Tromarama’s ‘Solaris’ at the NGV Triennial 2020

Tromarama’s ‘Solaris’ at the NGV Triennial 2020

Andari Suherlan

Tromarama, one of Indonesia’s leading art collectives, utilises digital media to explore technology’s influence on humanity’s relationship with the world. From pre-recorded stop-motion animations to computer-generated realities, Febie Babyrose, Herbert Hans and Ruddy Hatumena’s recent body of works collects data available online to activate the digital world as seen through ‘Solaris’.

Exhibited at the second National Gallery of Victoria (NGV) Triennial, 'Solaris' presents a digital simulation of a unique marine environment, a landlocked body of salt and rainwater formed over 11,000 years ago, located off the coast of Kalimantan, Indonesia. Warm and free of predators, here, jellyfish species have evolved, providing scientific communities with a living laboratory for studying the potential effects climate change may have on marine systems.

Tromarama, ‘Solaris’, 2020, live simulation, real-time internet-based data, sound. Commissioned by National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne for NGV Triennial 2020.

The NGV Triennial offers a platform that considers the growth of digital and emerging technologies transforming the landscape of cultural production and industry. How did you first approach this theme to create ‘Solaris’, and what were some determining factors that led you to create this work?

Conceptually, ‘Solaris’ was the result of a natural progression following recent works that used weather data to discuss issues of climate change. However, ‘Solaris’ itself began when we first discovered LED curtains in 2016. Later on, when the opportunity and discussion with the NGV came in 2018, our idea to use this material was well received by Tony Ellwood Am and Andrew Clark from the NGV who were both curious to see how the work would turn out under the theme of light. We felt that it was quite fitting to present it that way since our more recent projects such as ‘Domain’ (2019) and ‘Madakaripura’ (2020) had incorporated both light and weather data too.

It was only near the end of 2019 when we decided to engage with issues related to the ecology of Danau Kakaban, or the Jellyfish Lake in East Kalimantan, Indonesia. ‘Solaris’ was created around the issue of climate change taken from the perspective of jellyfishes inhabiting the marine environment there.

Could we have a glimpse of the creation process? What steps were taken to collect data and create ‘Solaris’?

We chose Lake Kakaban as the subject because of its reputation as a natural phenomenon in Indonesia. The lake is an isolated and prehistoric site inhabited by stingless jellyfishes, whose stingless-ness is an adaptation from climate change. We investigated the ecosystem further by visiting the lake to collect data through pictures and videos of algae and textures of the water. Together, these elements led to the final collage that was used in the making of the digital world of ‘Solaris’.

After our trip, we decided that the best way to visualise the world we experienced in Kakaban was through online multiplayer game simulations. This form would allow us to freely build our own interpretation of the ecosystem through incorporating the existing materials collected onsite as well as the weather data found on the internet. In creating the digital

world as seen in the final form of ‘Solaris’, we had to intensely sketch out the images in as detailed a manner as possible, working closely with three-dimensional digital artists to execute sketches and collaborate with a programming company that helped stitch everything together.

With the creation process in mind, did you learn any new skills? What challenges did you meet?

Firstly, we were lucky to conduct the site visit before the pandemic hit as it allowed the three of us to be on the same page when it came to the brainstorming and mental visualisation of the lake. The difficulty came about when we began to execute our plans, which were all done digitally.

As a collective, we are used to working amongst ourselves to brainstorm and execute the projects thus far. However, since we had chosen to create an online multiplayer game simulation, which is a field none of us were familiar with, we had to work closely with parties we had not worked with before. This challenged us to express and communicate our visual expectations. At one point, we doubted the possibility to bring to life the images we were seeing in our mind because the world did not end up the way we wanted it to look. While perhaps the brief we wrote and expressed to the designers and creators was clear, the lens through which the 3D artist saw the work also played a role.

Throughout your artistic practice, your videos and installations explore the relationships between the virtual and the physical world to express the intersections of human relationships. How has this concept been reflected in ‘Solaris’? Why present a digital simulation of the marine environment in this way?

Over the course of our practice from 2006 till today, we have engaged particularly with the idea of human relationships through digital means. Recently, there was a turning point in our approach to explore the issue of climate change and its relationship with human beings. This event was from our encounter with a penguin enclosure in Sea World Ancol, Jakarta which presented a video projection of an ocean to replicate the natural habitat of these creatures. We were surprised to realise that the advancement of technology had entered even non-human ecosystems. In this way, we see just how humans try to force the logic of their world into the world of other species.

Herbert Hans, Febie Babyrose and Rudy Hatumena.

Installation view of ‘Solaris’ on display at NGV Triennial 2020. Photo by Tom Ross.

Since the penguin encounter, there have been many climate change projects and initiatives that we became aware of. From 2015, we realised that information and data found on the internet have become more affordable and accessible to the public. Therefore we began to ask: what are people’s tendencies towards believing what is in their digital screens, whether it be the smartphone or the television, as a source of truth?

