The Second Asia-Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art exhibition catalogue (APT2)

Top Kdek, Kdek Ong! 1994 Still from the video The themes of tradition, cross-cultural communication and post-colonial perspectives abound in the works of Hasnul Jamal Saidon, who Bottom Kdek, Kdek Ong! 1994 Detail of installation at the Australian High Commission, Kuala Lumpur, 1994, comprising single-channel video/audio installation, coconut shells, pedestals, hat and red tape Collection: The artist uses not only video installations but painting and computer graphics as his media. Present in all of his art is the realisation that he, like most (if not all) citizens of this region has evolved a conceptual world view which is informed not only by 'Asian values' (to borrow that amorphous and famously problematic phrase), but the increasingly prevalent influence of 'Western' secular capitalism. Hasnul Jamal Saidon was born in 1965 in Teluk lntan, Malaysia. He received his education in Fine Art at the MARA Institute of Technology in Shah Alam, Malaysia, before proceeding to the USA to continue his studies at Southern Illinois University and the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, New York. He returned to Malaysia in late 1993. While in the United States Hasnul Jamal Saidon won several university awards, as well as the Best Student Video at the 17th Atlanta Film and Video Festival. In the past three years he has won several art and video awards in Malaysia. His paintings and video installations have also recently been exhibited at the ASEAN level and utilised in an ambitious multimedia theatrical piece, The skin trilogy 1994, in Kuala Lumpur. Although Hasnul Jamal Saidon's works frequently allude to and make use of symbols traditionally 98 I ART I s T s: sou T H AND sou T H- EA s T A s I A associated with 'the East' or 'the West', he successfully averts the temptation to create easy generalisations out of this seeming dichotomy. He eschews glib confrontationist rhetoric for a gentle, unforced humanism which is not without its tinges of irony, satire and ambiguity. An example of this is his 1992 video/audio performance piece, Return of a native. It uses the recurring image of a man going through a frenetic silat (Malay self-defence) routine, at the back of whom are two doors, one conspicuously Asian and one obviously Western. At its simplest, it is about the cultural choices we have to make; irony and layering are provided by the seemingly 'traditional' music, which is not only completely computer-generated, but which fuses seemingly disparate elements into a coherent whole. Kdek, Kdek Ong! 1994 was created a few months after Hasnul Jamal Saidon's return to Malaysia. Its conceptual premise is provided by the Malay saying 'Seperti katak dibawah tempurung' (literally, 'like a frog under a coconut shell'); that is, the excessive insularity and stifling parochialism of never daring to venture beyond the confines of one's own turf. Both of the subjects in the saying are presented in literal form: the frog in the video monitor is valiantly trying (and failing) to leap beyond his electronic confines, while the coconut shells, mute and passive, are laid out in rows. There are many instances in this installation which display Hasnul Jamal Saidon's characteristic visual wit and eye for irony, as well as his fondness for teasingly ambiguous metaphors. Examples of these metaphors can be found in the video monitor and the empty box on which it is placed. The action on the screen alone is an allusion to the wasteful futility of confining one's cultural heritage within an artificial border. Added visual puns (taken from English-language idioms) are provided by the fact that the frog is not only 'green' but 'placed on a pedestal'. Lest we think we know the way out of this stifling parochialism, a cautionary note is added by the wrapping of the box, which appears at first to be beautiful batik but is actually cheap, mass-produced wrapping paper. Impersonality and ersatz values could well be the price of wide dissemination. The installation is entirely bordered by red tape, another visual pun which acknowledges the political dimension to any questions of culture and values. Suspended above it all is a gardener's hat. The hat is somewhat puzzling and tantalisingly out of reach-a symbol of everything worthwhile that lies beyond one's metaphorical shell, or a mocking reference to the essential unknowability of things 'Out There'? Either way, one needs to shuck away the shell to make the first step. Amir Muhammad, Freelance Journalist, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia