Dates: May 2012
Exhibited: Clocktower Gallery, Sundaram Tagore Singapore, Indanha-a-nova Portugal, Silverado Reservoir California
Description: Jalan Jiwo is a modular site specific installation art work. It features 10 Trompong kettle gongs, 12 Reyong kettle gongs, Klentong, Kempli, 4 hanging gongs, 2 ceng-ceng and 4 Kopyak all retrofitted with machanical mallets on individual steel mounts.
In Bahasa Indonesia, Jalan is the most common word for a road or street. It also can mean a way, a course of action or procedure. Jiwo in Javanese and Balinese (Jiwa in Bahasa Indonesia) is the soul, or spirit, the part of the self that is separate from the body. Jalan Jiwo could literally be the name of a street in a small town, or it could refer simply to destiny. In this context it is the path of the life force.
In this installation the North, East, South, West and Center of the space are delineated by the colors black, white (off white shade), red, yellow, and purple derived from an 8-petal lotus flower mandala called the Padma Bhuwana. Each cardinal direction corresponds with a color, a weapon, a syllable, a place in the body and presiding deity. In the north, east, south and west there are shelves made of solid maple on steel brackets where offerings are made. These shelves are actually seats for the divine to inhabit. The offerings of fruit, and the offerings of music, are made to entice the presence of the presiding deities to their seats.
The gongs in this installation were fabricated by the Pande I. Made Rindhi in Blahbatu Bali. They are tuned in a 5-note non standard relative scale called Pelog (Pelog Nem 1, 2, 3, 5, 6 in Javanese) featuring the Trompong (10 pot shaped bronze gongs) and Reyong (12 pot shaped bronze gongs) from the Gamelan Gong Keybar, accented with Kopyak and Ceng-ceng cymbals, Gong Agung, Gong Suwuk, Kempur Agung, Kempur Suwuk, Kempli and Klentong. 7 gongs in the Trompong and Reyong play the same principle notes. The male voices of the Trompong are detuned slightly lower so that when the notes are played together with the female counterpart of the Reyong gongs, a phasing effect occurs called ombak which produces unique overtones. These "doubled" notes are spaced opposite each other in the room to accentuate the ombak.
http://artonair.org/exhibition/the-gamelatron-jalan-jiwo