Focus
6th FOCUS: HUMOR IN THE CITY
Living in a busy and extravagant city, sometimes we need to dampen our anxieties by using humor. Courageously, this edition observes the absurdity of the city with humor. From an essay about a comedy show programmer on a TV station and one about the absurdity of TV—the shows we see in our sitting room—the essays then move outside to the street, and back to what have been recorded and presented to us, to be seen on our computer screen.
Veven Sp. Wardhana, a TV observer who always very diligently watches TV and makes notes, elucidates about how the entire contents of the TV shows are actually very funny. It is enough for you to watch TV to find a myriad of absurdities, starting from horror films that have turned into something called religious cinema, the outlandish gossip shows, a variety of weird terms, to the absurd telenovela and the surreptitious ghost ads that are invariably found out.
A media hooker wrote the letter after being sent out of the meeting room. It is a letter of protest written by an insider in the TV industry, which will reveal to us the reason why Indonesian TV stations, that still incessantly produce comedy shows, invariably fail to make us laugh.
In a hot city, the matter of using or not using jackets can be such a perplexing issue, especially for women. Should I wear body-covering clothes and then feel stifled with the heat on my own, or wear revealing clothes and subsequently sense the heat collectively from the weather as well as from the thousand pairs of eyes that would stare at me? Nuraini Juliastuti tells of her and her friend Ani’s experiences of wearing jackets in Yogyakarta.
The road can be a place where a rich kid driving her car has a near miss with a poor pedestrian, but it can also be the place where an established businessman smiles to a to a poor parking attendant and gives him generous tips for finding him a good spot. Evi Mariani writes down her observations and musing about the streets of Jakarta, which can be a place full of love if we care to use our hearts.
A blog, SERASA, presents Indonesian products that made a twist of well-known international brands. Farid Rakun wonders: does this blog truly wish to share some humor or simply to ridicule? Or perhaps distance—protected as one might be by the privacy of the computer screens, or even by the miles separating different countries—which dissipates the immediacy of the products, removing the audience from the street where pictures of the products were taken, turns all hostility into longing, or masks derisions as jokes?
5th FOCUS: COMICS AND THE CITY
How do the Indonesian comics represent the urban social pulses? How far are the representations related to the reality, able to document the mental history of the citizens, and how do the comic artists deal with the problems of their comic media in order to portray such representations? Why do most Indonesian comics invariably refer to Jakarta? This edition discusses these issues and reveals the phenomena and problems behind them.
Seen from the perspective of comic’s relevance to its era, especially in the context of Jakarta, Benny and Mice are at the forefront of Indonesian comics today. They exist due to Jakarta chaos and tell about all the follies about living in the capital city. JJ Rizal discusses their decade-long works using the urban angle and in thorough, critical, and balanced ways. This is the most comprehensive works about Benny and Mice’s works to date.
If we wish to see how Jakarta was in the beginning of the sixties to the end of the seventies by means of the comics, then the romance comics would be the ideal choice as it is the only genre that has faithfully been set against the background of the metropolis, replete with yearned love and dreams of the city. Hikmat Darmawan elucidates several patterns found in the romance comics, from the habit of reading the newspaper to the fashion styles, which not only reveal traces of naiveté but also hint at the people’s imaginations on the city.
Akademi Samali has published three Senggol Jakarta comic compilations, presenting works by young Indonesian comic artists today. Arief Ash Shiddiq observes the comics armed with a simple question: Is this Jakarta? When violence is present without any consequences? When the street appears merely as a site, a setting? When one tries to avoid the real situations of Jakarta streets? Arief criticizes harshly, but he does not stop hoping.
Who does not know Doyok, the man with blangkon and clam diggers who loyally appears in Pos Kota daily? The comic character often comments on the latest political issues using the perspective of the common people. But the intention is, truly, serious—and it turns out to be very interesting how such seriousness acquires a form. Seno Gumira Ajidarma explains in his essay.
In 2004, four cartoon panels by Muhammad Reza were on display in six Transjakarta bus stops. At the time, Transjakarta had been in operation for only a few months, and the bus stops were still free from advertisements, and Transjakarta ownership was not yet contested. The citizens of Jakarta were adapting to this “new tradition of transportation,” and Reza recorded some of their exploits.
4th FOCUS: CINEMA AND THE CITY
Films, as a form of social documentation and especially a record of the mentality of the society, will inevitably present the city within the story. Has there been a strong presence of the social and spatial problems of the city in Indonesian films? Have the films made the city not merely as a background because it is where the films are made? This edition of Karbon journal presents a number of essays about this matter, as well as introduces a film screening and discussion program.
Does Jakarta exist within the Indonesian film? Does it merely serve as the location, or does it invigorate the film itself, inseparable from its social context? Eric Sasono delineates four stages of the Indonesian film journey since the New Order regime came to power, and observes how Jakarta has been revived, served as a source of inspiration, or merely sold as something exotic in the eyes of the middle-class film-makers.
“Like many other post-1998 films, Mengejar Matahari exists almost without any criticism about the visual expressions of space that the New Order regime had generated,” states Veronica Kusuma in this essay, which also questions whether the apartment project in this movie merely functions as the background for the story, or serves also as an area of critique in a film that lays its base on the social matters.
This is the first essay that provides a sharp insight into the phenomena of the video and new media art in Indonesia. Ronny Agustinus does not merely say that we, Indonesians, have been experiencing modernity without rationality, but also explains the important context which we have often ignored when writing critiques of the new media art: the social and political contexts, which have ironically served as the basis for the Indonesian art history since its beginning.
