Anatomy

In the aftermath of the 2004 tsunami, Indonesian graphic designers banded together and emerged as activists for social and political change. I became involved in the Indonesian Graphic Design Forum (FDGI) in [July 2005], an organization that spearheaded some notable design events to raise awareness and aid in recovery efforts for victims of the tsunami.

Tsunami: A Catalyst to Change

The 29-year armed conflict in Aceh between the Free Aceh Movement (GAM) and the Indonesian government, which victimized thousands of civilians [both GAM and the military, working for the government, victimized civilians], was suspended on Dec. 26, 2004, when the tsunami devastated the region. The Aceh earthquake sent its tsunami waves across nations, sweeping away certain coasts of Thailand, India, Sri Lanka, and Africa, killing hundreds of thousands and uprooting the lives of millions. Ironically this was the catalyst to the road to peace between the two opposing sanctions.

Opening its doors to international aid, visual communications initially played a crucial role in the recovery efforts in Indonesia by exposing the crisis through mass media to the world with vivid images of human tragedy to increase awareness, sympathy, and ultimately raise funds. “The broadcasts were heartbreaking. But seeing this repeated every day for months was enough! It’s about the people of Aceh. Their tragedy is being exploited,” Paulus, a local architect confided.

The Rehabilitation and Reconstruction Board for Aceh and Nias (BRR) was formed by the government and participating national and international organizations on April 16, 2005. It was a unified effort to channel collected funds to the victims, rebuild infrastructure and housing, and help revive the regional economy by generating trade and commerce.

Local designers and artists did their own part to support Aceh’s recovery. One of the most exceptional events was a poster exhibition organized by FDGI, called the Light of Hope for Indonesia, which took place Sept. 7–11, 2005. Its purpose was to encourage and motivate hope among the victims of the tragedy by communicating positive messages. Most critics recognize propaganda as a negative or more aggressively manipulative form of communication that persuades or influences large masses into acting according to the intended agenda of the communicator. According to Lucy Lippard in Propaganda for Propaganda, however, propaganda can be positive by being socially and aesthetically aware, provoking a new way of seeing and thinking about what goes on around us. “In presenting the suffering caused by the tsunami so far, the mass media has played on our bloodlust.” Alex Supartono in The Faces of Survivors explained.

Light of Hope avoided using gruesome visuals because it intended to heal instead of frighten or prolong trauma. This “new way of seeing” proliferated hope and motivation as a spiritual therapy. The exhibition was also a relevant example of how visual communication can independently advocate socially and politically by collaborating with private and international sources for a regional cause. The FDGI benefited as well from that campaign, acquiring recognition and support for furthering its organizational agenda. Of course, it makes one wonder what was being propagated—the posters, the designers, the messages, the organization, or all of the above?

In the Margins: Reactive Visual Arts in Indonesia

Contemporary Indonesian art arose from the desire to defend against aggression. From 1945-1949 poster and mural artists initiated resistance against recolonization. (The Dutch colonized Indonesia for 350 years until 1942, losing it to Japan. The Japanese surrendered Indonesia to Allied Forces in 1945). In guerilla fashion, the artists encouraged activism using poetic images of contemplation as well as illustrating patriotism, heroism, and perseverance. After the “independence revolution,” the arts and the government began a love-hate relationship. The Indonesian government found the arts to be instrumental for political campaigns, but when social realism reached its zenith in the mid 1960s, the newly installed dictatorial government of Soeharto began censoring the arts. It violently shut down and muted many reactionary artistic movements, like the socialist LEKRA movement. Despite heavy monitoring and censorship, the 1970s-1980s “Gerakan Seni Rupa Baru”—the New Art Movement—reintroduced the arts into social and political experiences. Social reflective art blossomed after Soeharto resigned in 1998.

Indonesian artists and designers, many of whom were once social and political activists, have also survived by going commercial. Over time some even established an elite and celebrity status. Some critics argued that this was a good thing. It enabled the artist to flexibly move around the system. From the perspective of visual engagement in social activist causes, this notion would have been more encouraging if all artists had been socially conscious. But there has not been a significant social campaign produced by art and design in Indonesia in the last decade. And now the artists have been challenged with issues of censorship and pornography laws—for example, public demonstrations against the release of Playboy magazine in Indonesia and the “Pinkswing Park” fine art installation piece—adding a new urgency to questions about the functions of art and design in politics and culture.

Positive Propaganda: the FDGI and the Light of Hope for Indonesia

The FDGI, founded in 2001 is a small community of relatively young Indonesian graphic design professionals and educators with an agenda to empower the graphic design profession by encouraging participation in social, cultural, and educational activities. They have organized free lectures and seminars for students, national scale seminars for professionals, campus workshops, exhibitions, and have distributed periodicals. In June 2003, the FDGI conducted a poster exhibition titled Looking at a Peaceful Indonesia in response to 9/11 and the first Bali bombing, which features 50 local designers, mostly students. Despite its negative reviews, this event marked an Indonesian design revival. The last major design event was an international poster exposition held by the Indonesian Graphic Design Association (IPGI) in collaboration with the Japanese Graphic Design Association (JAGDA) in 1983. IPGI was a precursor to the present mainstream design association, the ADGI, with FDGI continuing as a more activist organization.

“Shortly after the tsunami, I presented the idea of a poster exhibition, but it quickly diminished from lack of support,” says FDGI cofounder Hastjarjo. The idea was revived when a consortium of graphic technology producers, the FGD, offered a space in their biannual exposition. “This was an excellent opportunity for us to build our brand, a key to network and access for future activities,” he added. A bigger goal and concept had to be drawn up for the exhibition. FDGI wanted to avoid the mass media strategy of depicting destruction and tragedy. The tsunami represented the accumulation of crises that Indonesia has had to face in the last decade and encouragement or motivation was what people needed instead of portraying devastation. The prolonged crises became the bigger theme, but the content was morally motivational, a positive propaganda.

With less than two months to organize the exhibition, certain ethical submission requirements—such as calling for entries or curatorial assessment—had to be sacrificed. We decided to invite designers to create posters for the exhibition. We also felt it needed to be more ambitious, so we proposed that international designers be involved in the exhibition. The tsunami was, after all, an international disaster. “Foreign designers must be included to provide a different perspective of Indonesia and also establish communication with them,” Hastjarjo acknowledged.

