First of all, I did not speak as a member of any educational institution here. This article was written down based on my concern as a single person and an art devotee. The cause of this article was a Twitwar incident happened in the evening of January 2nd, 2013.
The Twitwar was between by two state senior high schools in Jogjakarta city, let’s call them School A and Schol B. Both will hold an art appreciaton event, an event which was pioneered by school A. The Twitwar started when School B promoted their newly-made art event. A student of school B satired school A's event; school A reacts harshly and stating their originality.
Here I want to mention a mural I saw on another art event, the Indonesian Comic Festival, held at Jogja National Museum, that I visited in the late December. The mural write a sentence that instantly catched my eye. It wrote, "No politic allowed in this place."
I love the words because I think it summed up everything about art. Art is not about power, control, or political agenda. Art is simply about beauty and joy; about appreciating the beauty and come in its joy. That is why true art differs from propaganda. The true agenda of art is only about spreading beauty and nothing about gaining control over anything.
In the 2012 conference of Federation of Asian Cultural Promotion, the artists agreed that no art may contain any political agenda. Art is regarded as a universal language that may not be used to promote certain political ideology. This had been the consensus for at least Asian artist -- and a spirit that the earlier mural embraced.
Thus, the Twitwar was totally ironic. Both events stand for the apprecation of art, but they compete each other in an unhealthy way. They compete each other in the matter of promotion and gaining audience -- but in this case, both had also lost their focus in the essence of art. Art is about togetherness, where people blend together under the concept of beauty without considering any political, gender, religious labels. The Twitwar was an irony as it actually torn people apart.
Yes, indeed I am a student in the School B. But yes, I am a big fan of School A's art event. I was totally amazed by their bravery to hold such event for high school student audience, at the time when such event was not so popular. But they kept it going on and I must say that it still rocks. As a pioneer, they totally nailed it.
So it made me totally deplored of the way some people treat others in the twitwar. Satiring others is not a good promotion. It is a sad and shameful act of arrogance. Whether it is the newbie gloating their arrogance nor the pioneer insisting their superiority, such tweets only show how unprofessional the tweeps are. Compete well, but compete good. We don't need any other Twitwar as we can compete professionally.
I have tried to be objective and label myself only as an art devotee in this post. I did not carry any agenda to put any institution first. This solely my opinion and did not purposedly reflect the perspective of any institution that I joined in.
I can only say that both event will put their differences aside and put their likeness first. Both events are forms of art appreciation which, though stand individually, have the same purpose. In the end, it is all about being unite in art and embracing beauty together; without any label, without politics.
Goodluck to Delayota Art. Goodluck to Padmanaba DedicArt. With all my respect and support.
