When: 1 February at 09:30
Where: Myanmar coup
According to many last year (2020) was a monumental dumpster fire. Horrible events began with raging fires in Australia and continued relentlessly with one bad news after another. The start and development of the Covid pandemic has left the biggest impact, which is continuing well into 2021. Due to human nature and an our incline to arbitrary milestones misguided hope arose. People fixated on the fact that with the end of 2020 and the start of 2021 would mark a turn for the better. Fuelled with a bias interpretation of statistics, many eagerly awaited the end of the year — now in 2021 we won’t really know how will the year turn out, until we reach another cycle of Earth around the Sun; as they say hindsight is always twenty-twenty.
So far in the two months in the new year unsolicited events have already occurred. For example on February 1st a coup d’état has happened in Myanmar. On the same day, seemingly unrelated, Khing Hnin Wai has been recording her aerobics class before the Yaza Htarni road that leads to Myanmar’s parliament building in Nay Pyi Taw, minding her own business. The song she chose for her routine was Ampun Bang Jago by Tian Storm and Ever Slkr, a song best described as audibly happy and playful. The video wouldn’t have made such an impact if she didn’t unknowingly recorded the events of the coup unfolding.
Khing might have created one of the most salient ready made art pieces that have and will come out this year. Obviously this is one of those happy accidents that many artist strive to orchestrate, but will likely never be able to achieve, just because of all the coincidences that would have to come together.
Khing unknowingly or not framed the video so that behind her we see the wide Yaza Htarni road coming straight towards us. She is standing on what appears to be a raised platform and according to satellite images is most probably a roundabout. Certainly an odd choice for an exercise routine, but this is not her first video on that spot. She has been posting an exercise video from that location on her Facebook at least once a month since 20th November 2020. In stark contrast to her presumably first video filmed on a foggy day in November, this one has been filmed on an especially sunny day — far from the spirit of the events to unfold. Even her attire is remarkably more vivid and happier looking than the one from the earlier video. What once was a grey and lilac sports outfit has now become a deep black and neon yellow attire that together with the bright daylight produce a vivid, high contrast, crisp image. The twelve lane road behind her is devoid of any traffic and a light barricade seem to be sets with guards standing every couple meters along it. Except for few vehicle passing along the roundabout the backdrop seems devoid of action.
Khing performs her entire aerobic routine wearing a blue surgical mask, presumably due to the raging pandemic or possibly pollution. Regardless of the real reason for the mask it serves the purpose to connect to the viewer’s reality of living during the Covid outbreak. Her entire act can be seen as a symbolic act of perseverance in this eerie times, which are represented with the empty road. Her routine is delightful both in execution and choreography. Her chosen moves seem to be put together in a manner that those following the routine can both enjoy themselves as well as to have a full body exercise. Moreover here execution is remarkably well timed to the music. She performs the entire routine which lasts 3 minutes and 25 second seemingly oblivious of what is happening around her. In complete surreal fashion the arrival of the coup vehicles seems to follow the same perfect timing and climaxes exactly when the song does. The military entourage then slowly disappears behind a corner and Khing is left to finish her routine in front of the same empty background she started in front of. Khing’s performance on its own perfectly portrays the common person living their daily lives while having no agency over (certain) major affairs. She becomes the embodiment of all of us trying to come by while life crashes onto us — regardless if we are ready; she is all of us powerless against political affairs.
Up to her the video on itself would have been already concise, but the song Ampun Bang Jago adds a few additional layers to the entire ready made work. The song title translates (according to Reddit users) to “Sorry, mighty guy” and part of the lyric “Biar jo ngoni yang dapa anggap jago, karna kita slalu yang paling dapa puji translates” to “you think you are right, but we are the ones that people choose”. Google translate does come close, but due to slang can’t quite translate all the lyrics. The music video tells a very similar story. It is set in a sprawling abandoned industrial looking urban area, colour corrected with muted desatureted tones. A gang of tough guys seems to be challenged by youngsters (the artists), which leads to a fight with assorted weapons and ends up in a gun execution of the challenged gang, leaving the youngsters as the new top dogs. The video is intermittently interjected by three women dancing on the same backdrop where the fight takes place in what seems to be dance moves inspired by western rap music videos. Some of the men in the video wear masks, again reminiscent of the pandemic. Which according to the upload date of the music video, 12th September 2020, could be the case. Both the lyrics and visual story seems to parallel the narrative of Khing’s performance — people dancing while a power struggle unfolds.
Juxtaposing Khing’s video alongside the music video lends to the simplicity and sincerity of Khing’s aerobic exercise, which is in contrast with the obvious neo-colonial influence of the west on the music video. The inspirations taken from USA music industries are many: the violent nature, gun showing, bandanas, rap manneristic movements and camera shots, are some of them. In this sense the song both serves as the happy background and distancing factor from the seriousness of the events unfolding behind Khing’s back and as the signifier of geopolitics and the brutal reality of a coup d’état.
The video soon after being posted garnered a lot of traction and once posted soon attracted many to make various memes. Reddit users have in a matter of hours green screened Khing so others could insert her in various scenarios. The hyperreal nature of the video must have resonated with so many of us and we must have subconsciously or knowingly indulged in the double (or multiple) nature of the video. Khing Hnin Wai’s performance is as much a social commentary on the state of society in the late stages of capitalism as it is an escape from reality we all strive for in the boring dystopia we are forced to live in; no more concisely is this latter captured in an homage meme of Khing, Trump and vibing cat dancing to Bilal Goregen drumming Levan polkka, while Bernie Sanders sits in his mittens in front of Yaza Htarni Road. As much as we persevere at creating memes to cope with reality and keep hoping that arbitrary milestones (new year) will change things for the better the more the crude reality hits back. While we keep creating such memes that are a great exercises in escapism, they won’t be able to capture all the complexity that Khing Hnin Wai has captured in here Myanmar Coup Exercise ready made. She has certainly unawarely set a high bar for upcoming social commentary artworks.
https://twitter.com/OdedRechavi/status/1357386876806692865?s=20
