notes on xenotropicsbioperversity

i have solo show coming soon but now  postponed because of the pandemic ... the show has been curated by the wonderfull Mitha Budhyarto....and below is some notes to the basic premis of the show

 xenotropics 

The video montage part of the work aims to present a reimagining of 19^th century tropical paradise in painting from nusantara … from the absurdist surrealist point of view.

 

What I mean by absurdism is rooted in surrealism, specifically in the movement’s interest in animal, natural history, biology, organs, evolution, and Charles Darwin. We can see very active in biomorphic works by Yves Tanguy, Desmond Morris, Hans Bellemer, Dorethea Tanning, and Jean Painleve nature film.

Painleve film is interesting and new to me....because his film takes us to the weirdness and darkness of nature. The use of camera and the setting of his film in the studio ask us to see the absurdities of the nonhuman world…yet he still able to maintain their explicit absurdness, sexually-charged abject, and that there is this strange pleasure we can derive from looking at this world. There is a hidden perversion in seeing this nature via his work. And this perversity, confusion, mysticism of the natural world is little explored in the mainstream representation of nature, or academic natural sciences illustration, or natural wildlife programming.  

If you can just take a look at this 19^th century illustration of a bird of paradise. The bird is clearly a well-mannered creature. The “manner” of the bird is “humanized” and thus anthropocentric. It is sober, and hygienic. And the reality of perverse construction of this bird in natural history is missing. Painleve film, or surrealist zoology, on the other hand, encourages me to practice “looking” at nature’s strangeness outside the heteronormalized, recognizable, highly articulated lens.

So, I use this surrealist zoological lens to intercept within the images of colonial history and representation of paradise in my video montage work.  I’m making my version of Dorothea Tanning and the likes but with the content drawn specifically from colonial representation of Indonesian archipelago in painting and natural history illustration. Xenotropics side of this show is basically a hallucination within the tropical island. Ok that’s what I mean by absurdism.

Why?

A return to absurdist dadaist language of surrealism is a strategy to respond to mainstream environmentalism. The campaign of environmentalism has been really using the voices of sentimentalism, gloom and terror, a sense of urgency. There’s nothing wrong with this…but what I’m asking is: is there any other way of saying outside of this narrative? Is there any other alternative energy? Luckily there is.  I’m happy to find Nicole Seymour’s Bad Environmentalism, where she reconsiders the role of humor, absurdism, irony, and to add weirdness, absurdism of surrealist zoology into the discussion – as a way to point the irony within the mainstream environmental projects. As you can see in this satire comic on Al Gore:

In short, my work aims to provide a childlike, absurdist, grotesque hallucination, fear and loathing kind of tone or voice to “serious” issues such as biodiversity loss, climate change, etc.

Here, we have extinction rebellion website. It’s great! And I mean it. It says clearly in the illustration here that climate change is an urgent matter. Time is running out and so on and so on. What I’m about to point out, however small and minor is the fact that why “only” the human skull is present in the illustration? Why not other nonhuman head skull? Why not insect or butterfly, birds or rat? Or cockroach? Or plants? Because the message is this: the matter is urgent only as far as human involve. If the extinction does not involve human and only mice then it is not urgent. It is a problem because this activism is also eco-anthropocentric. I know it is urgent, but it doesn’t make “me” want to change my lifestyle and move with them. It makes me wanna prepare my own grave instead.

Bioperversity: oh david 

The title is basically a take on biodiversity. it is an assemblage of biology and perversity...so my aim is to offer a pervert guide to biology ...it is also important to note why a "pervert" is to highlight the fact that im not an expert but a pervert or the ignorant or just a viewer or user of biology. in fact i was a very bad student of biology lesson throughout my primary to highschool year. the only thing that attracts me in biology lesson, and like most boyz, was the sexual reproductive lesson. and the boyz watch porn justified as a "research". 

 

And also, my work for this part looks very sexual. Is it intentional or not? well it is open to interpretation. but certainly im not trying to normalized it. 

 

But what I want to discuss is this:

 

When one speaks about animal and or natural life in art, or the wildlife, we cannot dismiss the fact that there is National Geographic Channel, Discovery Channel, or other wildlife programming on TV. I am too a fan of this program, since I was a kid. And one of my favorite is definitely David Attenborough, but obviously with a cautious reminder of white heteronormative construction of nature by feminist who studies in postcolonialism. I’m not supposed to just enjoy the show. I have to be critical now. And this knowledge is cursed!

 

Ok so here’s why:

 

1.     According to Nicole Seymour, “Scholarship on nature/wildlife programming tends to favor media texts with ‘proper’… moralist bent”

2.     They always encourage us to “love” or “care” for the animals or nature.

 

Seymour ask important question “what would it look like to ‘do’ environmentalism… without love, or at least without lovingness? … What if we liked animals and nature for their queerness or repulsiveness, not their nobility or beauty? What if environmental activists and scholars stopped advocating education and explored, if only temporarily, ignorance?”

 

That’s it! my work aims to answer these questions.