Riar Rizaldi (ID)

15-30 June 2019
Opening: Saturday 15 June, 5-8pm
Hours: Thursday to Sunday, 1-6pm

Hidden Space is delighted to present Kasiterit, a solo exhibition by Riar Rizaldi (ID).

Researched, filmed, and recorded on Bangka island in the Indonesian archipelago, Kasiterit is a video installation that explores the complex entanglement of tin with contemporary technology and the labour dynamics on the island. Branded as one of the major exporters of tin in the world, Bangka’s tin represents one third of the global tin supply. Due to its low melting point and high electrical conductivity, tin is an instrumental foundation in all electronic apparatus and every digital screen. In Kasiterit, Riar traces the materiality of tin from the mine to the museum, from the tension between communities, politics, and mining, to the geophysics that shapes the daily life of human and nonhuman life on the island. From the moment it is extracted from the soil, until it ends buried as e-waste back in the earth, tin travels around the globe as an actant that shapes our dependency on technological apparatus. There is a little piece of Bangka island in everyone’s pocket.

*Kasiterit is the tin ore from which tin metal is extracted (kasiterit in Indonesian, cassiterite in English).

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Riar Rizaldi is an artist and researcher born in Indonesia and currently based in Hong Kong. His main focus is on the relationship between human, nonhuman and technology, consumer electronics, extractivism, and theory-fiction. Through his works, he questions the notion of (a)temporality, image politics, materiality, media archaeology and the unanticipated consequences of technologies. He also actively composes and performs sonic-fiction using the methods of field recording and foley through programming language. Riar has also curated ARKIPEL Jakarta International Documentary & Experimental Film Festival – Penal Colony (2017) and Internet of (No)Things (2018) at Jogja National Museum. He is also the co-founder of the art collective SALON, a platform focusing on exploration and experimentation in the field of media, performance, experimental music and improvisation in Bandung, Indonesia.