I Nyoman Masriadi

T.K. Sabapathy, Nyoman Masriadi: Reconfiguring the Body, Gajah Gallery, Singapore, 2010, p. 217, colourplate

The painting is in good condition, as is the canvas, which is clear and taut. Examination under ultraviolet light reveals two minor spots of retouching on the lower middle margin, which is not visible to the naked eye and is only apparent under UV light. The paint layers are intact.
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Juling (Cross-eyed) is perhaps Masriadi's most emblematic statement of twenty first century consumerist culture and its dehumanizing influence on society. Departing from his usual mise en scène of traditional foreground-background spatial relationship, Masriadi filled the composition with a multitude of faces, one overlapping the other, creating a tone of commotion, congestion and overcrowding. With neither preamble nor dialogue necessary, the viewer's focus is automatically zoomed in on the central figure, a beautiful woman whose peaches and cream complexion stands apart from the dark, tanned men who surround her; her hair is flawlessly coiffed, her eyebrows perfectly arched, her nail impeccably manicured in bright red, and her sapphire-blue fur scarf, which matches her blue mobile phone, would stop any passerby in their tracks. She is stunning, yet none of the crowd gave her a single glance. Everyone, with the exception of the man to the right of the beautiful woman, had their eyes transfixed on their mobile phone screens. He, on the other hand, seemed bewildered and lost without a screen to gaze upon. Living in Yogyakarta, where most residents are carefree, the concept of time is lost, it is uncanny how accurately and completely that Masriadi grasped the essence of urban life.

Anyone who has lived or is living in a metropolis would be able to relate to the peak hour rush, the speed with which tasks needs to be done, the impatience of waiting, the obsession with text messaging (and now, emailing on the go), the unfortunate but inevitable malfunction of these gadgets. The characters in the present are so fixated – and at times frustrated – by their phones that they become cross-eyed; all they see is their screen and everything else is merely a blur. Masriadi cleverly omits the need for backdrop in this painting. Aside from giving it a sense of rushing madness, he frees it from the constraints of locality. The scene could have taken place in Jakarta, Singapore, New York, Dubai, Hong Kong, or Tokyo, making it truly easy to understand no matter where the viewer is from.

In the 21^st Century, technology affords society more time and convenience, but as its efficiency increased, so does society's dependency on it. The tool has finally become the master and instead of bringing people closer, mobile phones give people a sense of detachment from the people around them. Three years after the present work was completed, in 2008, Academy Award-wining animated feature, Wall-E, explored the giant void in human relationships. In that world, humanity moved around in floating vehicles, which comes with a screen that they use to communicate, order sustenance and generally live. There is a scene in the movie where two characters only started realizing the world they actually live in after they were knocked off their vehicles. To borrow the words from Wall-E's creator, co-writer and director, Andrew Stanton, "We all fall into our habits, our routines and our ruts, consciously or unconsciously, to avoid living. To avoid having to do the messy part. To avoid having relationships with other people, of dealing with the person next to us. That's why we can all get on our cell phones and not have to deal with one another" (Andrew Stanton cited in an interview with Steve Fritz, July 2008).

Although the theme expressed in Juling (Cross-Eyed) is a grave one, Masriadi portrayed it in witty, light-hearted, fun manner. Never taking itself too seriously, it is nevertheless an effective mirror of the world that we live in. Its never ending thirst to consume, not only products, but the latest innovations in products, has become a conformity. The absurdity of it all demonstrates that humanity sometimes simply forget how to stop, how to interact, how to be aware, how to love, how to live.