A Gesture is a sound artwork that pieces together recordings of a person making sounds such as ""sssttt"", ""ehm"" and ""ssssh"". These guttural and sibilant sounds might be often overlooked or relegated to the background but in A Gesture, they are accentuated and looped infinitely. As a result of its dematerial form, the artwork isn't always immediately noticeable within the context of an exhibition space: the hushed silence surrounding artworks or artefacts makes a cough so much more startling or the disapproving shushing sound made by attentive gallery sitters when the code of silence is broken. Through this subtle yet humourous sleight of hand, the artwork tests how we respond to conventions of social practices or rituals commonly observed and experienced within such gallery (or similarly ‘sacrosanct’) spaces.

Togar's works often extend an invitation to its audiences to respond, and A Gesture is no exception. Yet, as Yogyajakarta-based curator Grace Samboh points out in a curatorial essay for the work, ""this does not mean that the artist is fully in control of what happens after the audience participated in what [he] has offered"" (2017). Each visitor’s interpretations of the sounds are dependent on their background or state of mind at the time, suggesting that a gesture is partly defined by the party who receives it. Ultimately, the sounds are simply varied intonations and articulations.

AUTHOR ATTRIBUTION
February 2024

References
Samboh, Grace. in suspense. Jakarta: ROH Projects, 2017.

Image courtesy of Singapore Art Museum.

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