire to spread this idea that they decided to upload the documentation of their video works on to DGI’s site, coupled with the promotion that they did through their Facebook account. The choice to use the virtual space as an exhibition space, however, brings with it many consequences.

Let us briefly consider Lefebvre’s idea about space. Lefebvre conceptualized the space into a triad: that of the perceived, conceived, and lived space. A wall can be perceived as a wall, conceived through technical drawings as an arrangement of bricks or concrete, and lived when paints are sprayed over it or a dog urinates on it. Lefebvre believed that it is the last category of space in the triad—the lived space—that offers the greatest opportunity for us to defeat the old powers in a city. In the context of AhmettSalina’s series of works, this lived space is represented by the street.

However, although AhmettSalina did actually play on the street, we can only observe it through the video works uploaded onto DGI’s site. We, the virtual surfers, are the artists’ target audience, but we are not necessarily residents of this lived space. By presenting their street plays on the virtual world, the artists undermined the actual introduction that took place in the lived space, transforming it into a summary of their field notes. If they are not careful, the audience might perceive the summary as the reality.

AhmettSalina’s projects were thus exposed to an even greater risk: The risk to be preoccupied and fall into the trap of thinking that the notes and the documentation are more important than the process of re-introduction itself. What would you feel if the person to whom you have just been introduced is then preoccupied by the activities of taking notes of everything you say and recording all your movements using his or her Blackberry camera? Of course, the answer would depend on whether or not you are a narcissist. Is Jakarta a narcissist city?

To answer it, we must return to the Urban PLAY series. Like all introductions, the moment of encounter might have a variety of meanings. Look at your beloved’sface. How did you meet? How many different moments you have shared that immediately come to mind? Are there sweet, awkward, funny, annoying, or loving moments? Likewise, the Urban PLAY series seems to contain different expressions. Let us look at them in greater details.


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Typography in Urban PLAY #1: “Blindness Test”.

Urban PLAY #1: “Blindness Test” is the first work in the series. AhmettSalina used oranges, chilies, and tomatoes that they found in the Pasar Minggu market in South Jakarta. They arranged the vegetables to create the alphabets of P, L, A, and Y. They, for example, used a tray of red chilies as the background for a letter arranged from green chilies. The differences in the vegetables’ colors and forms help the letter stand out, making the resulting image look like a device for colorblind tests.

Here they use typography, a branch of knowledge with which they are involved in their day-to-day work as “visual communicators”. They employ typography as the basis for their play. It is a pity, however, that they merely use typography to form letters. The most important aspect of typography—i.e. the formation ofletters to create words that can subsequently form texts in the larger context of the city space—remains untouched.

As a test for their bigger concept, however, this work seems to constitute AhmettSalina’s first introduction to the city. Here the duoseems to be shaking hands with Jakartawho offers them Pasar Minggu as its hand. “Hello, we’re Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina, visual communicators. Your hands have the texture that we can use to create letters. Can we play with it?” It’s simple. It’s done. See you again later.



Space reorganized in Urban PLAY #2: “Public Furniture”.

Urban PLAY #2: “Public Furniture”. This was the video that I first saw in the exhibition space. Collaborating with the bricklayers in a building construction store, AhmettSalina rearranged the piles of wooden beams sold in the depot, enabling passing pedestrians to use them as seats, complete with atable made from similar timbers. They even provided Wi-Fi connection in the newly-shaped space, so that pedestrians can sit down and spend some time surfing the Net from there. The piles of timbers have been transformed into a cozy corner.

The work touches both the space and its users. AhmettSalina is not posing questions about the infiltration of the private into the public space; rather, the artist here is talking about the hidden possibility in which the (more) public space can be created in a place that has been considered as private, and even in places that are commercial in nature like the building construction store. Perhaps in Jakarta we still long for and need the type of space similar to the bale-bale in a Javanese home, where the public and the private can meet and have dialogues. AhmettSalina tries to create such a space in this work. This time, they do not design something to solve problems, but rather create an artwork that gives rise to many open-ended questions, such as: Do the private and the public spaces indeed require an intermediary space like the bale-bale in a Javanese home? No one can thoroughly answer this question; it all depends on the person who is experiencing the space and feels its needs. However, this is precisely what AhmettSalina is talking about. The work, therefore, is a slap in the face for many parties, especially those who claim to be urban designers and architects, who rarely discuss the possible needs for intermediary spaces in Jakarta.

