Aura & Taksu

Walter Benjamin, in his influential essay entitled The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction written in 1936 mentioned the concept of Aura where he argued that ‘even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: Its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be.’ In Nusantara, the concept of this aura has been present since before Walter Benjamin wrote his essay. Through the process of syncretism that occurred in Nusantara between the Hindu and local beliefs, the concept of Taksu is born, which is the concept of energy contained in various artistic expressions—fine art, music, literature, crafts, etc.—as a result of thought, experience, and understanding that results from years of perseverance in pursuing a field, particularly arts and crafts.

 

Indriyani parany ahur
indriyebhyah param manah.
manasas tu para budhir
yo buddheh pratas tusah.

Perfect your Indria,

but the perfection of the Indria is below the perfection of the mind,

the power of the mind is in the enlightenment of Budhi,

the most holy is Atman.

(Bhagawad Gita Gita IV.42).

 

In Balinese Hinduism, maintaining the health of the Indria (senses) to ensure their optimal function is a crucial daily endeavour. The senses are tools through which we experience joy and sorrow in life. However, healthy senses must be guided by an equally sharp mind. This mental sharpness is rooted in Budhi (wise spiritual awareness). The harmonious integration of the Indria, mind, and Budhi allows the purity of the Atman (soul) to manifest in one’s actions.

A person is called “mataksu” when their Indria, mind, and Budhi serve as channels for the Atman’s purity. The term “taksu” originates from “aksi” (to see), but it transcends mere physical sight. Multidimensional seeing involves observing not just with the eyes but also analysing with a sharp mind and reflecting deeply through spiritual contemplation. Only through this multidimensional perspective can one attain understanding, thus enables them to enter the mataksu state, and create a work that embodies taksu.

As I mentioned in my previous blog post, there is a feeling of ethical misconduct with my initial plan to reproduce artefacts to deliver my counter narratives I would like to present in my Final Project. Pramoedya Ananta Toer, an Indonesian writer who was nominated for Nobel in Literature once wrote in This Earth of Mankind (Buru Quartet, #1) his novel that is banned by the Indonesia New Order regime, “an educated person must be equitable ever since they start to think, and even more when they act.” And I felt that if I reproduce these artefacts, no matter how I justify my actions, not only that I fail to conjure the presence of the taksu in these artefacts, but I also am not thinking equitably, and thus my actions are too.

This may not come from a scientific perspective, but I wholeheartedly belief that if I want to deliver these counter narratives, I must start right from the beginning.

 

Kayu Gung Susuhing Angin | The Towering Wood Where the Wind Nests

In the wayang lakon (play) titled Dewa Ruci, Bratasena a.k.a Wrekudara a.k.a Bima sent by his teacher Dhayang Durna to look for Kayu Gung Susuhing Angin at Mount Candramuka when questioning about kawruh kasampurnan (knowledge of perfection). There he fought with two giants who were actually the incarnation of God Indra and Bayu and triumph over them but told that what he seeks is not there or anywhere to find. Failing to find kawruh kasampurnan in the physical form of Kayu Gung Susuhing Angin, he went back to his teacher and told to venture to Minangkalbu Ocean and find the Tirta Perwitasari. There, he fought against a giant dragon, after he slayed the dragon, Dewa Ruci appears and told him that what he seeks is once again, does not exist physically. This encounter leads him to realise that Tirta Perwitasari and/or kawruh kasampurnan is true happiness and perfection that fundamentally arise from within. Humans must balance their emotions appropriately to cultivate a sense of self-reliance. Bima is no longer bound by worldly desires, as he has attained a state of inner contentment. Holiness is understood as the human capacity to discern what is worthy and unworthy of being pursued (Dhoni Zustiyantoro et al., 2022).

In this play, Bima can be perceived as finding Kayu Gung Susuhing Angin while at the same time not finding it, due to the dualism in Javanese syntax where the sentence can be perceived literally as “The Towering Wood Where the Wind Nests”, while it can also be interpreted as “Great Desire is within the Breath” due to the word Kayu or wood can also mean kajeng or karep (desire), Gung taken from the word agung or ageng (Great), and Susuhing Angin or the wind nests can be interpreted as the human breath. It is a well known Javanese idiom that means great desires can only be realised when it’s accompanied with proper breathing (can be meditation, or praying) that gives us inner peace.