Through lobbying and persistent correspondence 66 designers from 17 countries agreed to participate in the event such as Milton Glaser, Seymour Chwast, David Carson, Luba Lukova, Rick Valicenti, Nancy Skolos, and Karlssonwilker, among others. Leading Indonesian designers included Hermawan Tanzil, Iwan Ramelan, Danton Sihombing, Priyanto Sunarto, Irvan Noeman, T, Sutanto, Sakti Makki, and many more. Designers from as far as Iran, South Korea, Taiwan, India, Thailand, and neighboring countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia also participated. A national-scale graphic design seminar and workshop followed representing collaboration between the BRR-Aceh reconstruction board and the Indonesian design community for the first time.

A discussion held on the exhibition at Institut Teknologi Bandung on Oct. 21, 2005, concluded that the posters were difficult to measure. Unlike advertising posters, the Light of Hope target audience was vague, and the designers’ involvement and commitment to the cause was also unpredictable.

“It would be odd to apply the variety of foreign cultural codes used in communicating the posters to Indonesia,” panelist Priyanto Sunarto confided. One example is “Wing of Life,” contributed by Taiwanese designer Aphex Lin—a sequential depiction of a cross morphing into a flying dove, the symbol of peace. Sunarto argued, “The context of the cross signifying death contains an alien meaning to the Aceh people because the dead there weren’t buried with cross markers. Here, contextualizing the messages in the local culture was imperative.” In contrast, a poster by Ian Perkins of Singapore used universal symbols in simple and minimal forms—a red heart with a rectangular cutout on its edge. The cutout piece formed the Indonesian flag of red and white, which communicated succinctly that Indonesia needs more heart. Luba Lukova’s poster was deemed by the panel as distinctly “Luba Lukova” – the designer both creatively amusing herself as well as conveying a message. Her usage of the universal symbol – the gecko’s severed tail – as object of regeneration, is communicative among the Indonesian audience.

Most of the local artists took the path of “contemplation.” For example, Hermawan Tanzil’s poster of a traditional puppet is decorated with various ethnic motifs signifying urgency to forget differences in order to recover from the tsunami. Or the poster by Lans Brahmantyo, which illustrated a glowing womb of a pregnant woman, identifying hope through regeneration. The poster by Wagiono appropriated a photograph of a pebble as symbol for lightness, strength, and hope.
The exhibition boasted the largest graphic producer exposition in Southeast Asia. Along with the seminar and workshop, it drew a record-breaking crowd. After the expo, the FDGI was invited to exhibit the posters in four major cities in Indonesia—Bandung, Surabaya, Yogyakarta, and Aceh.

“There are many plans for the donated posters, one is to communicate the moral messages to a larger audience. Right now we are looking for sponsors to support this. There are also demands for organizing a bigger event, such as the first Indonesian Poster Biennial.” Hastjarjo explained.

The BRR invited FDGI to exhibit the posters in Aceh and also requested it contribute a research team of graphic designers and students as part of the reconstruction consortium. The research team will investigate communication methods most effective for the Aceh people when dealing with future disasters such evacuation and survival plans, and hygiene and sanitation procedures.

The FDGI and its small community of designers have achieved some much-desired and hard-to-reach goals. With few resources, it created an intelligent international and regional network and paved a road for future designers to advocate for the profession and its community. With graphic design awakened and available channels and sources open for it to be socially and politically engaged, the hope for future socially conscious Indonesian designers is secured. And perhaps through graphic design the prolonged crises in Indonesian economy and society can be ameliorated. That is the hope.

FDGI | www.fdgi.or.id

Published in Step Inside Design volume 22 number 4, 2006
www.stepinsidedesign.com

RIP Émigré Magazine

A few weeks ago, I received an E-mail from “émigré.com” announcing and soliciting their “last” issue of Émigré magazine sincerely titled “The End.” It is offered with a twist of unusual marketing gimmick of giving away a porcelain plate as bonus. The end of Émigré came to no surprise. Its steady decline was apparent from 2001, when the magazine gradually stopped publishing writings about graphic design and even resorted to CD-ROM formats. Their latest reinvention, a paperback format in 2003 and the return to publishing writings on design and criticism (minus the visual explorations that helped establish the magazine initially) didn’t help. In the final issue, Rudy VanderLans, the founder and proprietor frankly admitted that Émigré magazine’s demise was due to plummeting sales.

Émigré was widely known by the 1990s graphic designers through their digital fonts. Over the course of two decades Émigré has established itself as one of the biggest or at least most influential digital type foundry in the US or probably in the world. The first bitmap fonts designed by Suzana Licko (Rudy VanderLans’ partner and wife) pioneered the surgence of designed digital fonts. But it was VanderLans who utilized those fonts in his magazine that paved the way for the digital graphic design revolution. Some would argue that this was inevitable, but it was a fact that VanderLans and Licko were the few handful graphic designers that truly invested in the first Mac computers for professional design purposes. Émigré magazine was so much more than just a type catalog or digital graphic pioneer. To many graphic designers who were trained and practiced in the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Émigré was the avantgarde / radical intellectual and critical voice that provided them a societal, cultural, and professional reflection of their discipline in the digital world. There were many graphic design publications at the time of its conception, but they mostly discussed design process and technicalities, self-promotional insight and interviews, as part of the numbing of the profession at the time. Along with the emergence of the personal computer, Émigré provided room for discussing the external environments that influence graphic design, such as the question consequence, the debate between style and expression over function, the reaction toward legibility in typography, debates of professional ethics, graphic design’s cultural and societal significance, and so much more. This depth and self admitted passion in Émigré established its radicalism and represented a contemplative room that many other design periodicals didn’t provide, especially for students. For them, in their restless search for their own form, the magazine was a source of not just visual but also reflective and critical inspiration.

