Transformers, 2016
From the exhibition
"Out of Joint"
Dia.Lo.Gue Artspace, Jakarta
10 March - 10 April 2016
(more info here)
Deep in the basements of office towers, shopping malls and apartment blocks there is a room marked ‘Transformer’, a low hum emanating from the crack between its door and the floor. The Transformer room is always locked. I have never entered one, much as I would love to. I don’t appear to have the proper qualifications and I have no idea how I would get them. So I can only speculate about the Transformer and its universe.
In this series of images I have attempted to imagine the world of the Transformer. I see it as noble, timeless, and somewhat melancholy. I am interested to know if the Transformer is called that because it undergoes a transformation, or because it transforms others. Perhaps both. Humans exist in the world of the Transformer. But not as we understand them; for the transformer, humans are simply data.
This series of images is part of a larger body of work that I have been developing for several years, concerning modern technologies; telephones, airconditioners, transformers, computers… By Modern, I don’t mean ‘the latest’; rather I mean ‘produced in the Modern era’. This was an era when science sought to reveal the truth, to find the solution, to deliver the ideal. There was something very honorable about those modern technologies, but also something kind of depressing. Of course, no matter how hard they tried, they never delivered on their promise. The truth still remains beyond our reach.
