A li'l review on "Begin Again"

First, I'd like to tell you about the condition on where I'm writing this gaga waga. I supposed to draw, write, and basically finish every bits of extra works I had. But yet, here I am writing another gaga waga a.k.a. wasting off another precious time :p
I'd like to write a little review of the movie "Begin Again". I have to be honest, the initial reason I watch it, was because my sister insisted that Keira Knightley look a lot like me on this movie. Well who would passed up a chance of seeing a movie in which you get to compare yourself to such beauty like Miss Knightley :D.
In the end, I ended up adore the movie. The idea of the movie is pretty simple, but with a good writing and directing, it really come out as a very good film. It's basically a  "post-mortem" kind of love story, and in one way and another will remind you of "500 days of Summer". The musical background (no wonder, its John Carney's move, duh!) is what makes Begin Again so special, specially when it mixes perfectly with the sweet yet realistic love story of the two main character: Greta (Knightley) and Dan (Mark Rufallo).
What I really like about Begin Again is the overlapping plot between Greta's and Dan's story, in which each of them was going to a contradictory points; Dan to a reconciliation (with his family and job) while Greta to a separation (with his longtime boyfriend). Yet, individually both of them was actually overcome their affliction with life, even though in Greta's case she had to let her boyfriend go.
I love how the two main character use music as a tool to resolute their anguish with the reality. Greta whose boyfriend was in the middle of fame-euphoria as a rising star musician, has to face the fact that somehow reality could change a person you supposedly known inside out, no matter how long and strong their relationship was. In another case, Dan (a music producer) whose life was already in a mess, has to came to an understanding that every bits of life he had was actually worth fighting for. Both of Dan and Greta meet at their lowest point of their life. Trying to have a reason to do something, or perhaps simply try to distract themselves from their own problem, they decided to record an album. Being rejected by the recording company who already fired Dan, they records their album on scattered places around New York, recruiting random people they meet a long the way. While in the process of recording the album, these two very different people influences one and the other, and not only they find comfort and happiness between each other, they also find a new perspective on viewing their own problem.
Aside from enjoying the plot, I also enjoyed the superb acting of the stars, not to mention to see again Kailee Steinfeld, whom I really adored since "True Grit". Rotten Tomatoes gave 83%, and I think it's a fair review, since there still a few flaws hither and thither.
So eventually, I'd say Begin Again is a highly recommended movie. A bit chic-flick-y, but with an open mind, I think guys will also enjoy it.

A Doubting Thomas

"Faith". The term is an unfamiliar subject in my 30 years of experience as a Homo sapiens. Yet, it gave me a second life today.
Ever since I have the ability to remember, I have always been a doubting Thomas, thus I never truly have faith on myself. It tolls in a number of heartbreak experience, because I have been taking people's point of view as the source of my own confidence. But today came an understanding, that even though you never give yourself too much credit, there are always people around you who can regard you in high value, which, in my opinion, rather give you a higher experience, than those who can provide value from inside themselves.
Ah, this might be just another sappy moment for my swing-y personality... But yeah, I can't deny, the bubbling happiness inside my chest. Because somehow, there are people who regards me as something valuable...
I guess, being a doubting Thomas isn't such a bad thing after all...