Clearly, the body of the city contains much potential that can be used to support its residents. However, our narrow minds and restricted sights have veiled and hidden a lot of these potentials.With Public Furniture, AhmettSalina briefly takes off the veil and encourages interactions not only through economic transactions, but also amongthe mass. Such activation goes beyond the possible relations that merely rely on prices or economic values. Lefebvre would have been proud, and I dare say Jakarta would be, too. The city starts to smile.



Umbrella dance in Urban PLAY #3: “Dancing Umbrellas”.

Urban PLAY #3: “Dancing Umbrellas”. This was also one of the works that I first saw in the exhibition. Here, AhmettSalina asked for help from the hawkers at Pasar Minggu market in South Jakarta to make choreography of dancing umbrellas. The big umbrellas that shelter the sellers and their wares are twirled simultaneously, making theumbrellas seem to dance in the midst of the chaotic market.

The work is transformed into an exploration in which the real space, which is often experienced and perceived with the perspectives of the human eyes, is reduced to become something that dryly moves on the video representation. Such a representation is distanced from the reality of our day-to-day lives due to the bird-eye perspective that is employed here. Furthermore, the work can only be observed by viewers who watch it online on DGI site. The hawkers themselves cannot immediately see the results. Here we can say that the exploration is purely aesthetic, as AhmettSalina increases the rhythm of the movements and takes well-choreographed shots and compositions.

The work further confirms the exotic perspectives often employed in the documentation of banal images that tourists perceive as beautiful. It is such banality that becomes a grand stage on which creative interventions cantake place by transforming the chaotic reality into something that is nice to look at. The resulting image is further distributed to the public who share a similar perception. The bird-eye perspective is the only perspective to use if one is to enjoy the choreography. The choice to use the medium of the video makes the work seem almost patronizing as it gives the impression that the video-makers have greater sensitivity for the visual awareness that might arise from day-to-day life.



Jogging while protesting in Urban PLAY #5: “Monorail Slalom”.

Urban PLAY #4: “Monorail Slalom”. Here the artists invited casual joggers on a Sunday morning to run in a zigzag pattern, passing the pillars that have been left behindfrom the failed plan to construct the Monorail system. The pillars are located behind the House of Representatives in Senayan, South Jakarta. The work becomes a communal protest—masked as choreography of communal sport—about the flawed urban policy. The work is actually an accidental success story. The participation of the morning joggers at Senayan had been an improvised gesture. Initially, Irwan Ahmett and Tita Salina planned to do the sport with only several volunteers. When they saw the joggers, they decided, on the spur of the moment, to invite the casual runners to take part in the project. The political potentials of the body were thus manifested in the video. The transience of physical movements was used as a tool for activism, reduced in sport. It is a protest conveyed with a smile.






Tita Salina, Astri Indah Afriliani, Damora Sukma Putri, writer Farid Rakun, dan Irwan Ahmett karate-ing public facilites in Urban PLAY #5: “Jakarate”.

Urban PLAY #5: “Jakarate”. In the work ‘Jakarta plus karate’, they took pictures of a series of broken objects on the street, seemingly damaged by human violence delivered through martial arts. It is a protest about the poor maintenance of urban public facilities. We see here how the traffic signs seem to become bent due to a kick delivered by a city resident.

The potentials to politicize the body as seen in Monorail Slalom are thus further explored by situating the body as a device of fictional narrative that blurs the boundary between protests and fun. Photography is used here as the main medium. Had the artists not complemented them with information and video documentations—to maintain their loyalty to the template used in the other works in the series—the surprise effect and the questions that the work could stir within the mind of the audience could perhaps become even more phenomenal. The freezing up of the moments—photography’s signature illusion—can make people believe, albeit temporarily, that the traffic signs were truly victims of karate attacks.

