Undisclosed Territory #11

中文

Undisclosed Territory #11
Project Studio Plesungan, Solo, Indonesia

Date: 11.06, 2018 - 11.11, 2018

Artists: Melati SURYODARMO 麦拉蒂·苏若道默 |

We are living within various ways of developing our nutrition, from the traditional, to emerging and advanced technology. Naturally, our bodies are depending on the nutrition we are consuming. This nutrition gives a certain impact through the function of our organs and influence our behavior in our daily lives. In a bigger society range, our culture cannot be separated from our nutritive behavior. It depends on the environment of where the source of the food comes from. In our modern world, food technology, industry and transportation have been bringing different kind of food from other parts of the world to our nearest supermarkets. Thus, there are also many reactions towards this transcultural industry and they become more critical concerning our health and capitalistic industry.

In most of our traditional cultures, there are many rituals and ceremonies where food becomes one of its most important element. Each ceremony involves certain choices of food in order to give certain meanings to life. In our modern world, those ceremonies imply its modernity and hybrid style. Nevertheless, we tend to forget the meaning of its symbolic use, but rather focus on the festivity and economical reason.

In the contemporary art world, the idea of ritual and food traditions has been well known in the performance art and visual arts. In the western history of performance art, food has been used as the main material or object or even as the main subject. There are also different ways to treat the food as material or object in the performance art. It can be used as a mean to activate our body’s sensory system by emerging the taste, the smell, colors (tongue, nose, eyes). There are even sound artists using food as source of noise in relations with digital censor technology. The use of food can also be used as symbolic object which represents a bigger issue rather than about the food itself, by setting it up or putting on specific action to the food. It is often used to represent socio political issues or cultural issues. It triggers imagination and poetry of the subject through the presence of the food and the action of the performers. Food as an object in performance art, complement and complete its meaning through the existence of action or action that is specially done in accordance with the concept of the work itself.

In the “undisclosed territory # 11” we underline a popular phrase: “We Are What We Eat” as the title of our working theme. “undisclosed territory # 11” invites participating artists to examine and revisit the role of food in terms of cultural, as well as in critical aesthetics and philosophy. Performance art works that highlight food ritualization, the way a society deals with food, the origin and history of food, the food industry, health, and others will be the main focus of the “undisclosed territory # 11” edition.

With its varous programs, “undisclosed territory #11” will be back from November 6 – 11, 2018 in the Studio Plesungan Karanganyar , involving 20 visual artists, choreographers and musicians from Indonesia, Japan, The Philippines, Thailand , Argentina and Northern Ireland.