Melati Suryodarmo
Melati Suryodarmo
Born 1969, Surakarta, Indonesia; lives in Solo, Indonesia and Gross Gleidingen, Germany
If we were XYZ, 2019; three-hour duration, October 15 and 18, 2019; performance commissioned by Asia Society Museum
Commissioned by the Asia Society Museum’s interdisciplinary program, Creative Common Ground, Indonesian performance artist Melati Suryodarmo extends her signature and renowned practice of performance in which her durational, repetitive actions and movements expressing conditions of being partner with technology and musicians. The data harvested by an electroencephalogram (EEG) machine that documented her dreams as she slept, in the hands of her collaborator, Antonius Oki Wiriadjaja, artist and technologist, was translated into musical scores and visual representations. The same data, given to vocalist and composer Jessika Kenney, morphed into music for Melati Suryodarmo’s three-hour performance. Brain activity, instead of being in the form of moving lines and blips, is now a full performance.
The accolade of being Indonesia’s most acclaimed performance artist is in the very DNA of Melati Suryodarmo. Her mother, who died when Melati was a girl, was a traditional Javanese dancer, and her performer father was the creator of Amerta movement, a free-movement form of dance, meditative and sometimes linked to healing practices. Suryodarmo turned to performance art after she had earned her degree in international relations from Padjadjaran University. She moved to Germany and there, at Braunschweig University of Art, studied with choreographer Anzu Furukawa and performance artist Marina Abramović.