^{Jurnal Footage will publish articles about the video "Tepian Sungai Ciujung" in three parts, written by Akbar Yumni. This is the second part of the articles.}

The mind is yet to be free if the medium is not liberating. It’s probably in line with Franz Fanon’s statement that technology, ideally, liberates the mind, not the opposite. The birth of the video is the main development in recording medium technology with high accessibility for all layers of society. As a tool of expression, video brings about a wide array of visual possibilities other than the traditional, procedural techniques inherent in film and television. Its high accessibility nullifies rigid procedures of recording. As a narrative method, video, in essence, provides spacious freedom for its users.

Accessibility in video recording facilitates its users to new ways of narrating. To the very least, visual language of the video may serve as subculture or even counter culture to the visual culture of film and television. Hence, participation in what we often refer as ‘visual democratization’ in the video era will eventually swing further away from visual homogeneity. What was yet to be optimized from this presence of video technology is how this egalitarian recording medium may be used as a part of visual culture strategy, especially as strategies to new ways of narrating, as a response to the void history presented in grand narratives which often take a gapping distance from society’s awareness.

_{(we're sorry for the incovenience, the video of "Tepian Sungai Ciujung" temporarily unavailable because there some problem of our system)}

 

Tepian Sungai Ciujung (The Banks of River Ciujung) is one of the videos that celebrate visual democratization through its visual language. The importance of visual language is determined by its ideology of narration that grounds the visual language. The housewives’ tales upon laundering their dirty clothes by the riverbank are diachronic of a piece of history of modern days’ waterway civilization. The history of communal civilization that commonly clusters the sites of traditional customs has remained along the riverside and manifests in the activity of public laundering. Latrines by the river function as public toilets and laundering area naturally becomes a place for housewives to socialize in a communal zest. The river, which is no longer a center of civilization in Rangkasbitung, leaves off a role of marginal economy that survives, full of stories accumulating the society’s restlessness, be it about petty household issues to a rumor of condemnation to their current riverside residence.

 

A Strategy of Narrating as Historical Depiction

A conception of history becomes a crucial part to comprehend the narrative one is about to develop in the process of representation. A conception of history impinges on the choices of narrative themes and ways to deliver the chosen narrative theme through a medium. There are at least two models of history to determine which approach to take on, i.e. synchronic history and diachronic history. Synchronic history centers on objectivity, as contained in grand narratives that center on figures and a cause-and-effect approach. Diachronic history, on the other hand, centers on subjectivity, to give out depictions of daily life as history without foregrounding a certain figure in an event.

Just as prose and poem, each approach bears consequences toward the vision of reality to which it will represent. In fact, the same thing goes for practices of ‘narrating’ and ‘being narrated’, of ‘representing’ and ‘being represented’. Each verb denoting its transitive sense respectively implicates on the ‘objectification’ of an event or a subject in narrative. In ethnographical studies, Clifford Geertz reflects on two contentions—‘writership’ and ‘authorship’—that indicate the role of men behind a narrative. A model of investigative writing for instance, assumes history from historical literatures containing grand narratives that it may well be ascertained that a form of ‘writership’ is behind this model of investigative writing. On the other hand, ‘authorship’ assumes a human subject who actively constructs the writing. ‘Authorship’ does hand a perspective of subjectivity from the narrating man.

Tepian Sungai Ciujung takes on daily occurrences in the activities of riverbank residents to scan an entity in society. To comprehend daily life as a strategy to scan an entity in society is a diachronic history that highlights a representation of mass than just individuals.

Grand narratives always assume subjects as figures, some of them may not even be distinguishable from biographies. Figure-centered approach in grand narratives lead to narrative models that continuously orientate to the role of figures as main causes to events. Thus history in grand narratives can only be regarded as a history of figures. The presence of figures in historical narratives indicates the role of dominant individuals which will block the possibility of representing the society and mass as active agents of social occurrences. On the contrary, anonymous history highlights an event not of grand narratives. From its narrative aspect, it does not underline dramatic events that constructs to a ‘hero’ concept. History as daily occurrences is an anonymous presence as well as a representation of mass.

