P4V1 is a performance with a karaoke video in which my younger sister and I are peeling potatoes in a kitchen setting. It is dedicated to growing up in the Netherlands as a half-Indonesian half Dutch person from my point of view.
I was raised by my mom who does not know what it is to be Dutch. Similarly like my dad, who does not know what it is to be Indonesian when we spend our long vacations in Indonesia. I see them thrive and flourish in one country, and see them become another person when we’re in the other.
Unlike them, I feel like I thrive and flourish anywhere only up to a certain point in where I crash and want to be somewhere else.
Like them, I long for a place where I can be me, but that place is not a country, city or a town.
The aim was to use this feeling of not belonging anywhere, hidden by coping mechanisms, to create my own home in a world outside of the home in which I grew up in.
“What is it to be neither Dutch or Indonesian, who am I, and where do I stand?” is the main question for the creating of P4V1.
In this project, the content is shaped around the relationship between my Indonesian mom and me, and the form is created by using Indonesian Gamelan music. I’d like to add here, that there is not a steady structure to be found in Gamelan, but I used it as an inspiration for building the rhythm. Through searching for patterns, the eventual medium comes forward. It started with a text, evolved via a poem to a song, to a karaoke, to a sound piece and resulting in a live performance.
- how is culture perceived?
- zomia: cultural similarities area
- what the map cuts up the story comes across
- patola in gujara
- ikat in indonesia
- how to create a new tradition and sustain it
- how to invent a tradition
- What aspect of the past is being preserved (when talking about heritage and authenticity when visiting a site)
- The “spirit” of the place
- chanting
- trees
- monks/buddhist
- what are my family traditions?
- family recipes
- family pictures
- challenge the ways people and things are perceived (talking about heritage)
- the peculiar power of landscapes is inherent in the fact that they are visual material “forms”
- Materiality makes them appear neutral as mere traces of history
- Indonesian & Dutch Landscapes
- History within these landscapes
- The narrative
- The allignment
- (Ryoichi kurokawa)
- fascination of the east by the west (Orientalist longing)
- “west” = modern
- “east” = superstitious & spiritual
- foodpractices in cookbooks
- what gets left out of representation?
- colonial archive
- Indonesian restaurant names in The Netherlands and their relationship to the colonial past
- Indonesian restaurant aesthethics
- Are they focused on how “dutch” people want to see Indonesia, or are they designed for the Indonesian people themselves as a nostalgic connection to their motherland?
- “The aesthetics are not neutral, it’s what the “white” want to hold onto”
- “Rural landscapes”
- served by indian servants
- creating nostalgia
- staff acting for the clientelle (think about being dressed up at the door of a restaurant “luring” people in.
- Dutch-Indonesian-culture (like me) what defines this 3rd culture when you’re “stuck” in the middle?
- My sister who’s attracted more towards “western” thinking in a “western” world
- Me using “western” thinking towards “eastern” worlds
- spices and how being used in Indonesia & netherlands
- Culture is not connected to authenticity, it’s a constant changing and adapting thing.
- “there is no whole authentic autonomous “popular” culture”
- Indonesian music history of rhythm and influences
- (calypso, socah, indian and creole)
- The surrounding sounds (the noise) of indonesia
- Om Telolet Om
- Cross model equivalences &/or interferences in domains
- Graphic score for the Indonesian family history route.
- how one bloodline comes together with another one and creates a new one
- “Illuminate the frame” (The vasulkas)
- Innattentional blindness
- Dutch/Indonesian influences in a Indonesian/Dutch setting
- What to find “everyday” in the street of the Netherlands and what find “everyday” in street of Indonesia?
- Split screen view, split screen sound
- What are people my age interested in? Hot topics within my topic, which I find hot anyway.
- What are the narratives when talking about
- Indonesia
- Sulawesi
- Makassar
- Sepang
- Kampong
- What do they already “know”/“think”?
