Tromarama: Panoramix

Edouard Malingue Gallery presents Panoramix, the first solo
exhibition in Hong Kong of the Indonesian collective Tromarama. Established in
2006 in Bandung, Indonesia, Febie Babyrose, Ruddy Hatumena and Herbert
Hans, have been developing inventive responses to contemporary urban culture
spanning multiple media. Each work, rather than existing in viewership
isolation, is woven into the larger cultural fabric of the city of Bandung and
addresses, in interactive reflection, the cornerstones of Indonesia’s political and
cultural environment.

“This exhibition highlights a new work by the Bandung-based collective
Tromarama. They have been producing video animation works and installations
since 2006. They shape and create their artworks based on their concern with
examining today’s society. ‘Panoramix’ is simply defined as the mixture of
surveying a subject, or sequence of events, in our contemporary landscape. The
notion of an exhibition brings about an exploration of how the virtual world
redefines our existential experience; how it structures our paradigm and
experience vis a vis space, dimensions, pictures and text within the virtual
realm. ‘Panoramix’ reveals the phenomenon of daily reality. It is about taking on
specific situations in such a way that this phenomenon is dealt with.
Tromarama address as well as observe contemporary fluxes surrounding the
relationship between reality outside of a screen and the virtual reality inside of
it. The exhibition itself describes the space in between these various realities
that now overlap. It is a quest focusing on one’s experience of reality, a step
towards expressing the idea of a foundation of our existence, which always
seeks to sort through the realities presented by modernity: being, ground, or
substance. ‘Panoramix’ questions the mechanisms of our technological era in
the context of the present. It is an exploration through artistic practices and
reflections on reality by enhancing thought and action in practical terms.
From Tromarama’s point of view, the consequence of living in between the two
realms – in relation to the virtual world that we live in nowadays – is more of a
mental experience rather than a physical one. It bends the scenes from our
daily lives in relation to how it creates artificial desires and pushes us to always
be in a state of climax within ‘nowness’. Overall, Tromarama try to find the
space where we stand between the reality behind the monitor and the reality
out there, whilst substantially questioning the definition of reality itself.”
– Riksa Afiaty

Tromarama are widely considered one of Indonesia’s most exciting rising
talents and have been exhibited around the world. They have held solo
exhibitions at the Stedelijk Museum (Amsterdam), National Gallery of Victoria
(Melbourne) and Mori Art Museum (Japan), amongst others. Group exhibitions
include the Frankfurter Kunstverein (Frankfurt), Samstag Museum of Art
(Adelaide), APT 7 QAGOMA (Brisbane) and Singapore Art Museum (Singapore).