WARA WIRI WIDI
The Dream Journey of the Artist in a Contemporary Urban Landscape
Some people love to explore urban spaces because they simply enjoy doing it—although this habit seems eroded by an urban culture that relies on motorized vehicles for speed and time efficiency. In the morning most of us go from one point to another for work, and we pay no attention to anything along the way because our focus is only on how to get to our destination point as soon as possible. The latest modes of urban transportation also emphasize speed and punctuality, not the travel process. This cannot be denied because it is closely related to the mode of the economy which indeed requires everyone to live as efficiently as possible.
With it, we often forget that traveling in urban spaces can mean many things, and it’s not just a matter of our attachment to the workplace but also it could be a form of exploration or sport, or it could be a demonstration, spending some leisure time, or whatever. Rebecca Solnit in her fantastic book on urban wandering habits, Wanderlust, writes, “Cities always offer anonymity, variety, intersection, quality, which one best gain by exploring.”
However, it should also be noted that exploring the city, although not for matters of economic effectiveness, is not always about pleasure as Solnit writes. Take Charles Dickens, for example. He explores the streets of London by walking at night, not doing it because he loves the night or being moved to understand a city, he does it because he suffers from insomnia. The interesting thing is he discovered other, darker sides of London, which he would never have found if he was just in his room all the time. It was the things he found that spark the fire for writing one of his famous essays, Night Walks.
Guy Debord, one of the brains of the post-World War II West European avant-garde, International Situationist, emphasized the need to explore urban spaces without needing any goals. He defines exploring the urban area as a technique that transcendentally moves the explorer through various ambiances. It needs to be emphasized that Debord is emphasizing aimless exploration, or “luntang lantung” (wandering around). This term in Indonesian is often interpreted pejoratively, because by not thinking about goals—as when we work, our brains are often at the destination point, so our minds are filled with questions, continuously: “when will we arrive?”—then the explorer himself will be open to the interesting things that the urban area itself has to offer.
Of course, this is not a new thing either, because André Breton, one of the most prominent figures from another Western European art group, International Surrealists, has also discussed this in his book, Nadja, which records several aimless wanderings throughout the city of Paris, following whatever interests him along his aimless journey. Breton called this a doctrine of ‘objective chance’.
By borrowing this term from Breton, without needing to know the history of these thoughts, Widi has put them into practice, whether he realizes it or not, when he explores urban spaces—especially Bandung, as the city where he lives—and discovers points that he thinks are interesting, and which are often missed or overlooked. considered insignificant by most other people, as points that stimulate creative ideas in their work. In short, as Dickens discovered and became an important reference in writing, Widi makes his findings an important reference in painting.
Widi did not depart from the awareness of objective opportunities, but from his sensitivity which was honed as a result of his habit of wandering around. He gains his awareness that there are many things he discovers while carrying out his habit which is often forgotten by others and seems to be hidden in modern urban eyes because these things give a negative image. Buildings or houses that have been left to fall apart over time, rust eating away at iron fences and gates, paint on walls that are peeling off, streets that are cracked with holes. Things that would embarrass officials when a state guest visited.
Widi is just the opposite, he instead celebrates these things as a side that emphasizes the beauty of a city. Widi is aware that these things cannot be completely erased from the journey of a city, no matter how modern the city is built and maintained. That was also why he didn’t even intend to do anything for the things he found. He also doesn’t feel the need to, say, contact the city planning agency to fix it, or the city’s caring community to react. Not at all. Widi let these things go, and let the life of the city determine what would be done later, just as Dickens did not immediately contact the mayor and ask for the dark areas of London to be put in order. Again, not at all.
The thing to do is move it into a masterpiece. As self-reflection, as documentation, and as a stimulus that triggers him to work.
Indeed, the territory is important because randomly Widi’s works indicate exactly where the things he found are located—and Widi explicitly shows this by giving each of his works a title using coordinates that can now be easily traced using an application. sort of like Google Maps. Uniquely, whether Widi realizes it or not, each of these dots is a dot that is an intersection between flashy areas in a city, and areas that you want to forget in modern urban visuals. In the work he entitled 6°53 02.9 S 107°36 01.1 E, for example, it is a densely populated residential area, filled with small alleys that can only be traversed by foot or motorbike, but at the same time, it is an area that is so close to fashion tourism area in the city of Bandung. Then in the work entitled 6°53 29.6 S 107°36 29.0 E, it shows the space next to the campus of the Bandung Institute of Technology, a well-known university, which is located not too far from a densely populated area filled with alleys or for residents of urban spaces it is often called the ‘rat path’.
In another work, namely 6°55 06.3 S 107°36 29.1 E, the location is located in a densely populated area that intersects with the sparkling and hype Braga street area. Perhaps many Bandung residents have never thought such areas are behind the development phenomenon. Then the last work, 6°51 38.2 S 107°38 05.2 E which is located not far from Selasar, in an area that can be considered elite in the upper Bandung hill area, also intersects with small houses in densely populated settlements.
Widi himself admits, without needing to be a critical urban activist, that there is a background where massive urban development covers densely populated areas that are often unmapped. Widi does not use words, terms, or heroic jargon such as gentrification, eviction, or anything else—which in our opinion reflects himself growing and rooting in his city. However, Widi, directly or indirectly, managed to take pictures in his way, responding not only in his work but even more so in his perspective and life. As Breton has also stated, wandering around opens up opportunities to meet anything and anyone that was never thought of before; who in Widi’s case met thuggish-style youths who were even more friendly, for example. Social sensitivity as an artist who is an individual is naturally sharpened. Debord has also stated something similar, that it becomes crucial when the perpetrator, this urban explorer, meets people he did not know before and is in a condition where he has to introduce himself and establish an organic and temporary interaction.
It is at this point that Widi’s works can be seen as a record, a documentation, of his journey through urban spaces, a dream journey that leaves his identity as an artist behind, and absorbs whatever the city has to offer him. And the four works that he produced are the results that he absorbs and conveys to us, which remind us that this is one of the things that is important but is often forgotten by us who are too busy fulfilling our existence as contemporary urban people.