Volume 2 No 3 (2008)
Inverting the Ordinary
Naomi Paramita Adhi
In the exhibition project "Something Else" we began with the discussion about the definition of ordinary and then experiemented in making something that we consider as an inversion of the ordinary. But first of all, what is inverting and how do we exactly do this inverting process?
Inverting
What happens when you click the “invert” option in a photo editing software? Almost certainly, it will change your photo, where all the black parts of it becomes white and the white parts become black, and all the colors turn into other colors that are (supposedly) their opposite. If, with the same program, you make a certain selection of your photo and decide to invert the selection (this option does exist in most programs), the parts that you selected will become deselected and the parts you didn’t select will become selected instead. As defined by the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English, to invert is “to put upside down or in the opposite order, position, or arrangement”. In short, it is to change something into its opposite. Then, what do we get when we try inverting the ordinary? Before proceeding any further, let us try to define the ordinary and the not ordinary.
Ordinary and Not Ordinary
What is ordinary and what isn’t? According to the Penguin Dictionary of English Synonyms and Antonyms, ordinary is synonymous with normal, average, everyday, and commonplace. These words indicate something usual, as in we have seen, heard, or known about it before in many occasions. If something is ordinary, then there are many other same or similar things that we know of in the world. This definition is relative, because there may be something we find not-ordinary, just because we don’t know that there exist same or similar things. For example, most Westerns may find the durian fruit not ordinary, but for Indonesian people, it is exactly the opposite. Another example is taken from the following fictitious data of test results. In this chemistry test most students scored 7 and 8 from the scale of 1 to 10. We may say these are the ordinary students and the ordinary achievement. The not ordinary scores are those obtained by less than 10 students, which are scores 3 and below and those who score perfectly. But then what category do the scores 4, 5, 6, and 9 fall into? I call them the “not-so-ordinary”, they aren’t average, but not rare or exceptional either.
But if we look at the Physics test results, the ordinary score is no longer 7 and 8, but 4 and 5 (this was actually true in my high school). Getting a 4 or 5 mark is considered bad in chemistry, but in physics it’s perfectly fine because everybody else gets 4 or 5. A perfect score is exceptional; it is extra-ordinary.
But what is extra ordinary? Is it the same as not ordinary? Is a three-legged chicken extra ordinary or just not ordinary? Is a spacecraft that can travel at the speed of light extra ordinary or not ordinary? Which one is extra ordinary: Spiderman or The Green Goblin? Batman or the Joker? Snow White or the Evil Queen? The term “extraordinary” has a “wow” tone to it. It implies something astounding, something marvelous. So, what about those which are not ordinary but not amazing? People have many names for it: weird, odd, peculiar, or, just plain not ordinary.
Inverting the Ordinary
As stated earlier, inversion means that there is a certain change or transformation in the object to become something opposite. To invert is to change. For my assignment, inverting the ordinary meant I had to have something ordinary which would be the object of inversion. But then it occurred to me: Why on earth should we even try to invert the ordinary? Why is this necessary?
As I have pointed out before, something ordinary and everyday is something common, something that occurs frequently, repetitively. Repetition can be a source of boredom. If there is an object so ordinary that it makes you bored with, you can invert it into something not ordinary – maybe even extra ordinary – and it can break the boredom into amusement. With this in mind, I started searching for an object that happens all too often and makes me want to turn it into something else. There were actually a number of candidates, ranging from the contents of my wardrobe that are still the same as three years ago to the dirty, soul-less white walls of my room. But these were too personal choices, and maybe someone else wouldn’t understand them. So I started to seek for other more general choices, and that was when my eyes suddenly landed upon the morning papers. My family had subscribed to a national newspaper ever since I could remember, and I have been reading them since elementary school. Everybody in my house reads the newspapers. We actually fight over who gets to read them first (or second, to be precise, because my father always gets the first chance). It was a personal ordinary thing, but I would guess that there are many families in this world that subscribes to the papers too, so it would be a general ordinary thing as well.