In Tepian Sungai Ciujung, there is an underlying intention to capture the daily life of riverbank residents as a history. This narrative in this video is, in its essence, a diachronic history to counter synchronic depictions of society with figures and even protagonist-antagonist opposition. The history as depicted in the video identifies anonymous figure(s). The subjects are identified through a theme carried in the conversations captured on recording. This theme-as-subject approach reminds us of Roberto Rossellini’s dictum which states that the subject in Italian neo-realism is the theme itself. In Tepian Sungai Ciujung, the conversations among housewives carry certain identities as derived from their vocabularies and topic of conversations. These mundane themes delivered by the conversing-while-laundering housewives—such as the difficulties of preparing a duck meal—are a part of their societal identity as the residents of Ciujung riverbanks.

Society identification through laundering activity is a representation to the subject’s identity through daily activity. Identification through laundering activity as a social construct is more relevant to develop compared to the construct as derived from social normative such as name, social status, job position, etc.

Tepian Sungai Ciujung basically assumes ‘representation’ as an intention in visual language, an approach the sets it apart from one that assumes ‘reality’. Representation in visual language reflects an attempt to present a sign or symbol as a part of strategies in narrating about an entity. ‘Representation’ denotes subjectivity, while ‘reality’ requires objectivity, complete with its truthful claims. The representation undertook in Tepian Sungai Ciujung is articulated through the residents’ activity as subjectivity that counters the objectivity of grand narratives, which reasons and narrative approach are influenced by hegemonic constructions.

 

Framing as Alternate Method to Interviews

The expressions shown by the natives in Tepian Sungai Ciujung are drawn without interview. On capturing the residents laundering by the latrine, the camera was not positioned face to face with subject(s). The video intended to capture dialogues among locals instead of monologue as typically drawn through interviews. Precisely with that method, Tepian Sungai Ciujung has presented a more authentic native ways of thinking.

Interview method is often used in documentaries to delineate nativity in subject(s) of a certain society. But interview usually has ethical implication due to camera placement directly before the recorded subject, giving an air of domination, and therefore tends to draw questionable authenticity in its portrayal. Face-to-face interview has at least two implications. The first implication roots from camera domination with regard to the recorded subject. In certain societal groups with high awareness of the camera as medium of free expression, camera domination is most apparent. More often than not, interviews with marginal groups only get as far as informative accounts. Or, in Jean Rouch’s term, the role of the camera is but a mirror to reflect reality. The second implication is how society’s social context has always been repressed under hegemony. The reality captured might as well be a reality as constructed by authority. This situation that Michel Foucault termed as homogeneity is a problem in itself during interviews with natives. The stretch of reality reflecting homogenization through the presence of the visual culture of video is often an extension to the ideology of film and television.

In addition, interview techniques usually consist of a set of pre-arranged questions. Surely intervention from behind the camera becomes rather dominant in directing the recorded subject’s expression. The nativity captured is but a director’s construction of reality. Authenticity in such interviews is hence questionable because the subject’s presence is stimulated by the director and team.

Dialogues among housewives in Tepian Sungai Ciujung are drawn from camera’s framing ability to capture occurrences in which are contained inter-subject conversations. Framing strategies in recording become a relevant method to observe the occurrences in society. The eye-leveled shots in Tepian Sungai Ciujung—with some wide shots for when the conversation takes place—disclose a social context in the conversation. In the video, close-ups are nearly non-existent so that construction of a figure is minimized. Framing as an alternate method to interview in Tepian Sungai Ciujung becomes tactical and ethical because it’s executed concurrently during the recording of the main events. It may well be regarded as an interview based on events, unlike the typical Q & A interview that falls out of the society’s true social context.

Film culture implies a history of content and form as a consequence upon its entrance to the struggle in art. As it is, history of content and form is a part of a history of narrating. During further development, the invention of camera affects to the many ways to narrate and also influences the vision with which we perceive reality. It becomes relevant to regard the presence of the video within the context of strategies to narrate, considering its implications to the vision of history.

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