Inner peace is essential in Javanese culture, and the pursue of inner peace has been apparent in Javanese traditional practices through rituals like sajen (offering), burning incense, and the creation of making and performing various forms of arts and crafts which has socio-cultural purposes—more than just aesthetics—which is essential in the pursue of balance with the cosmos to attain said inner peace or contentment. However, nowadays Javanese culture is known to be closely related to superstition and the occult, due to colonial narrative’s simplification, exoticisation, and the result of Verenigde Oostindische Compagnie’s—also known as the VoC or the Dutch East Indies Company—infamous devide et impera tactic. Many people in Indonesia until now is still scared when they hear Javanese traditional songs, smell the incense from an offering, and prone to judge people who practice them, labelling them as heretic. This tactic has been used and proven effective by the VoC during the colonial era through framing all Indonesian Indigenous and Traditional practice—particularly Javanese—as “klenik” a word loosely translated to English as occult, to raise conflict between religious and practitioner of local beliefs. After Indonesia’s independence, sadly it does not get better, Wayang is used by political parties and figures to push political narratives which positions themselves or their party’s figure as Pandita Ratu (A Spiritually Wise King). All of this results in the antipathy of the public towards traditional culture. Fortunately, lately people—in particularly younger generation—has a better understanding of the importance of culture and many efforts has been done to reclaim and recontextualise these various cultural expression—Javanese culture such as Wayang (Shadow Puppet Theatre) included—to the people.

 

Merupa Rasa | To Form Rasa

In Indonesian language, rasa can be interpreted as taste, or feelings, such as rasa manis (the taste of sweet) or rasa sedih (the feeling of sadness). It is derived from Javanese, which has similar meaning but different nuance. Rasa in Javanese has a metaphysical undertone that can also describe things ranging from but not exclusively about feeling, inner meaning to perception, understanding, and intuition which is intertwined in Javanese society’s way of life (Benamou, 1998). Thus, I would like to manifest my rasa into the physical realm in the form of an activation.

In my previous blog, I mentioned about The Great European Museum (1993) article written by Kenneth Hudson where he views every town, village, landscape, country and even continent as a Great Museum in which everyone can discover their own roots and see how they fit into the chain of human activities. This solves my problem of the absence of collection, and combining Javanese concepts and philosophy in the making of this activation will enable me to practice knowledge co-creation, utilising the best of both Western contemporary science and Javanese Traditional Knowledge (Leete, 2022).

This activation will be designed to be enjoyed by public with all levels of understanding of Javanese culture, while at the same time encourage interaction between the activation, cultural bearers, and audience through activities that revolves around it through the utilisation of Wayang elements as a medium of the installation/activation to challenge the status quo of the populist narrative version of Javanese culture that is delivered through films, politics, and inaccurate religious interpretations.

 

Below are the elements in Wayang I plan to use for the activation to re-interpret and re-contextualise the Javanese traditional values narratives:

 

Kelir (Javanese: ꦏꦼꦭꦶꦂ)
Symbolising the sky, it is a stretched linen canvas acting as screen, dividing the dalang (puppeteer) and the spectator.

 

Blencong (Javanese: ꦧ꧀ꦭꦺꦚ꧀ꦕꦺꦴꦁ)
Symbolising the sun and the Dalang’s “divine eye” that illuminates the lakon (playwright), a coconut oil lamp—nowadays usually replaced by electric light—to casts shadows to the screen. Which will be replaced with a projector playing collected data sets in the form of interviews with several Javanese cultural bearers.

 

Gedebog (Javanese:ꦒꦼꦢꦼꦧꦺꦴꦒ꧀)
Symbolising the earth, it is a banana trunk between the screen and the dalang, used to hold puppets in place, which will be replaced with other object to hold 3 puppets in place.

 

Gamelan Orchestra, Pasindhen (female singers), Wirasuara (male singers), which will be represented with an audio recording played from a speaker.

Wayang Gunungan
Also known as Kayon, symbolises The Tree of Life and Macrocosm and Microcosm of Javanese belief, it is used to signal the beginning, transition, and ending of a Wayang performance.

Wayang Kamajaya & Kamaratih
Kamajaya & Kamaratih are The God and Goddess of Love and Harmony, they are a couple who represents the aesthetic energy and creative process of the cosmos in Javanese Culture, from the shapes of leaf, patterns of animals, and ideas of various cultural expressions thought and felt by human is governed by them.