The idea grew out of a frustration of not being able to showcase their unpublished work. Graphic designer, Rudy VanderLans, and fellow Dutchmen, Marc Susan, an artist, and Menno Meyjes, a screenwriter, formulated the idea of a magazine that showcased their own art and emigrant countrymen’s art. This was obviously how the name Émigré was conceived. The first issue was published in 1983, and it presented art, critical writing, poetry and short stories from artists, designers, architects, and writers from around the world. The content was familiar territory. Although the subheading revealed “a magazine that ignores boundaries,” they included the works of people they knew or have passion for it. The editing style was loose. The trio had no professional editorial experience. The visual form was emphasized. The design approach free and unrestricted. VanderLans’ past struggle over rigid modern Dutch design unleashed the raw and unconstrained look or style of the first issue. He experimented with xerography to exemplify the dull typewritten copy and to cope with their out of pocket budget. He tore his precious photograph prints to achieve the looks he wanted. At this time everything was cut and paste, and even with the raw and loose design approach, the process was every bit time consuming, rigor and tedious.

The twice-yearly magazine struggled through its first three issues. Early in the beginning, the magazine was a side project for the three founders. VanderLans was working full time for the San Francisco Chronicle at the time as designer. After Susan and Meyjes left, VanderLans decided to leave the Chronicle and focus his work the magazine. He founded Émigré Graphics and through graphic design projects, he funded the publication of the magazine. But it was Suzana Licko’s involvement in the magazine that propelled its financial support. Licko’s experimentation with digital typography created a new worldwide market for digital fonts. After VanderLans showcased her fonts by typesetting the magazine with it in issue 3, graphic designers began noticing her fonts and requesting to buy them. By issue 4, Licko was promoting her fonts through order forms she offered in the magazine. VanderLans’ total use of the Mac for layout created the distinctive, rugged, and multi-layered Émigré look. Still investing in his wife’s fonts and a distinct, rebellious typographic approach, he achieved a sub-culture, anarchistic atmosphere. Every issue was different, or seemed to grow and develop.

Initially Émigré also relied on outside clients to be able to fund their magazine project. But the fonts’ success and high demand led Émigré to focus most of its energies on type manufacturing. The computer and the advent of the graphic applications such as Aldus Pagemaker and Macromedia Freehand were revolutionizing typography and helped propel graphic design toward the digital age. Émigré was established at the right time and at the right situation. The distinct visual of the Émigré fonts and the “radical” graphics of the magazine appealed to the graphic design community. It was also evident from the letter responses and critique that most of their readers were those who cared for its visuals. Gradually it shifted its contents toward design related issues. It wasn’t only to there to cater to the market. VanderLans claimed to be passionate about what he was doing, about designing and being critical about his profession as a graphic designer. He noticed how the revolutionary backdrop that was taking place wasn’t thoroughly examined, or exposed critically to his fellow graphic designers. Realizing that Émigré could be that release of his reflective and critical agenda, by issue 10, it un-officially became a graphic design journal.

The loose editorial style and diverse content perhaps allowed the magazine to be flexible in reinventing itself. VanderLans assumed the editorial helm with a liberal direction. The only guide to the content was the theme of each magazine issues. Each issue had a different theme to discuss and had a different visual approach to it. There were many issues that granted the designers profiled to take control over the layout and editorial. Guest editors and art directors were frequent. VanderLans was proud of the fact that most of his writers were visually oriented as opposed to most magazines, published by writers who were verbally oriented. But he noticed how those magazines had editors who also assumed the art directorial position. That was how he rationalized his editorial and art directorial function in Émigré. Professional graphic designers and unknown designers contributed the writings; some of them were even fresh out of design school. VanderLans explained that he had no aspiration to be a writer. But he and his contributors loved writing and he feels no one can write with more passion about the things graphic designers care about than graphic designers themselves. Professional graphic designers are also uniquely qualified to write about design because of their inside knowledge and observation, he argues. With progress of computer, writing also became easier, he admits. Although humble in admitting his amateurism, his sharp focus on choosing themes and current issues that matter to graphic designers is commendable.

In some aspects, the magazine stayed true to its original content, still exhibiting art, poetry and short stories, but the majority of its articles and the theme were reserved for design. In accordance to the rapid development of the field, the leaps in theory and practice, and the wide space for criticism that it allowed, the writing content and design synonymously became complicated and rigorous touching issues on design advocacy, the debate over design commitment, authorship, hybridity, and the vagueness of design education. It even defiantly stood up to its criticisms. Massimo Vignelli harshly attacked the magazine. In his view the magazine was a ‘national calamity’, ‘aberration of culture’ and a ‘factory of garbage’. Steven Heller wrote about his anxiety over the misapplication of rule-breaking by impressionable foreign designers. They graciously retaliated by commissioning reactionary writings and conducting interviews with the parties involved, therefore maintaining consistency with providing voice of their profession, including those against the magazine’s presumed agenda. Jeffrey Keedy, otherwise often referred as Mr. Keedy, a type designer and design teacher often provided critical writings for Émigré, an ‘adequate’ example of the rigid content and direction that Émigré had grown into. His critical writings advocated graphic designers’ role in the digitization of communication, and opposed modernism’s rigidity, sterility, and utopian vision. In issue 67, he wrote an article as a reaction toward the condescending attitude toward design by art and culture critic by arguing through historical and cultural reference of the appropriation to style and complexity in ornamentation in design by his contemporary peers. Titled “Style is Not a Four Letter Word,” he wryly points out the economical factor that drives the modernist movements, and the unjust rationalization and purification of it. He then rants and argues against Hal Foster’s criticism on the consumeristic nature that design has developed into. He explains the inability of Hal Foster accurately exposing the problem, as he is incapable of submersing himself in a field he’s not familiar with and thus unjustly oversimplifying its complexity: “Foster only sees design as a barrier to “resistance” (fight the power, right on!) and a threat to the distinctions between practices,” (art is special!). Design is often erroneously conflated with marketing and consumerism to serve as a whipping boy, to enforce “disciplinarity,” and to keep us in our place. He is attacking the messenger because he doesn’t like the message. Design is just the messenger. The idea that art doesn’t matter is the message.”

Keedy’s conclusion is typical of reactionary writing as it is defiant, ranty and at times seems arrogant. He prematurely or rather ambiguously concludes that in the age of aesthetics, it is the designer’s role – if they choose – to develop style as it had been proven throughout history that it enriches culture. Keedy suggests that designers should advocate style instead of just problem solving, communicating, organizing information, and branding – the stereotypes that concur some commercial aspects of design. He desires designers to be gurus of style instead of amateurs, otherwise how can culture be expressed and understood accordingly. Mr. Keedy’s writing and many others seem to have a similar reactionary – defensive voice. Contributors such as Scott Makela and Katherine McKoy are often categorized as the experimental jet set group in design, including Keedy, who was trained by the latter.

