Rotten TV – Yogyakarta Satellite puts the theme of “rotting” as a perspective and tool for philosophical analysis in order to decode everyday problems, to understand the cosmological circulation of human life. Instead of questioning “What is Rotting?”, this curatorial takes a standpoint by asking: “How do we see and understand the world based on the perspective of rotting?” This question is a foundation from which to review current global issues, such as gender justice, climate crises, health crises, and “media society” (referencing to  M. Adolf, K. Baumann, and M. Rhomberg. (2011). Knowledge Society, Media Society and Democratic Action: The Case of Responsiveness. In a conference paper of the IAMCR 2011-Istanbul). To explore these problems through artistic practice, the curatorial framework of Rotten TV – Yogyakarta Satellite were divided into three artwork production groups which were thereafter metaphorically referred to as “Land”, “Bodies”, and “Cyber”. In each group, artist participants created individual and collaborative research and artistic expressions which tried to break down the above-mentioned problems using “rotting” as the main lens.

In the first group, Metaphorical Site “Land”, three artists who were invited to respond to this curatorial brief were Jessica Ayudya Lesmana (Yogyakarta), Dini Adanuraini (69 Performance Club, Jakarta), and Prashasti Wilujeng Putri (69 Performance Club, Jakarta). The focus of the sub-curatorial group in this metaphorical site encouraged conceptual exploration of the relationship between gender and land. By looking at the social and political aspects of the land, both in their physically manifestations and in their conceptual positioning, artists try to achieve some kind of poetic reflection of the factors of vulnerability in space, humans, and time. At the same time, they attempt to understand those three phenomena through a narrative presentation that utilizes method and formats from performance art. To put it another way, the intended interpretation is an examination of performative language, to express various possibilities in subtly vocalizing the root causes of—and the relationship between—gender justice, civic space crises, and the natural and artificial pressures surrounding them. Their works also offer expressions in the “rotting” framework that echo with social narration and efforts to experiment idiosyncratic forms that visualise how “rotting” is understood by common consensus in society.