‘Solaris’ challenges this question as it presents two worlds. The first is Lake Kakaban where we try to represent and re-simulate its ecosystem in the form of a video game that is built upon the data collected from the internet and site visits. And in this way, we address the second world, which is the gradual change in the relationship between human beings and nature, both digitally and physically. We discuss the distance between humans and the screen, or what is being viewed on screen. Understanding that technology draws nature closer through means such as photographs and videos, we also recognise that it has the ability to alienate human beings from real life.

From stop-motion video installation of everyday materials in ’Zsa Zsa Zsu’ (2007) to the 'Solaris' commission project, which features a muralsized LED curtain screen, how has your art practice in the digital medium evolved and developed over the years?

In the first nine years, our practice was heavily influenced by digital culture as seen in anime films and music videos. We began to create with stop-motion, a process which required us to be entirely hands-on and not involve much post-editing. Media is constantly changing, and we recognise that the way we consume what is seen on screen is one-sided. What this means is that we are constantly receiving and not interacting with that information provided. This affected our decision to distance ourselves from animation in 2015.

Another turning point in our practice was when Febie’s mom pointed out a picture of a war she saw from her phone and thought that it was real. In fact, the picture she saw was a screenshot of a hyper-realistic game simulation. Seeing this challenged us further to understand just how we perceive and understand time and space through screens, as well as believing what we see as truth.

And so our hope and aim is to distinguish the distance between the audience and the media perceived. This is evident through ‘Solaris’. We see the video game simulation to be the most appropriate medium to convey the investigation, allowing viewers to be players in the world itself. The recognition that the media around us is constantly changing changed how we are developing and shifting our practice.

Over the past year, how has the pandemic affected the way you have approached your art practice? What has been negative, and what has been positive?

We miss the whole experience of hosting, attending and presenting physical exhibitions. The pandemic has affected our practice in the way we interact amongst ourselves and other people around us. Naturally, this also impacts the way we situate ourselves as digital media-focused art practitioners. While our art revolves around the digital realm, having physical interactions is a significant part of our artwork experience. This challenges us to think about how art would be experienced within a different time and space as things are becoming increasingly virtual.

There are countless drawbacks to presenting and exhibiting art virtually, not to mention how it has been such unfamiliar territory, which is rather terrifying. Ideally, we would always choose to present our works in a physical space rather than the virtual as it calls for people’s attention that is more focused. And with art fairs and exhibitions opting for online platforms, it makes things difficult to enjoy and interact with them.

For example, in the early stages of creating ‘Solaris’, we hoped that people could interact with the work. This is why the LED curtains were so important. We wanted the audience to play with the “digital” in a way that they were able to touch and feel the screen. We very much wanted to invite viewers to be challenged beyond just being a viewer, but also as a participant of the re-imagined world. Unfortunately, due to government regulations, visitors were unable to do this. Nonetheless, we are grateful that the exhibition could still go on.

We are all adapting and surviving. Learning to find new means as a way to best convey the message and experience our artworks contain, we are embracing the uncertainty ahead.

As leading figures in Indonesia’s new digital media age, how do you see the growth and direction of technology and the arts in the future? In this context, where would you see your art practice headed?

Digital media has evolved so drastically within the last decade, and with the pandemic, technology’s impact on society has been accelerated even more. For young artists, this direction towards the virtual is exciting as the possibilities to create works are endless, and made even more accessible than before. However there are many other considerations with regard to how digital media would exist in the future.

Because of the overwhelming flow of data and information online, the challenge for many artists today is making their works relevant. The fastpaced nature of the internet has reduced the attention span of viewers to mere minutes. As we’ve seen especially in the past year, how we view virtual exhibitions and works on social media platforms can only be significant for around five minutes.

In this way, we feel that physical exhibitions are still important for presenting digital work. One's engagement in the real space provides a different and more focused approach for others to experience twodimensional works. Otherwise, even digital media if viewed through our own phone or computer screens, can be easily altered to fit the viewer’s own preference such as choosing the playback speed or to play two or more videos at the same time. Our attention can be diverted in these ways. But viewing and experiencing a digital artwork physically forces the viewer to step out of their comfort zone and focus on what is before them. If we are limited to not exhibiting our works physically, just as we have all experienced this past year, we will have to explore and find new ways of exhibiting virtually that do not mimic real life, but enable meaningful interactions through the screen.

As an artist collective, we are interested to keep exploring the world of gamification to address these issues. Particularly, we would investigate how adopting the way multiplayer games operate can increase viewer interactions and how much collected data from hashtags to weather forecasts can be integrated into our work. The challenge for us moving forward is to address how we understand and utilise digital media as a means to transfer information. Rather than narrowly looking at the exchange of knowledge as something that is spectated, here we focus on conveying a transfer that involves the viewer receiving and responding. It is important for our practice to reach this unique dialogue in order for our work to keep being relevant today.

The conversation took place on 5 March 2021 over Zoom in Bahasa Indonesia and was translated to English.