This critical voice, no matter how mediocre it seemed, was what many graphic designers needed, not to justify their practices but function as a contemplative space. This is important in a field that mostly invests in visual communication. As a foreign graphic designer, during school I was informed about Émigré through design history class. It was here, through brief lectures, Émigré was explained as a reactionary force in progressing the digitization of graphic design and typography. As I tried to recall, a blur it seemed, that Émigré at a glance seemed important not only for the digital revolution of graphic design, but also for speaking up for the profession, endorsing and championing it through criticisms of its failures and commercial turns. For many graphic design students at the time when Indonesia was in the midst of political and economic crisis, this form of visual “radicalism” such as Émigré, and graphic designs of Neville Brody, David Carson, Tibor Kalman, and of late Stefan Sagmeister had some effect (of course to those that were exposed to it). It is ironic that in the end, this magazine was viewed impressionistically instead of extensively through the contents it provided. There is no design criticism in Indonesia, a country that endorses design as tools of industry instead of acknowledging its potential role in society. It is keen toward the fast paced transformations of style, but as Steven Heller fears an impressionistic absorption may be the case. In the case of design and criticism, I doubt the influence of the critical voice that design promises through Émigré over foreign countries such as mine is feasible in short period. Graphic design in Indonesia is an extremely young profession and is still learning. There is hope for teachers to expose contemplative modes and train them in the future with hopes that in can trigger societal consciousness much needed among future generations. Émigré’s return to design and criticism starting with issue 64 and its abolishment of all visual embellishment exemplifies VanderLans concern and future agenda of what depth design should take form. This is a utopian compromise that led to its demise, as it is apparent that the visual culture that graphic designers are accustomed to overlook the verbal and critical aspect that is also potential in this field.

The printed format is dead, but the digital domain lives on. Through blogs and online articles, VanderLans hopes to maintain the Émigré tradition alive. But Émigré isn’t the only graphic design journal available. There are many design related journals and periodicals that have sprouted due to the implicit need for reflective criticism in design. Adbusters and Dot Dot Dot offer reflective creative writing expressions, satires and sharp ciritcal writings on art and graphic design, and so does the University of Illinois at Chicago’s Design Issues. The writing and research of Ellen Lupton and her husband Abbott Miller exemplifies such. Mainstream magazines such as Print, How, ID, and Communication Art are providing such voice in columns such as Rant. Countless aggressive reactionary blogs and website with the Émigré spirit. This is an opportunity that graphic designers need to exploit to make sense of their profession and most find their ground in society.

Sources
- Rudy VanderLans, Suzana Licko, Mary E. Gray, Émigré: Graphic design into the digital realm, 1993 Byron Press Books, Canada
- Émigré No. 67: Graphic Design vs. style, globalism, criticism, science, authenticity and humanism, edited by Rudy VanderLans, 2004 Princeton Architectural Press, New York
- Rick Poynor, No More Rules: Graphic design and postmodernism, 2003 Yale University Press, Connecticut
- http://www.emigre.com/VanderLans.php
- http://www.underconsideration.com/speakup/interviews/rudy.html
- http://www.howdesign.com/dc/features/vanderlans1.asp
- http://www.typotheque.com/site/article.php?id=73
- http://www.typotheque.com/site/article.php?id=5
- http://www.designobserver.com/archives/007816.html#more

Being critical is one of the qualities of the consciousness. I believe consciousness is born out of experience, education, cultural and traditional forming. People are raised in an environment made of rules, that is tradition, culture, and norms. As they grow up, experiences from education, trainings and daily interactions with others will shape the way they think, the way they opinionate, the way they judge. Information provided by the media are also experiences that will determine their consciousness. Once in a while they challenge and questions their routines, their norms, and the system that controls their daily life – sometimes self-engaged in an intellectual argument. So when does the consciousness begin to question and oppose, instead of conforming? How does this nature or choice come about?

I’d like to argue this question from a vantage point of an old story. I’d like to start with the story of a young prince Siddhartha Gautama full of joy and spirit with his life behind closed walls. Behind this wall, all is sterile, pristine, and as we the readers are aware, was purposely structured to appear constant, painless, and immortal, as all the negative were relieved from Gautama’s view. As he grows the walls that confine him becomes a too familiar space, and he asks a request from his father to look beyond the boundaries of the wall. This is a symbolic act of being curious, an act of the subjective mind, and a quality of the consciousness. Here we see Siddhartha committing a conscious critic of his norm. The walled space becomes a too familiar situation – an upbeat, overly positive drama that the mind cannot accept as the only existing condition. We remember being confined in a crib, surrounded by such walls. Our mind cannot accept this and because we have no verbal skills to express our conscious assessment, we try to climb out. This is a phenomenon of the conscious.

As the story goes, the King grants his son’s wish, provided that the world outside is cleansed of all diseases and sensations of death. As Siddhartha is charioted out into the utopian kingdom, he notices an alien creature much like him but withered and decayed. He asks what the creature was and his most loyal subject answered that it was a man fading away from this life by age. Along his trip, Siddhartha would encounter two more images of the tragedies of man: sickness and death. Because of these images, Siddhartha opposes the norm and denounces his Eden. Later through many trials and temptations, Siddhartha became the Buddha or the enlightened one. Siddharta’s discovery are new exepriences that not just enrich his knowledge but further drives his consciousness to ask. And the accumulation of his discoveries, allow his liberated consciousness to pursue the critical path.

The visions of Siddhartha are experiences or sensations contrast to the situated environment purposely created to control his daily life. We recall the wall, the confine that challenges our consciousness’ will to absorb knowledge. It is perhaps nature’s program, the Homo sapiens’ instinct, a skill derived from past exercises that our ancestors imprinted in our genes. Or perhaps it is the way our brain was structured to deal with the nature of our surroundings, the way it perceives and absorbs information reciprocates it to provoke inquisition. I posit that the consciousness is an independent entity trapped in a physical form, it has will, and pronounce choice. Let’s assume that this is the first trigger of our curiosity to question. The second trigger, if indeed that consciousness is liberated, is the variety of situations and experiences, different or comparable to the norm we are used to. These conditions further provoke the conscious to question. When faced with an alien concept or experience, consciousness will raise a desire to know more information about the experience, therefore igniting question, or critique.

