PUNOKAWAN MANIFOLDS, 2020
video installation
video projection (00:01:34), tape loop (00:02:00), toy cassette player
Punokawan Manifolds considers the sense of self as something that is accrued and stratified, in the process of becoming in relation to its environment. The individual is a mutable composite of the multiple versions of themself that they have been throughout their life. The video, which layers multiple versions of the artist’s masked face, is mirrored by the soundtrack, a cassette loop made by recording different textures of the same note over one another on a toy tape recorder. The video and soundtrack are both looped but are different lengths, so they form new combinations of video & audio each cycle. The audio is played on the same tape player used to make it.
The piece draws influence from Semar, a key figure in Wayang Kulit (shadow puppet theatre) and Topeng (masked dance). As the principal Punokawan, or clown-god, he recurs in every play as a servant to the hero, performing a similar dramatic function to the Shakespearean fool. As both clown and god, his liminal status established him a conduit between the sacred and profane. Semar simultaneously represents night and day, masculine and feminine, life and death. The different timescales operating within the installation take Semar’s temporal complexity as point of departure. The plays in which he appears tell stories from the Mahabharata and Ramayana, ancient Hindu epics, yet Semar is an indigenous Javanese deity who long predates their arrival in Indonesia. In performances he is the only character to directly address the audience in the here and now, speaking in the local dialect or accent, often referring to current affairs.
