A Simulacrum of Courts Exalted Guest

through Utilizing Pracimayasa Interior

Sunarmi
Prof. Dr. Bani Sudardi, M.Hum.
Prof. Dr. Pande Made Sukerta, S.Kar., M.Si.
Dr. Titis Srimuda Pitana, ST., M. Trop.Arch.

ABSTRACT
Post-political and economical authority loss, Mangkunegaran acted
critically by comodifying Pracimayasas building and interior to meet its life need
through Courts Exalted Guest Simulacrum. This research aimed to describe the
Simulacrum of Courts Exalted Guest through Utilizing Pracimayasas Interior in
Pura Mangkunegaran.
This research was a hermeneutic study. Data derived from informants,
library study, written document, archive and visual data, collected using interview,
observation and documentation techniques. Informants were selected purposively
by age, sex, and social status classification, while additional informants by age
and education level classification. Data validation was carried out using source
triangulation. The data was analyzed using an interactive model of analysis
encompassing data reduction, data display, conclusion drawing and verification.
The result of research showed that political and economical authoritys
loss put Mangkunegaran as cultural pledge. With technology advance and sign
system in modern age, Mangkunegaran used tourism industry opportunity more
sensitively by comodifying Pracimayasa building to meet abdi dalems life need
and building maintenance from which the public could take lesson related to
values and customs in Mangkunegaran, particularly courts exalted guest feast
procession including sitting manner, seat, dress, good and healthy food menu.

Keywords: Simulacrum, Courts Exalted Guest, Pracimayasas Interior

A. Introduction
The loss of political and economical authority makes Mangkunegaran
enter into the part of life order in Surakarta Residency. The position of cultural
pledge object is protected by Republic of Indonesias Law No.11 of 2010
about Culture mentioned that Pura Mangkunegaran and cultural activity within
it should be preserved obligatorily. On the other hand, the release of Republic
of Indonesias Law Number 10 of 2009 about Tourism and Local Regulation
of Central Java Province Number 10 of 2012 about Tourism Development
Main Plan of Central Java Province in 2012-2017 makes Mangkunegaran
incapable of avoiding the same position.
In such condition, Mangkunegaran should apparently live in two very
different and affined worlds, to insist struggling for real spaces of original
order locality in Mangkunegaran or to build simulation spaces for tourism
purpose (Albiladiyah, 1999: 56). The first world is traditional one with any
customs and tradition in Mangkunegaran stemming from its diverse cultural
expression. The second world is the modern tourism industrial civilization
world adopted by Mangkunegaran as the consequence of comodification
trading exploration and its going-global consumerism. The most real
expression of traditional Mangkunegaran world is hundreds custom-religion
rites that is still done and undertaken by Mangkunegaran society in almost any
time, either sacred or secular (profane) performing art. Meanwhile, the
presence of modern world in tourism industry can be seen from the change of
abdi dalems function and the function of buildings in Mangkunegaran for
tourism purpose, one of which is Pracimayasa as the simulacrum room of
Courts Exalted Guest.

B. Methodology
This research was a hermeneutic study. Data derived from informants,
library study, written document, archive and visual data, collected using
interview, observation and documentation techniques. Informants were
selected purposively by age, sex, and social status classification, while
additional informants by age and education level classification. Data
 validation was carried out using source triangulation. The data was analyzed
using an interactive model of analysis encompassing data reduction, data
display, conclusion drawing and verification.