For example, when we are informed of a new fact, much different than what we were educated or raised to believe, we at least wonder what it is that is different. That act alone is a critical act of the conscious. Until more information surfaces, our conscious becomes more curious and critical. Opposition happens when the norm is challenged by the new experience and the conscious decides to embrace the new experience instead of the norm. The norm or routine is no longer valid as the main value or experience for the consciousness to adhere.

Siddhartha opposes his utopian society because it no longer makes sense to him: There must be “something” outside the wall. His consciousness demands it. The repetitive routine of his sterile life provokes his consciousness to ask: Is there more, is there anything else? Furthermore, people are raised by traditions brought upon cultural behaviors. At a certain age, one is exposed to experiences that are different than their traditions. Those experiences offer a new logic, a new rational that challenges one’s norm, perhaps because it is “attractive,” because it feels more “right” in a sense when compared to the comfort of our past experiences.

When Dell recalled 1.4 million Sony batteries, Dell’s stocks took a plunge. Dell received further blow by the announcement of Apple’s MacPro, a gargantuan 64 bit processing machine that out performs Dell’s mega PC towers and as well as underprice it. But this is far from Apple’s ambitions of being the David of Goliath. Well, the table has turned, for Apple now recalls 1.5 million laptop batteries, manufactured by none other, Sony. And as we speak, investors are selling Apple stocks, instead of acquiring more. But how does this affect Sony? Almost 3 million of their defected batteries are being recalled because of faulty wiring that may cause laptops to catch on fire, and image that certainly fuels one’s imagination, and in reality would only be discovered in books or movies. That constitutes hundreds of millions of dollars lost. Not to mention investor distrust. I view this as only the beginning, an accumulation of sequential disasters that targets the slow annihilation of Sony. Could this be a global conspiracy?Check your laptop batteries, you Compaq, HP, Zyrex, IBM, and those Quasi Chinese laptop owners. Even I jeer anxiously for signs of electrical malfunction or simply smoke, from my Apple iBook, in which this Weblog is being typed on.

So much fuss over a magazine. So much controversy over an artwork. So much agitation over a proposed bill.

This essay circulates around three key events: the Indonesian Playboy magazine’s ill fate after launching, the Pinkswing Park art installation by painter Agus Suwage and photographer Davy Linggar that enraged religious fanatics, and ultimately the debate on the anti pornography bill blueprint and statements made by the FPI – the Islamic Defender’s Front – as well as by the “dangdut” megastar and Muslim cleric, Rhoma Irama, and by his colleagues at the Indonesian Islamic Ulama Council, the MUI: that pornography must be outlawed from Indonesian society in order for the country to maintain and uphold its already degrading moral integrity, and to protect its women and children. (1)

I will not argue what is wrong and what is right. I believe that the discourse surrounding pornographic art and media, in this case, is far more complicated than the generalization that those media is degrading women or that it has the effects of demoralizing the Indonesian society. I believe that much of the fervor was accumulated, collectively ignited by past controversies; one was the erotic dance performance of the “dangdut” phenom, Inul Daratista in 2003. (2) And even far before Inul, when erotic magazines such as Popular, FHM, and tacky pornographic tabloids dealt with illegal sweepings by the FPI. (3) Or the government’s failure to curb prostitution, I argue that the overlooked forces behind and beyond the debated objects and the debaters themselves have propelled this animosity. Paternalism and moral concerns are just a mask for the conservatives in spinning the real issues. The first factor is the mass media’s role in amplifying, reproducing, and disseminating the object’s coverage. It is the culmination of accumulated coverages leading up to Playboy and Pinkswing Park as its zenith that have exploded this dispute over what’s right and wrong.

This ties into the second factor, globalization. Playboy magazine acts as an agent of globalization and modernization – the rival of Pan-Islamism, the concept that many Islamic conservatives have been trying to revive. (4) This is also a symptom of disjuncture between the “scapes” as posited by Arjun Appadurai, a friction between arising media technologies, dissemination of visualities, and spiritual ideologies. (5) I assume that there is a power struggle - between the status quo, Pan Islamism movement, and oppressed minorities - happening here in gaining control over foreign media, foreign ideologies, such as liberalism, democracy, freedom of expressions, and gender rights that may threaten or rupture the existing cultural codes that have rendered Indonesians dependant on the state for moral acknowledgment.

Ultimately all this has resulted in the anti pornography bill, not only championed but also sanctioned by the Islam conservatives. Implications from the bill, if passed, are damaging. First it would position paternalism, male dominance over women as a legalized culture. Second it would limit the rights of women, the queer, even as far as to control what they wear. Third, this bill will limit freedom of expression in media and the arts. This has sparked an intense national debate: what gives the government rights to control their citizen’s moral behavior? A question that can only derive from a modern epistemological view – a view frightening to the Islamic conservatives. (6)

Therefore, I posit that globalization is not only a threat to the status quo – the state and the national identity, but also that it is opening up possibilities for minority Indonesians (those who oppose the bill are considered minorities, but the term do suggest ethnic and religious implications) to speak out for the first time on a bigger platform. The mass media’s role in disseminating information has helped in supporting this balance of dialog between the conservatives, the fanatics, and the liberals. It even has taken the subject into a global debate, drawing international support and attention. The accumulated reaction has pressured the cessation of passing the bill, for now.

Ngebor Inul, Lipstick Magazine: Celebrating the Flesh

Indonesian depictions of the flesh, celebration of the body image is an ancient culture derived from the “primitive” times preceding the first major religion that reached Indonesia, Buddhism and Hinduism. Even then, synthesized with the teachings of tantric Buddhism it is freely portrayed in temples as an educational tool for maintaining the people’s moral spirituality. (7) However, after the rise of Islam, sex has been regarded as a private, secret and often taboo subject. Many Hindu temples in Java has been desecrated or covered up to hide away the erotic depictions. This of course does not diminish aggressive sexual behaviors or sex crimes against women and young men, although very suppressed and hidden from the public eye. The concealment of sexual acts in history has positioned the “national culture” as immaculate.

