INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION PROGRAM FOREWORD
ON MEDIUM AND REPRESENTATIONALISM Akbar Yumni
The spirit of experimental works in general is an attempt to get out from aesthetic ‘pacts,’ especially in regard to ‘representationalism’ and to offer new possibilities of shaping and reading of representation. Through artistic sensibilities, experimental works seek as profound as possible to bypass and transcend the limits of possibilities of viewing reality, whether through an exploration of a medium or exploration of the act of ‘representation’ itself. An exploration of a medium is an act to examine the nature and the whole conception about form when explored through different artistic treatments, with its entire possibilities when converged with other medium. Explorations of a medium are achieved through the tracing of form whose result is rarely predictable. In regard to the explorations of representational practices, as we can see in experimental works in the ARKIPEL –Jakarta Documentary & Experimental Film Festival this year it is conducted by the use of archive as raw material for a documentary that deconstructs or offers a new meaning or a new set of concerns which eventually questions the act of representation itself or representationalism. Sedangkan Today’s Walk –Concrete Aluminum adalah gambaran reflektif dari personalitas sang pembuat di mana perlakuan teknik-artistik atas medium karya ini telah menghasilkan efek penekanan monokromatik sangat impresif yang menawarkan kekuatan visi personal yang menitiktekankan eksplorasinya terhadap representasi. The Moon and Banquet of Love are two works that explore the medium possibility using an artistic sensibility to open traces of new forms. The personal vision of the maker gives a new and unconventional way of seeing the new possibility and nature of medium particularly analog medium (celluloid), which is explored with a high and exquisite artistic craftsmanship. While Today’s 68 | ARKIPEL: ELECTORAL RISK