Alexandra Kleiman
You hear of new media art collectives, you hear of art and technology collectives, and you hear of food and art collectives, but only now have we heard of a collective tackling all of these territories at once. The House of Natural Fiber (HONF) collective, founded in 1999 and based in Yogyakarta, Indonesia, positions itself as a “new media art laboratory” driven by collaborative creation.
The group hosts the annual community-based CELLSBUTTON festival in Yogyakarta initiated in 2007. Participants typically include artists, scientists, lecturers, activists, and DJs from across Indonesia. Their organization encapsulates the HONF Fabrication Laboratory also offering workshops for children, the Education Focus Program hosting public workshops around each of their projects, and the open-submission Yogyakarta International Videowork Festival of video artworks.
Recently, HONF offered workshops to locals on how to home-brew fruit wine safely – this made possible through members’ research in microbiology. The collective recorded and amplified the sounds produced in distillation to create electronic music.
HONF will be featured in the New Museum’s Triennial, The Ungovernables, opening in February.
HONF, Sang Power, 2001. Courtesy HONF.
HONF, Ultra Output Project, 2002. Courtesy HONF.
Eddy Prabandono, Kenyangkanlah Aku!, 2000. Courtesy HONF.
