Dalang - A Senior Project in Media Studies (2019)

Three Channel Video Installation, Two Channel Audio

An interactive audio-visual exploration of personal archive, political violence, and the transience of memory in Jakarta in May of 1998.

Software Used: Adobe Premiere, inDesign, and Photoshop.

Dalang, Indonesian for “puppet master,” is a homage to a lifelong fascination with Wayang Kulit, (Javanese shadow puppetry,) a deep passion for Indonesian politics, and an intimate exploration of the one place in one’s life between birth and memory.

Advised by Sophia Siddique Harvey (Shirkers 2018); for the partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Bachelor of Arts in Media Studies.

Full written supplementary thesis available upon request.

Artist Statement

 
 

SCREENS

The installation is a three channel video, two channel audio video installation of three intersecting components of memory:

  1. poetry and reflection (silent)

  2. political and national archive (with audio)

  3. personal archive (with audio)

 
 

1. POETRY & REFLECTION (silent)

Original prose poetry in English and Indonesian.
Projected on pull-down projector screen.

2. POLITICAL AND NATIONAL ARCHIVE (with audio)

Video sources: AP video archive, British and Indonesian news archive, Indonesian National Archive.
Projected on wall.

CONTENT

Pulling from a diversity of content sources, Dalang aimed to paint a comprehensive picture of the intersecting forms of memory (political, personal, cultural, national).

Because I was so young in 1998, my memory of the time is very faint, largely a blur until the year 2000. In addition to the variety of screens in the installation, video and audio in screens (2) and (3) are layered, one of top of the other, as if in dialogue.

Much like the way various elements of our understandings of ourselves and media exist in our heads, these overlapping sounds and images create a whole bigger than the sum of its parts.

3. PERSONAL ARCHIVE (with audio)

Video sources: YouTube, personal and family archive.
Projected on hand-built gawang wayang (wayang kulit puppet screen) with wayang kulit puppets.