An Epiphany Rush

I reckon I haven't wrote anything here for quite a while. Now that an epiphany struck me, I believe I want to write it down here. So I can get the perception of being brave, to lay down my honesty in open space like this, even though I highly doubt someone would even care to read a personal rambling like this.
So, I've been jolting my life for the last 30 years of my existence, and it can be dumb-down into an activities of staying between moments to moments, without any semblance of permanence. But I have my own fears... insecurities, which shackled me from my own liberation. Then it struck me, maybe these hoping around between moments is actually what prevent me out of my freedom. Maybe considering about permanence wasn't such a bad idea after all, because I need not to deny those insecurities I had within myself.
They say epiphany could be from anywhere. In my case, I found a kind of enlightenment from an american political tv show. The show told me if you want your existence to be significant, you need to choose permanence over liberation. Significance in my opinion is not how you stand under the spotlight and being praised by people. It is the stance you choose and you believed in, so you can significantly claim yourself to be self fulfilling--meh or maybe I just made up a very weak logic. And to be able to do so, you can not rely things to just go by themselves. I can not jumping off from one point to another out of whims. Permanence... this word haunted me tonight. Permanence.. to me it rings like an Occam's Razor-ic things. Because it is so damn simple.
I always consider my self as an anti-hero. A Nobita-like character of someshort. It was cool for a while. But now that I look back to my past, I realized I accomplish nothing but this extreme mood swings charisma. Heck I even chose the word "charisma". As it is somekind of charm or something...
The thing is I've met these people. If it was a 4 or 5 month a go, I would refer to them as simple people... I was so blinded by the ridiculous notion of intellectual hierarchies, I regard them as mere background. An insignificant blare of the civilization or someshort..  And yet, it was from them I learn a very important lesson of humility. My narrow perspective has led me into an overconfident self today, and gosh how it had put me into a quite humiliating defeat...But yeah, it at least reminds me to humble myself. To remember that I was never standing at the spotlight, being all mighty and glorious, just because I claim myself to be a shabby, damnable, penniless poet... Perhaps it was my own pride which prevent me to get a clearer view of reality. I dunno.. but I guess, I'll work on my own "permanence" from now on. To build a sense of orderly daily life, and decide everything out of plans... Uh, they said epiphanies often drains quickly. So better to conserve this overflowing energy, and working on it one step at a time....

A Lesson in Humility

I always consider my self as an antihero. A Nobita-like character of someshort. It was "cool" for a while, acting all pessimistic and bleak. But then I met this people, with their enthusiasm and optimistic approach towards life. I mean not just the regular enthusiasm, but a sweet-passionate positivity; their brightness almost beat the sun. And it got me thinking... maybe acting all depressive and hating the world is not the best way to go. No, I'm not suddenly become all positive and cheery because of them. They just somehow reminds me of finding this meme a few months a go, it said: "Not sure if bleak outlook on life and general hopelessness means I'm depressed OR JUST GROWING UP." When I first found the meme, I immediately felt relates to it. Yeah, I was very sure that in order of becoming an honest grown ups, we must at least feels a kind of hopelessness in life. But these people--those I considered as "most people" actually--could bow to the life gracefully, and regards life as something which offer definite happiness. Perhaps--just perhaps--being all grown up means the opposite of what I presume all these time. You know what Timon said; "when the world turn its back on you, you turn your back on the world." I've been turning my back on the world for years now.
I'm old. No point debating the fact.And I guess I've acting like a teenage angst for far too long.
*Notes: this is actually a drafted submission from maybe 2 years a go... find it quite funny heheh.. teenage angst...

Facemates: How Relationship Modify Identity

I got another chance to write a short essay for an exhibition of a newcomer artist. I'm trying to practice writing in English nowadays, yet it still felt suck. The exhibition already been opened at January 24th, at MFA Gallery, Kemang, Jakarta. 

“Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies” –Aristotle-

Adaptability is one of human beings’ primal traits. We adapt accordingly to the condition of our surroundings: to answer the challenges of the environment and to merely survive and preserve our wellbeing. In the end we develop physiological adjustment and alteration so we can became a creature the way we are today: superior, with keen perception and cognition, superseding other species and organisms. Of course these assumptions are the general notion of human condition known as adaptation and evolution, in which we made a gradual physical advancement due to the abundant threats from our surroundings. But then one question rise: if we should answered to the stimulus induced with threat, how should human respond to the incitement with no promise of danger at all?

The precipitous question arises after observing the oeuvre of Christina Phan. Her ardent observation about how couples/soul mates could have a physical resemblance to one and other pop ups the idea of physical alteration of an individual after he/she interrelates intensively with other individuals. The above epigraph: “Friendship is a single soul dwelling in two bodies,” could be an accurate passage to illustrate the idea. Friendships are among the most familiar kind of human relationships.We might find it even in another variety of human connection; in motherhood, romantic bonds, siblinghood, etc. When the bond of friendships is interwoven between two people,they would somewhat act fittingly to one and another and end up sharing the same habit and preferences.