Morning papers lay scattered after being read by the people in my house
I never read the whole newspaper; usually I only read the front page, the gossips, the sports, the Sunday cartoons, and some other interesting news. As for the other news, I only read the headlines, and after that I decide whether it is worth reading or not. To me, the most boring and ordinary headlines and articles are bad news about our country. News like those tend to make me skeptical and dubious towards my own country – not something to boast about, actually. But this became the initial idea of my assignment and I started to work on it immediately.
As the object that I would inverse afterwards, I chose 6 articles from the papers from that day and the day before. I selected articles with headlines that were either boring (or “same-old” as I prefer to call it), or just predictable and not surprising. And because I believe the headlines are the most important and most eye-catching part of a news article, I decided to alter only those, and leave the article text as it is. I also let alone the pictures so that if someone wanted to know what the real headline was, they could read the article and look at the pictures. The article’s headlines were:
• Argentina bangkit tanpa IMF (“Argentina awakens without IMF”)
• Proses relokasi berjalan lamban (“Relocation process goes slowly”; about the relocation of the Lapindo mud-geysers victims)
• UE bantu 494 juta Euro untuk masyarakat miskin (“EU donates 494 million Euros for the deprived”)
• Perhatian pemerintah minim (“Government concern is minimal”)
• Hingga hari kedua Indonesia tertinggal (“Until the second day, Indonesia has failed to keep up”; about the Asian Indoor Games)
• Jalanan kembali tergenang (”Streets are flooded again”)
Then I changed the headlines into:
• INDONESIA bangkit tanpa IMF (“INDONESIA awakens without IMF”)
• Proses relokasi berjalan LANCAR (“Relocation process goes SMOOTHLY”; about the relocation of the Lapindo mud-geysers victims)
• RI bantu 494 juta Euro untuk masyarakat miskin (“RI donates 494 million Euros for the deprived”)
• Perhatian pemerintah MELIMPAH (“Government concern is ABUNDANT”)
• Hingga hari kedua Indonesia MEMIMPIN (“Until the second day, Indonesia IS LEADING”; about the Asian Indoor Games)
• Jalanan TAKKAN tergenang (”Streets WILL NEVER BE flooded again”)
With my edits, the articles changed from ordinary, “no-surprise” articles to something not ordinary, something not likely to happen. It is easily observed that I did not change the whole headlines, but only parts of them so as to highlight that the headlines were not real and give it more irony. I also purposely put the changes in such a way to emphasize the changes I made to invert the headlines.
The product was exhibited with other products from fellow students, and I noticed that a small change in those headlines brought about laughter or sometimes smirks from visitors, and also a skeptical and cynical image of the creator (which is me); even though in the caption I stated that these were actually my hopes.
Epilogue
Even though I based my project on the thought that the ordinary is boring and needs to be inverted, Malcolm Miles (and before that Henri Lefebvre) stated that “the ordinary, whilst producing a repetitive daily routine, can paradoxically be festive and celebratory” (Miles, 2000: 17). The news articles I picked were ordinary, but I picked them because I knew from the beginning that there was something wrong about it or there was something in it that I wanted to happen to my country. Why didn’t I ever think about inverting something as ordinary and everyday as my family, my friends, my route to campus, or my collection of comics? These things are some of the things I live through, interact with, and experience every day. But, as ordinary and as routine as they are, I quite enjoy doing it everyday and treasure them as precious experiences in my life. If I were to choose between my ordinary family and an extra ordinary one, I would most likely pick my own family, although they are completely ordinary. Whereas the outcome of my assignment may suggest that the not ordinary would be better than the ordinary, it seems the opposite also applies. In conclusion, not all extra-ordinary or not-ordinary is better than the ordinary; sometimes the ordinary can give a bigger meaning depending on your point of view.
Reference
Miles, M. (2000). The Uses of Decoration, Essays in the Architectural Everyday. West Sussex: John Wiley & Sons.