This is the first essay that provides a sharp insight into the phenomena of the video and new media art in Indonesia. Ronny Agustinus does not merely say that we, Indonesians, have been experiencing modernity without rationality, but also explains the important context which we have often ignored when writing critiques of the new media art: the social and political contexts, which have ironically served as the basis for the Indonesian art history since its beginning.
3rd FOCUS: PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION
Public transportation does not merely constitute a never-ending urban problem, but is also representative of the government’s inability to manage the country’s economy. This edition discusses about the becaks, taxis, and the users of air-conditioned express buses—all reflecting how behind the problems of the public transportation, lies another problem: how to change the attitude of the society itself.
While the becaks in Jakarta were once hunted down and destroyed for the sake of touristic good looks of the country, the becaks in Yogyakarta have been precisely maintained and used as a strong tourists’ attraction. Yoshi Fajar Kresno Murti delineates the problems of the becaks in Yogyakarta, which serve as a means of the identity politics of the Javanese culture but have also been naturally marginalized due to its failure to catch up with the development of the town itself.
Have you ever noticed how bus users in Jakarta are more conscientious on the air-conditioned Patas buses when it comes to their seating attitude? They will, of course, pick with whom they are going to sit. Ardi Yunanto writes about his year-long observation of the collective attitude of the air-conditioned Patas bus users when they choose their seats. It is about them, or you, who probably feel awkward to sit down with others.
No matter how bad we suffer in the traffic jams of Jakarta, it is certainly worse for the taxi drivers as they live precisely within the logjam. The taxi drivers are eventually forced to do their job with a distinct art. Seno Gumira Ajidarma writes his sharp, ironical observation about the lives of the taxi drivers, whom we often see but rarely think about.
In 2001 Andry Mochamad, an artist from Bandung, produced stickers dedicated to the good drivers of public vehicles. If you see one of his stickers on your chosen public vehicle, then you can feel safe, because the stickers would be put only on public vehicles whose drivers are friendly and act in safe manners. It is a sign that they will take you safely to your destination.
2nd FOCUS: TRAVEL
Karbon now reviews a number of phenomena that might take place during our travels due to the problems regarding the city infrastructure. Karbon observes the transportation system, the easy Jakarta – Bandung access, the neglected bus stops, the parking business, and artworks about the holes on the city streets.
Late in managing its system of mass transportation, Jakarta will face a total gridlock within the next ten years at most. Several years ago, the busway system has been applied, but its inadequacy persists: the feeding system and the parking lots. Bambang Susantono believes that the key to the good transportation services is access, not vehicular mobility.
Since the Cipularang toll road is opened in 2005, people’s mobility to travel between Bandung and Jakarta changes, too. There is a corresponding boom in the business that provides fast and cheap transport between Bandung and Jakarta on an hourly basis. Furthermore, many aspects in the rituals of travel between Bandung and Jakarta also change, and the business people are fast to take advantage of them.
Do you know about the informal parking businesses in Jakarta? Have you seen small kampong houses with no garage but with two to three cars lining the street? Motor vehicles have apparently become one of the main necessities in urban living. Anissa S. Febrina reviews the phenomenon from various perspectives, inviting us to consider that the issue of parking lots is not merely a spatial urban problem, but also a matter of the social attitude and the environmental awareness of the urbanites.
Bus stops should be one of the urban spaces that we experienced most fleetingly. But the Jakarta buses are invariably late, the traffic is always congested, and the bus stop design thus becomes important to compensate for such problems: one needs a place to sit. Then there is also the fact that each bus stop has its own “community”, making it become more lively and safe, albeit not necessarily more comfortable.
In April 2002, Handy Hermansyah marked the street holes in Bandung with white circles, so that others will not suffer from the same disaster that had struck him: falling from the motorbike. Agung Hujatnikajennong reviews the performance act, which he considers as a successful public art project.
1st FOCUS: HOUSE
This is the first edition of the Karbon journal, which since 2007 has been transformed into an online journal that explores matters of the city, the visual culture, and the contemporary art. We use these matters as our analysis materials, dissecting them in order to understand the wider social context that these problems represent. The first edition discusses the most chronic urban problem: the house, seen in various perspectives.
Is it true that high rises are the solution for people living in the slums? People are not objects, and resettlement efforts need to consider the social, economic, and cultural backgrounds, and involving the future tenants in the planning process. Darrundono presents his views on this matter, based on his doctoral dissertation, which he has re-written especially for the Karbon online journal.
Kota Legenda, or “The City of Legends”, which was formally opened in 1996 next to the Jakarta – Cikampek toll road, offers a rich and kitschy assortment of house styles. You, members of the middle class, can own a house in the American Colonial or Classical European style without ever having to set a foot outside Indonesia. Farabi Fakih examines such a middle-class imagination through the various housing advertisements in the mass media.
From October 2002 to April 2003, residents in Tebet, South Jakarta, have been lucky to have the publication of Lintas Tebet. The community magazine talked about the issues in Tebet at the time, and the residents were their main sources for news and stories. Karbon talks with Nugroho Nurdikiawan, one of the former editor of Lintas Tebet.
In 2003, ruangrupa held the Apartment Project, an art project about vertical housing in Jakarta. Seven artists from Indonesia (Jakarta), the Netherlands, and Japanese lived and worked for a month in two “houses”: the Bendungan Hilir II vertical housing project at Pejompongan, and the Taman Rasuna Apartment at Kuningan. The following is the notes written by Gustaff H. Iskandar, the art project’s officer.