Soekarno (term of office 1945-1965), the first president of Indonesia is known for his womanizing behaviors and pushed for the modernization of the nation. His endorsement over the Pancasila – the national five principles that encourages plurality and social justice, diminishes the Pan Islamic principles of administering an Islamic nation encouraged by the Islamic conservatives at the time. The mass media at the time was highly proliferated too, used mostly as a tool to promote nationalism, propaganda necessary to unite the nation, and maintain state stability. As listening to the radio became a social activity (because many people were illiterate at the time), the people grew aware of the idea of a nation and the sovereignty of a state. I found this process similar to that happening in Belize, when watching television and the discourse that surrounds the information gathered from watching it transforms the ideas of the nation (Wilk 1993, 1994). (8)

When the government of Soeharto (the New Order) replaced Soekarno, due to his leanings with communism, his government eradicated many progressive accomplishments. He nurtured subtle discrimination, and obsessively managed the mass media for reasons of control. The New order centralized the mass media and established a national censor bureau, transforming the “modernized” state into an authoritarian condition. Many liberal and reactionary movements were oppressed, even including the Islamic radicals. However, the government groomed the Islamic Ulama Council – MUI, as a moral front to his corrupt governance. Here the distribution of media is controlled, moralized and carefully filtered, therefore homogenizing. Attempts by the media to test the government’s grip have resulted in the publication’s shut down.

Soeharto resigned in 1998, leaving the nation in disarray, and the government lost its grip on the mass media. Post dictatorship Indonesia witnessed the most progressive proliferation of mass media and democratization of politics, economies, as well as the liberalization of ideas. It also gave back legitimacy to the suppressed Islamic conservatives.

Jumping ahead four years to 2002, the proliferation of mass media included those of male entertainment magazines such as Popular and tabloid style erotic magazines such as Lipstick, Lampu Merah (Red Light), and many more. The magazines are sold in the open with no age limit for purchase. The nation has just recovered from Indonesia’s fourth president, Abdulrahman Wahid (Gus Dur), a blind prophetic cleric. (9) He was ousted from his presidency after failing to gain national support for his government. During Gus Dur’s presidency, his ties with the Nahdatul Ulama, an East Javanese Muslim organization gave the MUI wind in assuming much spiritual leadership and moral control. Fearing further widespread development of pornographic materials among the public, they issued a religious decree, a “fatwa,” against pornography. (10) The “fatwa” gave reason for the FPI, the Muslim’s moral watchdog, to conduct public sweepings of newsstands in several cities around Java. Debate over freedom of expression against the rights to regulate moral conduct carried on intensely till the present.

In 2003, touring around the Javanese island, Inul Daratista gained popularity from her signature “Ngebor” dance, a sensual gyrating drilling movement of her posterior. The erotic dance of “dangdut” vocal performance is nothing new, its roots originating in Indian influenced dances, and the sexually charged Sundanese “Jaipong.” This type of erotic entertainment is hidden from the public eye because of its obscure patronage in rural areas, among the farmers and villagers, deemed backward and disconnected from modernity by urbanites. However when an audience videotaped her performance, reproduced, and marketed it to the masses in Video Disc Format (VCD), she automatically gained national attention, plus a record deal. Many urbanites finally viewed the erotic “ngebor” of Inul on national television and fell in love with her. The MUI, however, issued a statement barring the selling and purchase or her video, also banning public viewing of Inul’s concerts. The statements were largely ignored, defying the Muslim clerics decree for the first time, and Inul gained further popularity among the rural civilians and urbanites, as well as public intellectuals who sympathized her plight, including former Indonesian president Gus Dur. Acting out as the loyal moral watchdogs, the FPI demonstrated against Inul and even threatened to sack her concerts. Again the public defied the FPI and MUI.

Owning or having to have watched these media exposures of Inul, in my view gives a sense of agency among people, many of whom are wary of the MUI’s ridiculous decree and moral hypocrisy. It is public knowledge that the MUI became the New Order’s justification for corruption, spinning the concept of “fatwa” and moral virtues while the government suppressed the people. With the proliferation of television broadcasts of foreign (mostly American) and occasional accidents of the censor bureau missing an edit of Baywatch, or racy scenes in foreign TV shows, or the bombardment of Inul video music clips on TV, the nation is sensing democratization around most living dimensions. I am thinking of a similar situation in the post-Mao China and how the mass media is rupturing the idea of a nation bounded by boundaries, relating to other Chinese in other nations (Yang 1994). (11) What about the sense of freedom in owning a controversial or foreign media, or even the act of viewing it together? In the case of the Indonesian public, this is a threat to the idea of Pan-Islamism that the MUI is trying to revive, and a struggle for them that will culminate after two events – Playboy Magazine and Pinkswing Park, and their ultimate spin in response, the anti pornography bill proposal.

Pinkswing Park, Playboy and Anti pornography: Swinging the Mass Media, Wrapping it in Globalization

Anjasmara and Isabel Yahya had no clue what to expect from modeling for Agus Suwage and Davy Linggar’s art installation piece for the CP Bienalle in Jakarta, September 2005. Anjasmara is a model and television actor, well known for his good looks, and comic bravery. Isabel is a not as popular as Anjasmara, but well known in the modeling circuit for her pleasant elegance and exotic profile. Well, they are both naked, frolicking around in the art piece, as composed by photographer Davy Linggar in a lush monochromatic “Garden of Eden.” Them being pink and nude, except for the white dots that barely covers their private parts. The piece was part of a bi-annual art show sponsored by the CP art foundation, held in the national gallery space, open for public consumption. I believe that without Anjasmara or Isabel modeling, none of this controversy over what art should and should not portray would arise. I argue that without the exposure of the mass media over these art pieces, none of the FPI demonstration and court settlements would have happened.

Agus Suwage has been making social-realistic arts for decades, many of them poking fun at the irony of Indonesian society, many of them portraying nudity and purposely eroticizing the social realities of Indonesia. This piece, viewed by many critics is just another Agus Suwage piece. The bomb that hit the fan was that Anjasmara, the mega popular soap star modeled for the piece. And accompanying him was a luscious desirable model, Isabel Yahya. The fact that they are frolicking around naked and being pink and all is not something new. But when TV stations, mainly those from gossip shows came barging in the gallery and airing the art piece, only a day after that the FPI threatened to shut the exhibition down, if the piece was not removed from the show. The curator of the show, Jim Supangkat defied the threat. The FPI reacted with another threat of violence if the gallery did not concede. The art piece was finally removed. But that was not the end of it. Using the MUI’s “fatwa” against pornography, the FPI sued Anjasmara, Isable Yahya, Agus Suwage, and Davy Linggar, even forcing them to apologize to the public for their “misconduct” of displaying indecency. The arts world in Indonesia was furious, reacting by releasing counter arguments in newspapers and issuing a manifesto in response to the allegations. (12) Then, comes Playboy magazine.