 

 

Public Participatory Interaction

·      The activation will be installed in the setting of a Wayang performance, and the displayed shadow puppets are allowed to be touched and used by the public if they want to act as a dalang, telling whatever story they want.

 

·      A video of interview by cultural bearers such as Indra Suroinggeno, founder of the Sekartaji Wayang Beber Museum, Ki Sagio, a Yogyakarta style wayang kulit artisan who is also a Wedana (akin to manager) of the leather conservation department in the Keraton Ngayogyakarta Hadiningrat (The Yogyakarta Royal Palace), and Agus Ismaya & Nia Fliam, artist, experts in Javanese culture and creative practices, and founder of Babaran Segaragunung Culture House will be projected to the fabric to give cultural context of the real value and narrative of Javanese culture.

 

·      An hour or two of one day during the exhibition of this activation/installation will be dedicated to a public program of live hybrid Wayang Suket (grass wayang) performance by Gaga Rizky, founder and creative director of Wayang Suket Indonesia or Wayang Beber performance by Indra Suroinggeno.

 

I understand that finding a venue to exhibit this activation here in Edinburgh might be challenging, so I have another plan to exhibit it at Babaran Segaragunung Culture House at Yogyakarta and document (photo and video) the whole process of the creating the activation. Afterwards, I will build a Digital Artefact in the form of an archival website where the research materials will be publicly available online for people to access, within it included but not finalised are:

 

·      The activation’s curatorial rationale.

·      Video Interviews and the transcripts.

·      Photo and Video of the activation’s installation process.

·      Link to the YouTube Live page for the Wayang Suket or Wayang Beber performance.

 

So far this is the form of Final Project I came up with and is still subject to minor change. I will be more than happy to hear some opinion from all of you! 🙂

 

 

 

 

Resources

Benamou, M. L. (1998). Rasa in Javanese Musical Aesthetics. Deep Blue (University of Michigan).

Benjamin, W. (2008). The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Journal of Philosophy of Education, 41(3), 363–380. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9752.2007.00579.x

Dhoni Zustiyantoro, Agus Nuryatin, Teguh Supriyanto, & Mukh Doyin. (2022). Luwes and Philosophical: Dewaruci Puppet Performance in Suryomentaram’s Kasampurnan Concept. Harmonia: Journal of Arts Research and Education, 22(2), 418–433. https://doi.org/10.15294/harmonia.v22i2.39209

Hudson, K. (2016). The Great European Museum. Nordisk Museologi, 0(2), 51. https://doi.org/10.5617/nm.3790

Leete, A. (2022). Finno-Ugric Indigenous Knowledge, Hybridity and Co-Creation in Research: The Komi Case. Journal of Ethnology and Folkloristics, 16(2), 86–103. https://doi.org/10.2478/jef-2022-0014

Feb 23, 2025

Telling a truth as a story…

I never give much thought about it as I think that telling something is automatically storytelling where you build a narrative that revolves around a topic which eventually ends in truth being laid bare.

Last week I have my Pitching Your Stories, Service, and Products class, hoping to learn a thing or two about pitching in corporate or fund raising context. During one of the session by Joshua Reynolds, he mentioned “everyone has their own truth to assert” which makes me remember that while something can happen in real life, the narrative in which we perceive as truth may be different for each individual. Reality is a narrative we build and choose to believe in.

After class, I was hit with a sudden fatigue which still lingers until this very moment while I type this blog, and during my walk home my brain wanders around and stumble upon Plato’s allegory and his tale about the people in the cave watching shadow made by others and perceive it as a truth. I remember the ending where the freed person who finally see the ‘real’ world outside the cave returned and try to convince their friends only to be threatened and accused of telling lies. So much different compared to how Neo was perceived as a saviour after knowing the truth of The Matrix.

Is pitching like capturing and imprisoning some person with their own perception of reality, and try to convince them of our version of reality until they willingly subsided and swallow the narrative we impose on them as their new version of truth? And in return, they will happily invest—time, money, energy, etc.—on our narrative of truth that we ourselves are still working on to bring into realisation.

