Demokrasi, Resistensi, Dan Algoritma”

Preface Keynote Speech of Forum Festival 2021: “Twilight Zone”

Complete darkness is often inserted as a transition between scenes in both cinema and theatre. In both domains, whether it is a blackout in theater or a black screen in cinema, it is used purposefully to direct the emotions of the audience, or prepare the audience's mind for the next scene. The dark situation does not immediately take the audience out of the narrative space of the cinema world on the screen, but instead brings the audience into a space where the contents are not visible. So, does invisibility mean something doesn't exist? In the theatre, darkness allows a transfer of property and change in costumes by actors. Invisibility does not mean that something is not present, but rather it is the presence of something that does not reach the retina of our eyes. However, this presence is only recognized in a certain premise: in the reality on the stage, or in the reality that "should" exist outside the stage. Thus, regardless of which premise acknowledges the presence of something, the question is now: What exists in it? What happens in the dark?

The introduction to ARKIPEL 2020 "Twilight Zone" explained that the Twilight Zone, a transition zone of light and dark, is “...the enlargement zone, like the camera work, which allows our senses to frame with sensitivity.” This possibility results in the existence of images that are “...simultaneously blurring and clarifying the sight that has been determined previously. This introduction makes us need to dismantle again by using questions: which one is the real one; the one on the screen before the eyes or the one in front of the lens? So, in the twilight zone, the relationship between the eye, lens, and screen is always a deceptive relationship.”

After a year of talking about the twilight zone, it would be appropriate for the ARKIPEL Forum Festival 2021 to talk about what happens in the zone. Perhaps, there is an incubation period. “Incubation” is a word that is often heard during this pandemic, it refers to the time interval that determines whether something

MAY ADADOL

will multiply and attack, or whether it will die. During the incubation period, the substrate in a dark room has many possibilities, which cannot be realized in a room that is exposed to sunlight. For this reason, this year's Forum Festival will discuss what emerges from an emergency. It can be the aesthetics of cinematic language. Aesthetics itself is also closely related to the culture of spectacle, and therefore also to technology. Although internet technology has been widely used since the early 2000s, the pandemic has made technology develop more rapidly and its use becomes increasingly widespread and massive, significantly contributing to the transformation in the culture of spectacle, and also the transformation in the way people live their lives.

Technological developments and changes in the mode of perception can be emancipating when it is used as a tool to misdoubt the reality so that it has the potential to raise critical thinking. Criticism in human behavior towards technology gives rise to resistance, such as using the concept of a network that demands the demystification of power in the exploitative use of the internet.

This changing mode of perception is also a challenge in itself. Usually, social movements require a lot of physical movement. However, with this crisis, the concept of social movement must also be reviewed. With limited space for movement, social movements that exist in digital—something that was previously only considered as a complement—is now a major event. Many movements in Indonesia from soup kitchen to channels of emergency information on social media remind people that humans can live with their own system without having to fight with the dominant system, and also without having to assume the "small" system as an “other”, because in fact this small system is more relevant to our lives. This is what drives us to stay resistant, and to stay alive