- Contemporary art, in a region/space where it normally does never occur.
- Showing the multifunctionality of the space
- Whats the narrative when I’d show my grandparents house in the kampung without saying anything?
- Change the narrative?
- In what layers is my personal Indonesia build out of?
- imagination
- culture
- food
- religion
- history
- Ask relatives to describe their route to Indonesia.
- “can one get there by memory?”
- Will I be able to find it by one route?
- How big is Indonesia under sea level?
- Connection to the Netherlands in how they created more land
- Man-made language
- What is more man-made in Indonesia?
- Geology
- Structure
- What more?
- What is more man-made in Indonesia?
- 1 project 3 ways
- “the movie”
- “the documentary”
- “the making off”
- possibilites
- “the research”
- “the visual diary”
- “the conversations”
- “the work”
- Geographical differences Netherlands & Indonesia
- “Sculptures for whales”
- Sculptures for animals in Indonesia
- Laws between traveling Indonesia & Netherlands Traveling bans for certain food/flowers
- & Their double standards.
What's the narrative when I'd show to others my grandparents house in the kampong without saying anything?
"The content":
As stated before: the content is shaped around the relationship between my Indonesian mom and me
C. ORDER
Now I’m using another form of how language and culture creates a dynamic in which (I think) more people feel similar in. While growing up, my mom would make the most delicious meals I could possibly eat, and since I was her daughter, I could witness this delicious cooking. Except, she doesn’t weigh or measure, she just knows, feels, how much of every ingredient is suppose to go in a dish. As a person who grew up in The Netherlands, I got taught that I should know the exact amounts, so that the end-result will always be the same, and so I’ve been asking my mom for recipes. She never knows, so I’ve been writing the recipes while looking and am writing down stuff like “2 second pouring of salt,” and make a side-view drawing so I know up until where I need to add coconut milk.
I’ve been writing the past few weeks about these moments in the kitchen, and eventually came to the point that I wanted to create songs that touch upon topics that include me and my mom. It’s the feeling that I have, and I hope more people with a bi-cultural background have as well.
A. GENERATE
Within the 2nd schoolyear I’ve had collected lots of research that are about south- & south-east Asia, this to have a better understanding of how the eastern “culture” is formed and how I as a western person was looking at it. My personal archive already existed out of many experiences with my family in Indonesia. But that’s where it started and ended. I’ve formed my own narrative around everything that happened as a way of letting myself fit in the picture as well.
B. OBSERVE
By learning and hearing new things about stuff I thought I already knew, I’ve been raising new questions. One of the main questions is :”Why am I so eager to learn more about the Indonesian culture in which I didn’t grew up in?” And by raising that question, many things come to the foreground which I want to use within my works. To give an example with the last work (P3V1); that was all about the confusedness that happens when I started to learn the Indonesian language.
"The form":
As stated before: the form is created by using Indonesian Gamelan music. I’d like to add here, that there is not a steady structure to be found in Gamelan, but I used it as an inspiration for building the rhythm.
D. TRANSFORM
I find the term “song” a bit difficult. It can be a lullaby, so no music, and how it is something that a mother sings to a child, or folk song- so only transmitted orally and it’s part of this new cultural identity. And before it’s a folk-song it is first an art-song, it becomes a folk-song when people have forgotten about the author. So am I the producer of an Art-song > or should I let others write songs about this bi-cultural feelings and let it be played?
To transform the song, in a song, without the orally aspect (human aspect), I want to collect it all in a Karaoke machine in which others can sing the songs as well, even though they never heard of it. The karaoke machine reminds me of how my sister and I used to come home after school and witnessed our mom singing her Indonesian songs in the living room. Since the karaoke machine is coming from Japan, I wonder if people with a similar asian-bi-cultural background, like I do, have a nostalgic feeling to the karaoke as well.
Peer-to-peer feedback to test-karaoke:
What worked for me...
