‘#$@&%*!’ Painting

This work explores the relationship between repression and expression in the broadcasting media versus paintings. With Indonesia's current racial and religious tension, it was evident that the country has not been freed from its concealment. Instead, it is regressing toward its dark past. This work is suggesting that the history of Indonesia's dictatorship-era was the seed of this culture; the media suppression and their passive nature. The humor of censored narratives of kids giving a cow a bath, statues with breasts and couples embracing is, in fact, an actual case of censored content in Indonesia. Inspired by Tabor Robak's approach in creating a symbiotic relationship between the digital and the real, I am disguising the painting into what looks like a clip from a TV scene with black frames and subtitles. The series of 3 paintings is Supported with 1 audio to portray the control of mass broadcast. The content of the audio itself is juxtapositioning the interview of the first president in the history of Indonesia and a poem about reformation. It is completed with the etched raw plywood to mimic a television frame. the native wood color is to mimic an older model of a television and retain the feeling of nostalgia