Bahasa Melati Suryodarmo
Transaction of hollows 2016 is a durational performance set within a stark white room; a liminal space charged with transformative powers over the human body. Through a basic unscripted choreography, the gallery becomes a shared stage upon which an unspoken social contract is enacted between two main protagonists: jemparingan archer Melati Suryodarmo, and the audience, a group formed through happenstance.
Across four hours, the uniformed body of Suryodarmo undergoes intense practice: the repeated setting of an arrow in a gendawa (traditional Javanese bow), a methodical drawing of its string, concentrated aim at a conceptual target, and the subsequent firing of the bamboo arrow. This sequence of actions is repeated 800 times, and is highly demanding in its physical replication and psychological insistence.
In this space sound is privileged: the air is split as each arrow swishes through it, piercing the tension-filled atmosphere with the sound of a hollow ‘thwack … thwack … thwack’. This repeated sound is akin to a chant, a regular aural rhythm that accumulates to induce a trance-like state in the performer, and silent obedience from the group.
Necessarily, Suryodarmo places herself in a state of trained meditation. Specifically, she ruminates on contemporary society’s misguided drive to achieve more, acquire more, and to do so with an ever-increasing speed and voracity. According to the artist, such is the flawed pursuit of an impossible utopia. Thus, the repeated set of actions undertaken in Transaction of hollows evokes a spiritual quest—a strength training exercise for the soul to safeguard against life’s vacuous temptations.
Separate to, yet resulting from, the actions of the archer, the body of the spectator also undergoes a necessary transformation. As the viewer crosses the threshold to step inside Suyrodarmo’s live work, they are recast as participant. An immediate effect takes hold as a heightened awareness of the boundaries of one’s own body becomes paramount: one must be alert and silent; one should remain calm so as not to induce target-panic; one’s body must move in time with that of the performer’s, constantly shifting in position less serious injury result. In this way, Transaction of hollows is a ‘happening’ of adrenalin and endurance.
With the upshot, only an awareness of one’s increased heartbeat remains of the soundscape, and in this interiority, we are returned from the herd to the individual.
Jaklyn Babington
Melati Suryodarmo