... is that you turned this lullaby into a funny karaoke song. It has a complete different depth to it.
... is that I couldn’t stop smiling +1 +1.
... was that the melody of the karaoke and the song as not knowing what match and trying to figure that out +1 -1 (= 0 haha)
... knowing like the stuff that you were working on before
... was that you were following your hart.
... was to invite people you don’t know to say things that are personal for you, in a fun medium + 1 +1 +1.
... is that you make people sing karaoke without letting them knowing that they would sing karaoke. +1 +1
... is the ambiguity of the music, which I found familiar but hard to place.
... is that is very personal but very accessible
As a(n)
... admirer of your writing and your personal stories development, I would like to have more music please
... someone who knows that this project is about the confusing of not understanding indo, I would like that this song would be in Indonesian.
... ? ... I find it difficult to focus on the meaning of this song, and in hindsight I felt like I should have.
... audience member I really wanted that the atmosphere continue after the end of the lyrics.
... audience member I need this situation to turn from a friendly atmosphere to in to something that has more edges and sharpness to it.
... game designer I need more titles to pick out from and that the audience can choose.
... someone who is not white, I share with you the dread trying to fit personal historical drama into a white cube
... audience member I need there to be a setting for this
as an ... I wonder about the medium you’ve chosen
For a longer time I’ve been questioning the relationship between my mom and me; and how we shaped it together while growing older. One of the things that we bond over is food. “Love goes through the stomach” people say, and in this case, that is indeed true. I want to use our relationship as starting points of various little works. Since I want to collect it all in an overarching thing, I thought about “databases” that I can put it into; calendars, agenda’s or music albums.
While growing up, my mom would make the most delicious meals, not only in my eyes, but also in the eyes of my Dutch family. My mom is my no.1 chef, and it’s a privilege that I am her daughter so I could witness her delicious cooking. The only thing is, she doesn’t weigh or measure anything, she just knows, feels, how much of every ingredient is suppose to go in a dish. When anyone is asking how to make something, it’s a vague description of how to do it.
I started to write about this, and came up with a little artsy-song. If you could read this a couple of times, I will use this song in the upcoming presentation and need you as performers :)
Lyrics:
They’re not their mothers child,
They grown more father-like
They sat all at the table
Waiting for the potatoes to be right.
But every Wednesday noon
The mom broke her cocoon
And prepped a homemade dish
To be eaten with a spoon
... was that the melody of the karaoke and the song as not knowing what match and trying to figure that out +1 -1 (= 0 haha)
... was to invite people you don’t know to say things that are personal for you, in a fun medium + 1 +1 +1.
... is that you make people sing karaoke without letting them knowing that they would sing karaoke. +1 +1
... admirer of your writing and your personal stories development, I would like to have more music please
... this song would be in Indonesian.
... audience member I really wanted that the atmosphere continue after the end of the lyrics.
... audience member I need this situation to turn from a friendly atmosphere to in to something that has more edges and sharpness to it.
One child was asking questions
Which no-one knew the answer to
It wanted to be more like mom
In knowing how to
Just do
How much water has been taught her?
How much coco milk do you think?
How much and salt and pepper...
She don’t know;
She don’t measure.
The pantun is divided into syllables which create the structure of the Kepatihan.
as example:
I - am - not - my - mo - thers - daugh - ter.
The sentence is also divided by parsing it.
"I am" belongs together ----> containing 2 syllables
"not" is one thing ----> containing 1 syllable
"my mothers" belong together ----> containing 3 syllables
"daughters" is one things ----> containing 2 syllables
Therefor Kepatihan would be:
2 - 1 - 3 - 2
in the resting parts (which are the blank spaces between the words) would form the drum (rest + ketuk)
When adding the rest (ketuk) parts it would look like:
(1) 2 (1) 1, (2) 3 (2) 2
The sound/song is then created by assigning a sound to each number, including the rest (ketuk) parts.
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