In this exhibition, Christina seems enthralled by the myth of physical resemblance amongst many couple(or in her own term labeled as soul mates) she encountered. This fact had long become a common lore embraced by many people in many culture. Many Indonesian even believed that couples were all supposed to be look alike, and they tend to use this assumption as a method to find mates.Barring the idea and myth of people with physical semblance should be couple, if we refer to a few scientific notion, human is indeed adapting physically due to a certain reasons. It is said that human beings develop four primary types of adaptation: genetic, physiological, cultural, and psychological adaptation. With this notion, we can relate that the physical semblance happening between two unrelated adults could be the result of cultural and psychological adaptation.

There’s a famous adage: “monkey see monkey do.” This basic principle of mimicry happens not only among simple animal, but also amongst people. When we spend some times with a certain person, subconsciously we collect the information about the said person’s custom and habit at the back of our mind. The memories of how they move and act will somehow emerged and become part of our habit. Gradually it will changes of our preferences of clothing, our taste on hair cut, and many little details concerning our daily life. This of course would consequence to how we present our own self in reality.

Furthermore according to some research, it appears that we tend to choose mate based on the physical likeness. Though it seems like a strange idea, but there are connection between appearance and personality. The more someone resemble the other, the more likely they are to have a similar personality, thus the more likely for them to be a compatible couple. There’s even a biological reason behind this phenomenon. A study claimed that partners who are genetically similar to each other tend to have a happier marriage. When couple with a strong basis of relationship bond in marriage it is guaranteed that they will influenced each other. That is why couple who married for a long period of time are mostly have a physical resemblance from one and another.

Apart from the basic concept derived from the assumption of physical semblance between mates and couples, should we scrutinize Christina’s artworks, we may find that there are more interwoven element in her oeuvre. Her decision in using photography as a medium to conveys idea has it’s own significant effect. 

Should we categorize her inclination on producing an art piece, then Christina’s art seems to be classify into the trajectory of portraiture. Upon further inspection to the praxis of contemporary photography, we may find that there are an abundant route’s variation of this genre. Because contrary to the general assumption, a portrait could give a limitless possibility of ideas and interpretation. As Charles Baudelaire once said: “A Portrait! What could be more simple and more complex, more obvious and more profound?”[i]

It has been generally accepted that photography could not present a truthful data anymore. One can fabricate an image easily by using a graphic software nowadays, and this practice has change the feature of photography. As a medium, photography has become more and more malleable, just like a painter strokes her brush stylistically on to the canvas, so does a photographer could further edit and fabricate the image as she desired. Christina had also modify her image’s snapshot in order to build an effective language to present her ideas. Furthermore, William E. Ewing, the author of “Face: The New Photographic Portrait”, had use the term “transplant” to describe photography’s tendency in “making” and “faking” images. This has become a new function of today photography: that is to serve artists’ needs on presenting new realities, making a desirable narration, to fabricates fiction, etc. The so-called logic of “transplant” can also be obtained in Christina’s artworks.

Of course outside of the “image world” we are all familiar with the domain of face transplant. This alone has bring us into a brave new world full of transformative excitement. Everyday people encounters thousands of possibilities to transform themselves into new person, new identity. In her own art conception, Christina bring about the idea of transformative identity between people when they are interacting with their own spouse or partner. Visually Christina’s “transplant’s” trajectory combine images of two different person to become an image with new identity. In this case, Christina’s transformation could operate when she ascribe her own thesis about the physical semblance between couples.

Observing the exhibition of “Exposition: One”, the audience may relate to Christina’s oeuvre quite easily, because the premise itself is a very familiar conception amongst us. The idea of soul mates itself is a very recognizable notion. We can find it, from the traditional script of Torah and Kaballah to the product of popular culture such as movies and novels. Aside from the familiarity of Christina’s idea, this exhibition could also operate as a critical tools for us to examine how the image producing in contemporary world could behave as a generator for new identities and meanings.

