posts on the norient space by Gisela Swaragita

A young journalist navigates her life in the busy and noisy city of Jakarta, while enjoying the sparks from the little ‹whispers› she admires through her friends.

What’s a typical weekend look like to a Jakartan? Maezara captures the colorful life of Jakarta, full of shrieks, laughs, screams, sizzles, and whispers through her lenses.

Mundor’s stage photography captured the best of Jakarta’s indie scene in the mid 2010s.

This video essay offers an unfiltered look into Jakarta's music scene through cellphone footage of one of its most familiar faces.

What does it take to invite touring bands to play the underground scene in Jakarta? This seasoned metal/punk organizer creates a detailed guideline.

Aghnia's «Echoing Imprints» is an intimate walkthrough and exploration of Jakarta’s vibrant music culture that takes us to the important sites at the very heart of the city’s music scene, inviting us to listen to their silent hums and lingering rhythms.

Dania Joedo, a trans activist and musician, explores her journey of self-discovery, acceptance, and advocacy. This conversation highlights Dania’s evolution from living as Danang to openly embracing her identity as Dania, and the significant role her partner, Gusti, played in this transformative process.

This playlist is a sonic archive of the chapters of my life and their relation to Jakarta.

Haikal Azizi, the man behind noir folk/pop Bin Idris, reminisces on spiritual roots in his hometown of Depok.

One day, when sitting in an angkot minivan in Bogor, our writer had a weird encounter that made her ears ring; it was funkot, a mix of gabber and Indonesian folk. An essay inspired by the music of Animistic Beliefs who performed at MUTEK festival 2023.

To memorize a place and its emotional attachment to it, a form is needed. This is what our writer, Gisela Swaragita, is reminded of when listening to Liew Niyomkarn’s music, in which the musician captures moments of her childhood with field recordings.

The Indonesian summer is very hot. It’s when our writer shelters at home listening to music, only to realize that the state between slumber and consciousness can not be as innocent as it used to be.

What happens when young musicians leave their hometowns or their places of study and head for another city? Jakarta-based journalist Gisela Swaragita remembers her own case and looks back to her study-years in the South-Central Javanese metropole, Yogyakarta.

As a child, our writer made mixtapes out of recorded radio shows. In this personal essay, she explains how she disobeyed the station’s official music curation.

As a teenager, our writer experienced a natural disaster, and the only radio nearby united the survivors. Yet, as she learned in «OneBeat»’s Building Radio workshop, radio can also have dividing effects.

Noisy encounters in Indonesia, both in her own life and via Adythia Utama’s short film «existence.», have taught Gisela Swaragita elevated listening.