WPAP as Digital media-based

artwork

Bimo Prakoso Priatmadji

bimo_priatmadji@yahoo.com | +628999815760

Lia Yuldinawati, ST. MM

liayul@yahoo.com | +6281573835788

Telkom Institute of Management

Indonesia

2012

Abstract

Digital media as a form of changing era covered many aspects. For example is WPAP

(Wedha’s Pop Art Portrait), a unique Pop Art style of face portrait from Indonesia. WPAP

focuses on people faces because it are unique identity to recognize them.

WPAP has specific rules: no facet formed by curved lines. Initially, many artists

including WPAP uses manual technique with poster paint as media and considered as art

painting. Digital media converts art painting into printmaking, and so WPAP. WPAP was

turning into more colorful and diverse artwork when applied to digital media.

This paper is written because of the phenomenon happened in Indonesia. Many

Indonesian artists keep their ideology of conventional arts and do not want to change their

way of making art into digital media, resulting their works have no sale value whereas they

are the economical assets for their country.

Keyword: Digitalized media, WPAP, artists, sale value.

Introduction

Digitalization of media has certainly changed human life style and culture todays. Things

have never been done before become common, like how people communicate through

video call and socialize by internet network at the other side of the world in real-time.

Digitalization of media also makes execution process easier and briefer, specifically

for new artist when working on their arts. Many computer softwares can do working

process of an art like sketch to coloring.

WPAP is an art that apply digitalization of media, make its working process easier,

also produce more appealing colors.

Indonesian artist nowadays have inclination to stay with their style/ideology. They

are not planning to develop the works to be more unique. Their works have become less

valuable or even have no sell value in the middle of digital era that makes execution process

easier.

Method

Two types of reserach data were collected :

Literature Study : Authors found out literature from various sources, such as books,

internet, etc.

Observation : Authors tried to observe and formulate a conclusion from sample

activities.

Literature Review

1. Art movement

1.1. Pop Art

Pop art is an art movement that emerged in the mid-1950s in Britain and in

the late 1950s in the United States. (M. Livingstone, 1990). The term first

appeared in Britain during the 1950s and referred to the interest of a number

of artists in the images of mass media, advertising, comics and consumer

products. The 1950s were a period of optimism in Britain following the end of

war-time rationing, and a consumer boom took place. Pop Art therefore

coincided with the youth and pop music phenomenon of the 1950s and '60s,

and became very much a part of the image of fashionable, 'swinging' London.

(editor: Shearer West, 1996)

1.2. Expressionism

Expressionism was a modernist movement, initially in poetry and painting,

originating in Germany at the beginning of the 20th century. Its typical trait is

to present the world solely from a subjective perspective, distorting it

radically for emotional effect in order to evoke moods or ideas (Bruce

Thompson)

2. Competitive advantage

A competitive advantage is an advantage over competitors gained by offering

consumers greater value, either by means of lower prices or by providing greater

benefits and service that justifies higher prices.

2.1. Competitive Strategies

Michael E. Porter suggested four strategies to gain competitive advantage.

The four strategies relate to the extent to which the scope of a businesses

activities are narrow versus broad and the extent to which a business seeks

to differentiate its products.

The differentiation and cost leadership strategies seek competitive advantage in a

broad range of market or industry segments. By contrast, the differentiation focus

and cost focus strategies are adopted in a narrow market or industry.

Strategy - Differentiation

This strategy involves selecting one or more criteria used by buyers in a market - and

then positioning the business uniquely to meet those criteria. This strategy is usually

associated with charging a premium price for the product - often to reflect the

higher production costs and extra value-added features provided for the consumer.

Differentiation is about charging a premium price that more than covers the

additional production costs, and about giving customers clear reasons to prefer the

product over other, less differentiated products.

Strategy - Cost Leadership

With this strategy, the objective is to become the lowest-cost producer in the

industry. Many (perhaps all) market segments in the industry are supplied with the

emphasis placed minimising costs. If the achieved selling price can at least equal (or

near)the average for the market, then the lowest-cost producer will (in theory) enjoy

the best profits. This strategy is usually associated with large-scale businesses

offering "standard" products with relatively little differentiation that are perfectly

acceptable to the majority of customers. Occasionally, a low-cost leader will also

discount its product to maximise sales, particularly if it has a significant cost

advantage over the competition and, in doing so, it can further increase its market

share.