D. Tresnadewi Nf.

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[i] Ewing, William A., Face: The New Photographic Portrait, London: Thames and Hudson, 2006, Page 21

Incoma Asylum

So a friend asked me a few months a go, to write her a short essay for a solo exhibition of a newcomer artist. Naturally I accepted the offer, although of course the preparation was a bit in a hurry (only two days of writing process, I think). Well, no matter, here is the essay for the exhibition:

Incoma Asylum: Psychedelic Art of Safrie Effendi

Consciousness has been a prevalent topic to mankind for many centuries. But what is the state of being conscious really about? If we were to simplify the meaning of the human mind, we will find that our consciousness was really just a set of opinions or feeling which is believed together as the reality. The sensation of a color, the burnt of a sun, the coolness of a water; it is all agreed upon in a convention. Sure we might debate from times to times about how a color may seems more reddish rather than purplish, but if we were to bring the issue of an awareness of our surrounding, then there will always be an exact value we agreed upon as the same level of consciousness.

Psychoanalysis compared our mind to an iceberg. It is said that our consciousness was just a tip of a giant iceberg, in which the bigger chunk of our psyche was actually submerged inside the realm we are not really aware of. The bigger part of our mind, the subconscious, would sometimes emerged in a form of dreams, or sometimes in a rare cases, people experience mental phenomenon, known as astral projection, near death experience, phosphene, etc. But because we are very customary of receiving the information from our conscious mind, we seldom put so much thought into things we experienced through subconscious mind. Surely there are a lot of people who believed that dream is somehow has a prophesy attribute, or that the phenomenon relating to the subconscious mind were somehow linked to a spiritual realm, but not many aware of the cognitive potential of the subconscious for their waking life.

Safrie Effendi was perhaps one of those exceptional who could generate the potential of the subconscious into a creative feat. While suffering from a dengue fever, he somehow managed to collect random images of his subconscious into a form of a painting works. Safrie said that while he was enduring the fever, he feels like he was teetering in a brink of death. He even thought that he would never experience his forthcoming solo exhibition. This edgy sensation he felt were perhaps a result of his previous excitement when offered to do a solo exhibition, combined with a very unexpected incident, where he got ill from the dengue fever.

Being over-sensitive, Safrie must stay in the hospital for a whole week. It was during this time, Safrie encounter many strange and random images in his mind. Surely every one of us has at least experience a state in which our consciousness were being transitioned from being asleep into being awaken. At these state, known as a hypnagogic state, we would occasionally undergo a variety of sensory experiences. There is a certain mental syndrome, following a hypnagogic state, which inspire people into believing themselves were inside of a spiritual occurrence, or was in touch with a higher level of reality, some even believe that they were experiencing a near death phenomena. This hypnagogic state has also triggered Safrie’s mind to encounter many appealing images and forms, precisely when he was rendered powerless by his fever.

Safrie’s background as a DJ might be attributable to his splendor imagination. His routine with rhythm and musical beat, could give him a sense of cadence and regularity, which will dominates his imagery as he grow drowsy. When fighting with his fever, Safrie was trapped between the conscious and unconscious, that was probably when his mind harbor into his musical fondness. Even though many people also experience a hypnagogic state such as these—some even claim to have experience a more complex symptoms like phospene—but not many of us could engender a creative outcome from our subconscious mind.

For his inclination to work with the subconscious imagery, Safrie’s artworks, holds a different aura compare with a conventional-representational painting. While most painters control the subject matter of their artwork by bringing imagery of their conscious mind into their canvas, Safrie brings “unintelligible” images into his canvas. As unintelligible as they were, these “visual memories” are somehow show us a different realm on consciousness, a new convention of form, shapes, and color. “Incoma Asylum,” quoted Safrie, when asked about the name of his workshop and studio, “ is taken from a word ‘In a coma’, as in you are in a coma. And ‘Asylum’ It’s a place where people with extreme mental problem are placed.  Somehow they can’t be cured; some people say it’s a prison for crazy people. But however, don’t get me wrong; most of the times; these people do imagine things beyond above normal people. It’s fascinating for me.” To take that standpoint into consideration, it was no wonder Safrie’s current oeuvre; show us much unconventional and bizarre imagery.

D. Tresnadewi Nf.