ABSTRACT
This chapter examines Indonesian new media art communities with a special interest in urban life and infrastructure. It focuses on collectives from Jakarta and Bandung, which use works of art, exhibitions, festivals and other activities to involve a diverse group of people and institutions, including artists, governments, businesses, NGOs and ordinary citizens, in rethinking, reimagining and, where possible, redesigning urban space. The chapter demonstrates how their specific engagement with urban space can be seen as an aspect of a 'back to the city' movement in reaction to the socially disengaged elite urban development projects from the mid-1970s to the late 1990s. It then explains the Bandung-based new media art collective Common Room, which has been a pioneer in introducing and developing the idea of the creative industry in Indonesia. The 2009 Nu-Substance, titled 'Resonance; Festival for Open Culture, Technology and Urban Ecology', introduced the issues of cultural diversity, the use of Open Source technology and environmental sustainability.