This reminds me of the World As Story presentation where my group speak about colonial narratives regarding the stewardship of unethically obtained artefacts by institutions of authority from a powerful nation who—through their website, exhibition, public programs, publication—impose a narrative to the public that they might just happen to obtain it through legal means, citing outdated and politically questionable regulations—such as permit from an empire who conquer the civilisation in which the artefact is taken from—which harms the original owner of the artefact. Moreover, there is bias in which these objects are contested and returned, for some artefact are able to be returned in the grounds of moral and compassion towards the original owner. In what grounds that these authoritative institutions decide which approach is suitable when encountering contestation of an artefact that is owned by one cultural group and another?

Further justification of this right of stewardship also extends to the diminishing of other culture’s knowledge system by pitching the narrative of—self proclaimed—’Guardian of Human History’ which have all the technological advantage to preserve these artefacts. However, traditionally, each culture, if not conquered and structurally destroyed in almost every aspect, have their own way of preservation method for their artefacts. Take the Javanese Keris blade for example, as a relic imbued with spiritual energy according to the Javanese spiritual belief, there is a procession called Jamasan (to bathe or to purify). This ritual while it seems like a practice of spiritual belief, the material, substances, and stages of these bathing or purifying ritual of these blades gets rid of rust in the blade, sharpens it, brings back it’s shine, and unique patterns for centuries. On top of that, it connects the people with their culture through practicing what their ancestors did hundreds of years ago, linking them to the past, giving a deeper understanding of themselves individually and communally, strengthening the roots of their identity in the rapidly changing society. Clearly it is different when it is inside a glass cube, displayed on top of a vitrine and never been ‘preserved’ as it should be preserved, as a relic, not artefact.

The practice of approaching Keris blades as artefact for an object of thought exercise and elite academic discourse is not apparent in Javanese culture—I don’t know in other cultures—since Keris as ageman (a relic that has spiritual energy that gives you positive effects such as luck or protection) is intertwined within the life of Javanese people as something that we just naturally… Do.

Instead of thinking about it, we work on it. Through working on it, we naturally think about it, ngelmu iku kelakone kanthi laku which loosely translated into “learning by doing”. And through constantly practicing our tradition, we constantly re-contextualise it throughout the passage of time, keeping it relevant and established in our society, that is the idea and narrative about Javanese culture I want to pitch to people, including my own.

Cogito, ergo sum, said Descartes. Laboro, ergo sum, said my ancestors.

Feb 17, 2025

I have been struggling with my own doubts towards my initial project idea.

The Ethical Data Futures class, although it touches more on ethical approaches to the use of data in society, was surprisingly helpful for me to navigate the ethical doubts I’ve faced in the last few weeks. The ethical assessment techniques exercises carried out every week sparked my thinking to look for more ethical and effective ways of conveying the narrative that I wanted to convey in my Final Project.

In Economies of Virtue: The Circulation of ‘Ethics’ in Big Tech which is one of the reading materials for Ethical Data Future and coincidentally discusses how Big Tech companies position ethics as a tool that needs to be obtained in order to justify their other unethical actions, treating it something that is owned by another person or group, which they must obtain.

In recent days I have been following developments in discussions about culture in Indonesia, the government’s version of culture is dances, festivals, reckless creative economy, and fashion politics. Meanwhile, culture according to cultural bearers is something that is born from the people, habits, and various cultural expressions themselves are the result of thought processes from cultural practices it self, a cycle. One night, while seeing a sarcastic posts from an Instagram account called kemenyan.ri which seemed to have been created by people who were fed up with the cultural landscape in Indonesia and the actions of Ministry of Culture officials which were just empty talk, I recalled material from Economies of Virtue: The Circulation of ‘Ethics’ in Big Tech mentioned above and try to contextualise it using Indonesian culture perspective, I think that we can learn and adopt cultures from other communities, groups, or nations willingly, it can also be imposed on us unconsciously, this goes vice versa. It’s just that in the cultural context in Indonesia this is often not discussed, because thanks to the rankings of knowledge, it has placed arts and culture at the lowest tier in the prestige pyramid of the Indonesian education system which is full of oligarchic interests and tends towards achieving high productivity as devotion to God Capital. Here I started to have a rough idea for my Final Project.

I believe the universe will give us what we need, my trip to London brought me together with new friends, old friends, and new thoughts, as well as dark tales about the possible future of culture in Indonesia. When I visited Tate Modern, I thought that seeing the work of Marcel Duchamp or Lucio Fontana would provide inspiration that might help me, but instead, I fell deeper into confusion over the absence of collections and exhibitions for my Final Project. Until finally I found Edgar Calel’s work entitled Ru K’ Ox K’Ob’El Jun Ojer Etemab’El (The Echo of an Ancient Form of Knowledge), quoting the artwork description of this work, Calel challenges individualistic notion of ownership, rooted in capitalistic values and said that there are things that belong to humanity and that no one can possess. He believes it is only fair that the practices of Indigenous people, even when circulating in an art market, continue to belong to them.