Physicality is indeed important in an introduction. The body, apart from becoming a signifier, is also perceived as something with multiple meanings. The first three works in the series, Dancing Umbrellas, Monorail Slalom, and Jakarate, chronologically document the following process: From flattery, “Your black eyelashes look so beautiful when you’re blinking” (replace ‘black eyelashes’ with “orange hawkers’ umbrellas”); a protest due to a certain feeling of ownership, “Your skin showspatterned marks of your planned tattoo. When will you lose them? Or have you finally decided to really make a tattoo?” (replace ‘planned tattoo’ with ‘planned monorail’); and eventually rudeness: “Your pimples leave pockmarks on your skin. Can I stick something into them?” (replace ‘pimples’ with ‘urban ruins’). Isn’t it true that certain rudeness is a form of intimacy? 

Sweaty t-shirt caused by Jakarta in Urban PLAY #6: “Sweat Tee”.

Urban PLAY #6: “Sweat Tee”. The work shows the artists’ shrewdness in using a medium that the public is familiar with: T-shirt. A grey map of Jakarta was screen-printed onto the shirt, appearing like sweat marks on the chest. The “Jakarta sweat” is also visible around the armpits.

The work can communicate well with the public without any need for further information. To assess the success of these shirt works, only one standard is required: that of market reception. With a limited distribution and rather sloppy screen-printing technique, this great idea might end up, at best, being a footnote in the debates about the relationship between works of art and the public. Let us just wait for the sales result.

The work, however, enables us to perceive Jakarta as a reflection of ourselves. We can respond better to acquaintances with whom we can personally relate. The recordsof the changes will eventually become reflections of them over our bodies. The T-shirt might encourage casual chats with people you meet on the street. Now look at your belovedagain. Are there any changes in your emotions that might affect you physically? Perhaps your heart is beating faster, your palms are sweating, or your breaths become shorter. AhmettSalina realizes that your chest and armpits become sweaty because of Jakarta.



Urban riddles in Urban PLAY #7: “Hidden Messages”.

Urban PLAY #7: “Hidden Messages” is a treasure game, inviting Jakarta residents to take part in the game of searching for a series of words that would eventually form sentences. AhmettSalina invited volunteers to hide wordcapsules in locations spanning from Matraman busway station to the base camp of the popular band Slank, on Jalan Potlot, Duren Tiga, South Jakarta; from the Chinese restaurant Kamseng in Mangga Besar to the fruit stall at Tanjung Priok train station. Even Irwan and Tita themselves did not know where the volunteers hid the word capsules.

First, AhmettSalina uploaded onto DGI’s site some puzzles that the audience must solve. They expected the audience to be actively involved and challenged enough to go out and find the word capsules and report on their findings through DGI’s site. To date, however, not one person has been challenged enoughto actually go out and take part in the game. Technical mastery and experience in viral marketing mustplay a significant role in such a work. One must thoroughly understand the game psychology in which “rewards and punishments” are invariably present. People would feel challenged if they are given rewards, no matter whatever forms these rewards might take. The chance of their joining the game only because they feel like it or because they love Jakarta as much as AhmettSalina is quite slim. Perhaps such a treasure game would be challenging enough only when it is done in an actual space as opposed to the virtual one. This is evident in their success when AhmettSalina replicated the game during the opening of their exhibition: the audience was then able to rise to AhmettSalina’s challenges and solve the puzzle in less than two hours. The time has not come for the game to be played on the virtual space through video works that require two-way interactions: from the video to the street, then back on to the virtual space.



Oomleo, Fina, and Dania in Urban PLAY #8: “Street Fashion”.

Urban PLAY #8: “Street Fashion”. This work employs a range of urban visual elements such as the LED lamps often used to decorate motorbikes, soap bubbles that children play with, and garden plants often sold on the street in Jakarta. These visual elements are transformed into fashion elements. In AhmettSalina’s eyes, Jakarta residents should have no qualms in appearing like futuristic robots, or like hanging garden in response to the global climate change, or even transforming themselves into a burst-able gamelike soap bubbles. This play is presented in the form of street fashion pictures that are all the rage today among the world’s urbanites.

