ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on HONF and Indonesian contemporary art more broadly, as a historically and socially specific interpretation of the third and fourth key avant-garde principles: to provide utopian visions and present aesthetic innovation. Less ambiguous examples of art laboratories or workshops that have come out of the Cellsbutton festivals since 2007 are Indonesia Bricolabs and HonFab Lab. HONF's other lab, HonFab Lab, is meant as a workshop for the actual production of creative technology. The trend of art and media laboratories is reflected in the names of the new media art communities Video Lab (Bandung) and Klinik Seni Taxu (Denpasar), and the community media initiative Youth Media Community Lab of Kampung Halaman (Yogyakarta). The use of the idea of the avant-garde facilitates a comprehensive interpretation of Indonesian new media art, beyond characterisations of this form of art as a strategy to undermine capitalism from within at best, and just another form of entertainment at worst.
