Art shows the complexity of reality by presenting opportunities to penetrate the boundaries of ‘commonness’. Art is creative work where the ‘impossible’ becomes ‘possible,’ the ‘hidden’ becomes ‘visible,’ the ‘bad’ becomes ‘good,’ which ‘cannot’ become ‘may be,’ and so on. However, art never simply follows interpretation or common sense of reality, but creates alternative interpretations of reality.
In art, creativity is the main thing and cannot be ignored. Nevertheless, art is not only about ideas, but always requires forms — whether visual, aural, or both — in order to be present and experienced by humans. In this case, idea and form are two dimensions that are never separated in art, nor are they always compatible.
In recent decades, the embodiment of art is not only in one medium, but in other forms that tend to be multi-media. However, in this case, the media can be interpreted as a substance that connects two or more parties (Meyer, 2008; Damono, 2012). The function of the media is to mediate, become an intermediary, a bridge for the interaction of both parties. This mediation function is carried out by various substances (letters, images, words, motion, color, etc.).
The use of more than one media substance, or the transfer from one media to another, suggests that each substance actually has capabilities and limitations in carrying out its mediating role. As a result, when art uses more than one expressive medium, or when it moves from one expressive medium to another, there is the next space for artistic creativity. Likewise so on.
In this case, multi-mediality is not about changing forms, but understanding a way of working creativity that comes from previous creativity, whether it is reinterpretation, addition or subtraction. Multi-mediality is a “risky” subject, because the work of creativity has quite a burden on previous creativity, but on the other hand it creates a charm because it produces new interpretations that are adapted to the contextual.
Furthermore, creativity and interpretation will provide a space for understanding or meaning of works of art that can be increased, stable, or decreased. With the practice of multi-mediality, the meaning of art continues to develop in accordance with the spirit of the times. Starting from this tug of war, we believe that the discussion of art mediums continues to develop, in fact, we note several things that are quite important in multi-mediality, namely: changing the medium, creativity, meaning, and context.
In embodying this logic, we invite speakers, as follows:
First Session Seminar
Sapardi Djoko Damono
Sardono W. Kusumo
Setiawan Sabana
Moderator: G.R. Lono Lastoro Simatupang
Second Session Seminar
Jompet Kuswidananto
Titarubi
Gea OF Parikesit
Moderator: Alipahadi Sills
On this basis, we would like to discuss in more depth about art and multi-mediality. For us, discussing the medium in art is an interesting discussion, especially in the examples of works that refer to art practices based on multi-mediality.