Reappropriation is the strategy that AhmettSalina employshere, and in the process the context plays a significant role. Oomleo, member of the band Goodnight Electric, was dressed up as a futuristic human descending onto the streets of Jakarta at night, with the decorating lamps on his motorbike. The work might garner better reception among street fashion enthusiasts with greater awareness about images. By “image” I mean the mental picture that freely appears in a triggered mind. Oomleo, a musician in a well-known band, is as important here as the glittering lamps. The lamps and the celebrity status of the figure, when well-combined, can create a strong image. There is a touch of the celebrity, the glamour, glitters, and Dionysian excitement. In the case of the unknown models dressed up as soap bubbles or hanging gardens, however, do we get the same intoxicating effects? I don’t think so. If only AhmettSalina maintained the awareness about the image and the context throughout the series, the maximum effect (that they can either mock or use) could be produced.

“Sweat Tee” shows that Jakarta can also affect the body, make us sweaty, leaving marks that we see as the map of Jakarta on the shirt. Here AhmettSalina is not afraid to state that Jakarta can affect the way we dress. They dare to share this insight and encourage other Jakarta residents to be involved.



Keep playing, regards from Tibet in Urban PLAY #9: “Keep Playing”.

Urban PLAY #9: “Keep Playing”. After their preoccupation with Jakarta, it is a pity that AhmettSalina chose to conclude the series in Tibet. They return to the typography strategy of the first work, but here they use T-shirts forming the farewell message of “Keep Playing” in front of a lake. In fact, they could have not kept their promise to create nine works. The decision to conclude the incompleteJakarta process during their journey to Tibet was not a wise one. The farewell message turned out to taste like a dessert that spoils the appetite that has been stimulated by previous dishes.

Still, let us just say that every exhibition needs spices. The final work was only published when the exhibition took place, enticing their loyal audience to stay tuned and see the conclusion to the project. It is as if Jakarta’s eyes are opened because it turns out that Jakarta is not the pair’s only interest. It is also an eye-opening experience for us as we see possibilities for future works in the unfinished project. The conclusion is not the end, but rather the key to new possibilities.


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“'Cos everybody hates a tourist
Especially one who thinks
it's all such a laugh
Yeah”
—Pulp, "Common People", dari album Different Class, 1995


With the whole re-introduction project, AhmettSalina has actually touched many aspects in the relationship between the city, its users, and the creative practices inside it. Professionals with backgrounds in urban policy should consider better such awareness-based activities.

The question remains, however, whether AhmettSalina has actually succeeded in this aspect. An introduction, whether done for the first or the umpteenth time, is the first step for a better, established relationship. The journey for the planned campaigns has just begun. The parties involved in the re-introduction process have not had the chance to reflect on their experiences. Their touristic eyes, which consider every visible thing as new before realizing the physical potentials of the urban elements, are still trapped within the hysteria of visual enchantments. To return to the metaphor of your beloved: if you know your beloved well, his or her face would be more than just a face you admire. It is the qualities and potentials hidden behind Jakarta’s face that AhmettSalina still fails to deal with in greater details.

It is indeed too soon to make any conclusion now. One thing is certain: the future of Urban PLAY campaign should not rest only in the hands of AhmettSalina and their team, but also in ours. We all, myself included, should also be involved. In this case, we should consider the Urban PLAY series not as a new standard in assessing creative activities in the urban space. Rather, itis an inspirational series in the truest sense of the word. ***




Jakarta, September 2010
Translated by Rani Elsanti




FARID RAKUN. Born in Jakarta in 1982, he studied architecture at the Faculty of Engineering, University of Indonesia, in 2000 – 2005. After working in the construction industry for four years and making architectural drafts in Bali, New Orleans, and Phnom Penh, he decided to take a break. Apart from working as an editor in Karbon Journal from January 2010, he teaches at his alma-mater as assistant lecturer.