 

 

Even though this work is an installation art, I try to focus on Calel’s approach on artifying offering practice, this makes me think of Kenneth Hudson’s writing in The Great European Museum (1993), an article written in the year of my birth which funnily, is still relevant and helpful to me at this time, there he said: ‘From a museum point of view, I see every town, village, landscape, country and even continent as a Great Museum in which everyone can discover their own roots and see how they fit into the chain of human activities which stretches back over the centuries. This made me think, what if I used Yogyakarta, a city that is very familiar and dear to me, as an exhibition and the various cultural expressions in it as a collection?

 

On the train back to Edinburgh, I spent time indulging on the reading material for Story Roots for Sustainable Futures, one of which was Damaged Identities, Narrative Repair by Hilde Lindemann, the book introduced what Master Narrative and Counterstory were, and the dynamics between the two. The examples given remind me of how a Dalang (Wayang kulit puppet master) conveys political narratives, passing knowledge, and even philosophy to kings and the people through shadow puppet performances, not only controlling the puppets, a Dalang can also control the direction of movement of society at that time.

 

As soon as I arrived in Edinburgh, my head is full with thoughts, what should the form of my Final Project be now? How can I link these concepts, experience, ideas I stumble upon? as I walked in a hurry to Usher Hall because I’m running late for the Nu Age Jazz performance which the ticket I bought last year. I arrived, late, mind struggling, tired with a touch of thirst and a drizzle of hunger, I listened to the performance. It was as expected, a festival of chaotic melodies, the musician seems like they’re each playing their own piece, until one point they somehow merged, as if meeting in the same intersection, and a blast of harmony explodes, it’s beautiful. Strangely, listening to the performance somehow, somewhat, helped me to conceptualise my Final Project, now I have a rough idea which I have been tinkering with for the past two days, on weekends, I neglect my reading materials and courseworks for a while to tinker with it, and I found it again, the feeling I always have when I tinker with my works in the past, the feeling of excitement!

 

The Ethical Data Future class, trip to London, and reading material for Story Roots for Sustainable Futures opened up a lot of possibilities for the shape of my final project, but right now it’s still shrouded in a thick fog, I know there’s something behind it, but I don’t know yet what it really is. I need to clear the fog, but at least, I’m one step closer to cast away my doubts.

Feb 2, 2025

“Am I contradicting the value I believe in?”

Is the very thing I thought to my self during semester break early in the morning at a breakfast with my girlfriend who visited. As someone who is also my cherished discussion partner, I told her about the plan for my Final Project, an Exhibition I said, secretly hoping it would impress her curatorial background.

Excited she was about my project, our discussion brings more questions and concerns rather than development and breakthrough. We talk about my plan on recreating artefacts with 3D printing and laser printing facilities in the Makers Space to act as the exhibition collection, only for us to agree that replicating an artefact created by cultural bearers felt like as if I stole their years of experience, hard earned knowledge, and personal spiritual journey and speak on behalf of them with a fake object supposed to be enough to represent the presence of the actual artefact. True that I plan to make a video interview and show it to accompany the replica for  further context, but who am I to frame what they want to say? I don’t want to speak on behalf of them, even though I use their own words.

As I chew on my haggis and scoop some baked beans with a toast, one question from my girlfriend struck me “Do you miss working with an exhibition?”. Perhaps? Maybe I missed the excitement of working with an exhibition, researching on the collections, finding red thread of concepts of various disciplines. But, producing an exhibition is never the thing I do. Instead, I produce programs and publications to elevate public’s understanding of the exhibition, bridging the artists, artefacts or artworks, and curatorial team to the general public, I’m suppose to be the bridge.

That day I realised, making an exhibition may not be the right thing for me to do.

But if I want to do the very thing I’m experienced in doing (producing programs and publications), I will need a collection to work on, I need an exhibition.

That day the breakfast was delicious, but I feel like I crashed into an invisible wall, my girl smiling on the other side, telling me to take my time to think things through thoroughly.

Feb 2, 2025