ART CITIES:Hong Kong-Tromarama

The artist group Tromarama, consisting of artists Febie Babyrose, Herbert Hans and Ruddy Hatumena, is probably one of the Indonesian art groups receiving considerable attention from the art public, nationally in Indonesia as well as regionally. Their works have been well received because they show novel approaches, revealing the spirit of explorations in terms of their media, and of moving across disciplines.

By Dimitrios Lempesis
Photo: Edouard Malingue Gallery Archive

Almost all the works by this Bandung-based group use the technique of stop-motion animation, combined with a series of installations using elements from their stop-motion works, which make a considerable use of manual skills. The members of Tromarama are among the generation of artists who first hand experienced the impact of the digital revolution in Indonesia during the early 2000s. They have been developing inventive responses to contemporary urban culture spanning video animation works and installations. Each work, rather than existing in viewership isolation, is woven into the larger cultural fabric of the city of Bandung and addresses, in interactive reflection, the cornerstones of Indonesia’s political and cultural environment. The exhibition “Panoramix” is simply defined as the mixture of surveying a subject, or sequence of events, in our contemporary landscape. The notion of an exhibition brings about an exploration of how the virtual world redefines our existential experience, how it structures our paradigm and experience face to face, space, dimensions, pictures and text within the virtual realm. “Panoramix” reveals the phenomenon of daily reality. It is about taking on specific situations in such a way that this phenomenon is dealt with. The exhibition questions the mechanisms of our technological era in the context of the present. It is an exploration through artistic practices and reflections on reality by enhancing thought and action in practical terms. The artists address as well as observe contemporary fluxes surrounding the relationship between reality outside of a screen and the virtual reality inside of it. The exhibition itself describes the space in between these various realities that now overlap. It is a quest focusing on one’s experience of reality, a step towards expressing the idea of a foundation of our existence, which always seeks to sort through the realities presented by modernity, being, ground, or substance.

Info: Edouard Malingue Gallery, 33 Des Voeux, Road Central, Hong Kong, Duration: 18/12/15-23/1/16, Days & Hours: Mon-Sat 10:00-19:00, http://edouardmalingue.com