Stealth apparently was not in Playboy’s marketing strategy. The FPI watchdogs and the MUI, both in unison are calling for Islamic unity in fighting against moral degradation. In the last three years, several racy magazines are being published freely: FHM, Male Emporium, EHM, and many more spin offs. Also within the last four years, there have been a revival of Islam fundamentalism, arising from tech-smart clerics, utilizing popular media such as regular TV broadcasts, newspaper columns, websites, blogs, CD-ROMS, DVDs, VCDs, Audio books, etc., encompassing the economic availability and potentiality of self publishing. (13) They preach that the way to arise from the economic crises that have debilitated Indonesia since 1997 is to return to Islam. Gaining sympathy, they arose to celebrity status; some even married rmodels and actresses.

Referring Playboy, the Islamic conservatives were furious and they capitalized on the revival of Islam fundamentalism, easily forming an alliance with these celebrity clerics, calling out for a new bill against pornography and what they term as “pornoaksi,” to define public expressions that emanate eroticism. This term is ambiguously defined and dangerous because it could infringe civil rights and ethnic traditions that are not bound by Islamic laws. (14) The Islamic conservatives have little care for the “minorities,” harshly stating that the explicit behaviors that celebrate the flesh posed by the minorities should be encased in a museum display, instead of being exposed to the public. The defiance of the Muslim conservatives tactically mask their activism under positions of purity, moral righteousness, and more importantly exploiting the popularity of these celebrity clerics.

Playboy magazine came at a peculiar time in the Indonesian mass media situation. I argue that their objective was pure capital, piggyback riding on the popularity of the already widely disseminated erotic media such as FHM or Popular magazine. They dove in without fear of censorship, relying on the success of their predecessors. But now, the utilization of mass media by the Islamic conservatives is stronger. Most of the public is now in sympathy with the plight of Muslim conservatives trying to dig up this nation from moral decay. In responding to the conservative’s protest, Playboy magazine cleverly took advantage on their connections and networks within the popular mass media, drawing sympathy from the public intellectuals, and even bringing Gus Dur, once again, as an ally to their plight. They chose to connect with the art worlds and formed key relationships within the Islamic Liberals.

Clearly the disjuncture between scapes within the national realm creates friction against each other (Appadurai 1996). There are struggles to gain control of those scapes. The proliferation of the mass media both obtained by the Islamic conservatives as well as the liberals, representing struggles within the mediascape, creating frictions against the scape of ideologies, a struggle between capitalism/democracy/globalization and Islam fundamentalism/Pan-Islamism. And another friction between the scape of economy, the resistance and the permission of global trade, free flow capitalism as displayed by Playboy and FHM. I argue that all these friction of scapes, the disjunctures between, the intertwining of, are the process of Indonesia adjusting to globalization. And for the culprits, the key to victory lies in the control of the mass media.

The Indonesian arts as actors within the mediascape have not dealt with the situation tactically. They speak in their own language, disconnected from the public digestion. This is crucially erroneous; for they need the public support for their plight, not alienate them in their jargon. The arts also need to embrace the wider popular media and not reserve to ones that are accessible to the tech savvy such as blogs and webs. Much of this is due to their concept of autonomy and traumatic experience of interacting with the public and politics of the past (under the New order regime, many arts movements have been oppressed violently).

Within the disjuncture of scapes in the national borders of Indonesia, there are key factors abroad that may influence the outcome of these frictions. The Playboy conglomeration as well as the proliferated mass media belongs to a global world, rather lying within a distinct political geography. The problem of Playboy’s plight has graced international newspapers, and even brought its discourses into foreign classrooms. Indeed the media technologies play a great role in this, but it raises questions to the legitimacy of national integrity and the myth of sovereignty. If the bill is ratified, would the global react. Or would immense pressure from globalization already operating in delaying ratification?

I care not to mention the state’s role here, meaning the government, because the actors and their utility of proliferating mass media and globalization dwarf their role in all this controversy. But I associate the emergence of Pan-Islamism within the Islamic conservatives with the state. They have an implicit alliance that ties with the current president Jusuf Kalla and the Department of Religious Affairs. Their role perhaps lies greatly in pushing the ratification of the anti pornography and “pornoaksi” bill. I’ll not go in too much details of the proposed bill because it is clear from many discourses surrounding it that the implications are damaging, mostly to women and minority ethnic groups. (15)

As Kofi Annan mentioned in his speech, that adapting globalization requires the reinforcement of the state (Annan 2002). (16) He fears the disappearance of nationalism, as a collective identity among borders, and also the only order that would establish a sovereign state. With the government of Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, the current president, mainly staying away from the MUI affairs, including the proposed anti pornography bill, it is no wonder that the discourse has demolished the idea of the state, but at the same time shifting it to a more dangerous ideology, that of Pan-Islamism. If the state wants to regain control, or governance it must be strict to enforce plurality, once embraced and successfully campaigned by Soekarno, not watch idly as the MUI garner Islamic consensus as national consensus. The government must also embrace the mass media, create tactics of its own, as national interest, not to manipulate it as it once did in the New order regime, but to utilize it. The government must dive into the discourse, enriching the frictions among scapes, perhaps mediating it. In power relations perhaps it is too dangerous to consider that such a powerful body be involved, but it would be crippling for the nation for it to stay away.

Ultimately, the important point that I argue is that the discourse between Playboy, Pinkswing Park, and the anti pornography bill is beyond matters of morality. In the case of Indonesia it’s about the struggle for mass media control within the struggle against globalization. Pornography began as a reactionary media against politics but in the case of Indonesia I posit it as a vehicle of politics for national control. Perhaps that is why Playboy magazine, despite all threats, put up a long stand off. Some of the editorial staff I know belonged to several youth culture groups in Bandung, and have embraced anti-establishment politics. Perhaps they are using Playboy as a symbol or rather vehicle for fighting against the regression toward a Pan-Islamic state. The threat to the status quo of the rise of Islam fundamentalism will always be democracy, and the ideologies of the West. For the Islamic conservatives that embrace Pan-Islamism, it will always be a fight between Islam and the others. Although not all negative, the positive is being absorbed by the enlightened public, ameliorated by the proliferation of mass media and globalization, a force so strong, it takes several (the state/Islam conservatives and their watchdogs) to severely chastise it in order to subdue it.