Strategy - Differentiation Focus

In the differentiation focus strategy, a business aims to differentiate within just one

or a small number of target market segments. The special customer needs of the

segment mean that there are opportunities to provide products that are clearly

different from competitors who may be targeting a broader group of customers. The

important issue for any business adopting this strategy is to ensure that customers

really do have different needs and wants - in other words that there is a valid basis

for differentiation - and that existing competitor products are not meeting those

needs and wants.

Strategy - Cost Focus

Here a business seeks a lower-cost advantage in just on or a small number of market

segments. The product will be basic - perhaps a similar product to the higher-priced

and featured market leader, but acceptable to sufficient consumers.

Observation review

1. WPAP (Wedha’s Pop Art Portrait)

WPAP is an art genre developed by Wedha Abdul Rashid, a contemporary Indonesian

artist. He developed this style in 90’s when he had to deal with the decreased function of his

eyes.

He was using geometric facets of free hand stroke by crayon when he started to

develop his drawing style. He also did not use skin tone. Then he developed his style with

strong and bold stroke, but this style did not last long because he felt the color and the

stroke did not match.

Using poster paint he omitted the stroke and made imaginary lines from contiguous

different color and cubicle facets. He named this style as FMB (Foto Marak Berkotak/Cubicle

Rousing Photos) because it based on photo and used many colors and cubicle facets.

In 2007, he changed the name of his style into WPAP (Wedha’s Pop Art Portrait)

because he thought it could not be consider as cubism or mosaic style and it used face as

the main idea. Face is unique identity to recognize people, and has many meanings implied

within. In this year, Wedha made major change to his artwork. He changed his drawing

media from manual (poster paint) to digital (computerize), giving result that his artwork

became more colorful, detailed facet, and made production faster. It also changed his

artwork type from art painting into printmaking.

Wedha was releasing book about history and tutorial of WPAP making. He did it to

promote WPAP to wider audiences in order to make a legacy of it.

WPAP has several important and specific rules:

1. No facets formed by curved lines.

2. Every facet must joint vertically and horizontally as long it still make resemblance.

3. Every facet joint must converge.

4. Every facet must be in solid color (without gradation) and use no skin tone.

2. Affandi

Affandi was an expressionistic artist known as painting maestro of Indonesia and had

produced more than 2.000 painting. As renowned artist, he had participated in

various exhibitions abroad like India, Brazil, and Venice.

He started making expressionistic painting in 1950s and found new style ‘squeezing

the tube’. He found this technique by accident, when one day he felt impatient to

find his pencil for draw a lines, he just applied the paint directly from its tube. The

result the painting object appeared more alive.

3. Braga’s painter artist

Braga Street is a small street in the center of Bandung, Indonesia, which was famous

in the 1920s as a promenade street. Nowadays, Braga known as “old city” because

various Dutch Colonialism heritage buildings.

One of Braga’s uniqueness is various paintings sold at the roadside of Braga Street,

form scenery, portrait, to abstract. However, many paintings sold in affordable prices

because the artists for those paintings are unknown.

(a) (b) (c)

Images : (a) Affandi’s “Wisdom of the West”, (b) Mick Jagger in WPAP, (c) example of

braga’s painting

COMPARISON TABLE

Preliminary Findings

Artists who have their own sell value are they who apply strategy of differentiation

focus, because every artist has their own uniqueness in their artworks, which become their

sell value.

Change which was done by Wedha in making WPAP from manual to digital is one

most important thing to add sell value to his artwork.

But, Wedha’s decision to give tutorial of WPAP to public likes two sides of coin. One

side it gives opportunity to WPAP to be famous in public, in the other side it will make his

artwork become common and not special. Therefore, Wedha has to keep develop his

uniqueness that distinguish his WPAP with others, and make his WPAP has distinctive value

proportion.

Later on, not only the artist who needs to develop their skill, but also the tools or

supporting software need to be customized following each artist’s characteristics.

Reference

M. Livingstone (1990), “Pop Art: A Continuing History”

Michael E. Porter (1998), “Competitive Advantage: Creating and Sustaining Superior

Performance”

Shearer West (ed.) (1996), “The Bulfinch Guide to Art History: A Comprehensive Survey and

Dictionary of Western Art and Architecture”

Wedha (2011), “Wedha & WPAP (Wedha’s Pop Art Portrait) Pop Art Asli Indonesia”

Artwork Differentiation Differentiation focus Cost Focus Cost Leadership

WPAP x

Affandi's artwork x

Braga's painter

artworkx