The recent mass demonstration against the anti pornography bill rallied by supporters of the freedom of expression and women’s and minority rights is an example of agency among minorities against this conservative paternalism. Among demonstrators are soap celebrities, singers and dangdut artists such as Inul Daratista. (17) More reactions come in the form of petitions, already signed by hundreds of thousands, and statements made by Gus Dur, a respected Muslim cleric ridiculing Islam itself by announcing the several entries in the Al Quran pornographic. For minorities, whose freedom and rights are threatened by the majority, who in this instance is represented by Islam conservatives and radicals, a union needs to be formed. There is already a vessel where the same ideas meet in the form of mass media and globalization, which could prove as lethal weapons if further elaborated regionally. The washing machine of disjuncture between scapes is spinning madly.

References
1. “Dangdut” is a form of Indonesian popular folk music adapting tunes and beats from Malay, Arabic, and Indian influences. On a concise article, look up the world wide web: “Dangdut.” In Wikipedia. April 1, 2006. . Read article on Rhoma Irama in the world wide web: “Rhoma Irama.” In Wikipedia, March 22, 2006. . For more information on the MUI, read the journal abstract available from the world wide web: “Behind the Scenes: Fatwas of Majelis Ulama Indonesia (1975-1998).” Journal of Islamic Studies. Volume 15, number 2, Oxford Center for Islamic Studies. . The MUI’s statement is surmised from various articles, but take a look at one of my favorite, from an online blog: Patung (pseudonym). “Porn Wars.” Indonesia Matters. March 13, 2006. . On Pinkswing Park, read the article from the Jakarta Post in the world wide web by Khalik, Abdul. “Art on trial as obscenity furor heats up.” The Jakarta Post. February 3, 2006. .
2. Check out an article on Inul Daratista by Time Asia on the world wide web. Walsh, Brian. “Inul’s Rules.” Time Asia. March 24, 2003. .
3. Read about the FPI’s illegal sweepings in Liberal Islam Network’s homepage on the world wide web, especially the article by Christanty, Linda. “Is There a Rainbow in Islam?” Islam Liberal Network. July 30, 2003. .
4. Pan-Islamism is also known as Ummah. Read more on the world wide web. “Ummah.” Wikipedia. April 12, 2006. .
5. Appadurai, Arjun. “Disjuncture and Difference in the Global Cultural Economy,” The Globalization Reader. 2004: 100-108. Blackwell Publishers, 2003.
6. By Islamic conservative, I mean people that embrace Islam with a conservative understanding of it, living lifestrictly adhering by a firm interpretation of Islamic Shariah – or by Islamic law. They do not allow the laws of the state govern their lifestyle and even try to impose Shariah above state laws.
7. Pangkahila, Wimpie. “Indonesia (Republik Indonesia): National and Urban Perspectives.” The International Encyclopedia of Sexuality. .
8. Read Wilk, Richard R. “Television and the Imaginary in Belize.” In Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrains. London: University of California Press, 2002. 174.
9. Look up the world wide web. “Abdurrahman Wahid.” Wikipedia. March 31, 2006. .
10. In Islam, the council of clerics or Ulama has the right to issue religious decrees deciding what is sinful, what is right, and what is forbidden. Read more about it in the world wide web at Wikipedia’s page. “Fatwa” Wikipedia. April 22, 2006. .
11. Read Yang, Mayfair Mei-Hui. “Mass Media and Subjectivity in Shang Hai.” In Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrains. London: University of California Press, 2002. 174.
12. You can read both the arts world’s view on Pinkswing Park and the Art Manifesto responding to the controversy at the Indonesian Arts Community for Civil Liberties website/blog on the world wide web. Pinkswing (pseudonym). “PINKSWING PARK Against Rightists Allegations (+Manifesto).” Indonesian Arts Community for Civil Liberties. February 26, 2006. .
13. Read Time Asia’s article on AA Gym, a celebrity cleric, available on Time’s website. Elegant, Simon and Jason Tedjasukmana. “Holy Man: Indonesia’s hottest Muslim preaches a slick mix of piety and prosperity.” In Time Asia. November 4, 2002. .
14. Read the Balinese minorities’ reaction to the proposed bill in the Jakarta Post online. Juniartha, I Wayan. “Balinese reiterate opposition to pornography bill.” The Jakarta Post. March 16, 2006. .
15. Read more about the discourse surrounding the anti pornograhy bill in the Jakarta Post online. Hummel, Daniel. “Implications of pornography bill and Islamic law.” The Jakarta Post. March 25, 2006. .
16. Read Annan, Kofi. “The Role of the State in the Age of Globalisation.” The Globalization Reader. 2004: 240-243. Blackwell Publishers, 2003.
17. Taken from the Wahid Institute, Abdurrahman Wahid’s foundation for Plurality. Masyarakat Bhinneka Tunggal Ika. “Tolak Pornografi, Tolak Juga RUU Porno.” The Wahid Institute. March 22, 2006. .

Visual culture is a relatively new field in the process of identifying itself, and as a growing discipline it is certainly exciting to experience first hand its constant transformations and refinements. This field is also a rare and potential dimension to be explored, distinctly in Indonesia, which is a visually engaging culture. Indonesians dwell on the visual, culturally and socially, propagated mostly by tradition, dominant cultural custom, hegemonic regimes, and in recent decade by globalization, fueled by the information technology revolution, by the media, and by visual communication. Therefore, this makes the disembodied image palpable and vital to the foundations of traditional and contemporary Indonesian lifestyle. This in turn creates many disparities, debate, and polarity between globalization and conservative traditionalism, between the West and the Others, or between democracy and religious fundamentalism. These disjunctures project an increasing debate in the plural Indonesian contemporary culture, which seems to reject the tangents from the polar discourse, evident mostly in the West. I find this thesis fascinating to represent, because of my practical and intellectual background, and as an Indonesian aware of its societal position.