C. Result and Discussion

The entry of tourism world into Mangkunegaran can be traced back
into the loss of political authority around 1968s, when Mangkunegaran is
opened as museum for tourism interest (Albiladiyah, 1999: 41). Tourism at
that time was limited to watching other buildings and heritages in
Mangkunegaran. As the time progress, the interest increases in
Mangkunegaran and tourism strengthens in Surakarta, there is an attempt of
improving tourism concept in Mangkunegaran. Tourism in Mangkunegaran
then solidifies abdi dalems and local actors Mangkunegaran to perform
customarily and in traditional style to perform simulacrum or traditional play
about custom and habit in Mangkunegaran for tourism purpose. Traditional
world as if resisted erosion, while modern world struggles for and even
dominates because it is the characteristics of capitalism and consumerism
(Berger, 2000: 51). It is this condition that makes Mangkunegaran people live
and wrestle with two worlds, and attempt to compromise the two conflicting
worlds. As the time progresses, tourisms domination in Mangkunegaran
brings about comodification over some buildings in Mangkunegaran for
tourism purpose, one of which is Pracimayasa building.
The existing comodification process in Pracimayasa Mangkunegaran
Surakarta due to the fall of political and economic authority can be studied
fundamentally, methodologically, systematically, critical analytically and
holistically from social aspect with an approach including all dimensions
according to its area, characteristics, order, objective, function, technique, and
method. Mass media symbolizes new age in which the form of old production
and consumption has open the way for new communication universe and to
create the world constructed from model or simulacrum (Broadbent, 1980:
70). Mass media publishes Surakarta City, among others, by putting
Pracimayasa building of Mangkunegaran as the object, the space for attracting
the society or individual into an urban popular culture. Meanwhile, the reality
existing within it is pseudo reality, hyper-reality. The event of welcoming the
Courts guest (royal guest) in Pracimayasa building aims to make Pracimayasa
building and interior the main medium.
Contemporary society seems to be in a simulacrum era along with
picture, image or sign of event that has replaced real experience (Ar
Arvanitakis, 2007: 54). Postmodern human lives in the world replete with
simulation, in which there is no real thing beyond simulation and no original
thing imitable. It is similar to the courts guest welcoming phenomenon in
Pracimayasa building of Mangkunegaran. The use value of commodity and the
imperative value of a production have been replaced by model, code,
spectacle, and hyper-realism leading to simulation. Communication through
media has made people entrapped in simulacrum game not related to external
reality. Meanwhile, in object system, in this periodicity of mass media growth,
consumption has been the basis of social order. The consumer object organizes
behavior through sign function linguistically. Advertising has taken over moral
responsibility or societys morality and replaced it with hedonistic morality
leading to pleasure. In this situation, the phenomenon of being the
Mangkunegaran Courts guest in comodification of Pracimayasa building in
Pura Mangkunegaran seems to direct freedom and independence that in turn
generates commodity system. This mentality also penetrates into society, and
as if inevitable, even becomes the excellence in the societys morality (Barker,
2005: 82). Therefore, it is reasonable when individual simultaneously
synchronizes its own need along with the group surrounding it for the sake of
being a perfect social creature.
The comodification process of Pracimayasa building is an attempt of
making Pracimayasa building an object replete with meaning of sign in
building simulacrum about welcoming Mangkunegaran Palaces guest.
Simulacrum of welcoming Mangkunegaran Palaces guest is the imitation of
social life of royal family and Mangkunegaran Palaces guest. In
comodification process of Pracimayasa building, the representation of courts
exalted guest/image of courts guest is actually maintained, through treating
the guest in each of room. In fact, the simulacrum built in comodification of
Pracimayasa building of Pura Mangkunegaran Surakarta achieved hyper-
reality about the Mangkunegaran Palaces guest by utilizing certain room,
particularly Pracimayasa building. It is as if the guest becomes the king in two
hours in Mangkunegaran. Guest is the king in the comodification of
Pracimayasa building in Pura Mangkunegaran Surakarta.
This phenomenon of dinner or lunch tourist involves some rooms in
Mangkunegaran, in addition to Pracimayasa. Recalling that Pracimayasa
building does not stand alone, but a part of other building existing in Javanese
traditional houses building layout in Mangkunegaran, to reach Pracimayasa
building, some rooms should be crossed as a series of trips like the guest of
Mangkunegaran Palace. Just like the Palaces guest, tourist was treated
specially by Mangkunegaran, in this case the committee of dinner or lunch
tourist. This treatment was very different from regular tourist in
Mangkunegaran.
The first special treatment is that dinner or lunch tourist in
Pracimayasa building is the one welcomed by the guest reception team
utilizing all rooms of Javanese traditional house building in Mangkunegaran
as the simulacrum of Mangkunegaran Palaces guest. The rooms used are
Topengan, Pendapa, Dalem Ageng, Pracimayasa Park, Pracimayasa Ward,
and Pracimayasa Dining Room, with Pracimayasa Ward and Dining Room as
the center point of dinner or lunch tourists. In each room, the actors involved
in dinner or lunch tourist welcoming and service should maintain etiquette.
Two things concerning the etiquette of welcoming the palaces guest that
should be held on tightly are dressing and the attitude of guest welcoming,
both as tourist guide and as art performer. All actors involved in tourist
welcoming wear complete Javanese costume obligatorily, either women or
men. Mangkunegaran costume is basically as same as the complete Javanese
costume. This complete Javanese costume is Mangkunegarans fashion
greatness to respect the Palaces guest. This costume (fashion) is worn to build
a circumstance on Mangkunegaran Palaces culture in welcoming the special
guest in all rooms.
 The second special treatment is that dinner or lunch tourists are
welcomed by Mangkunegaran just like the Palaces guest. All actors receiving
dinner or lunch tourists should maintain their behavior to build the
circumstance in every room. It is silent circumstance, with sound or voice
based on the protocol of receiving Palaces guest. The circumstance in every
room is well-maintained, so that it is independent of noise or other peoples
passing over. Photograph taking is governed from the specified angle to create
a really respect circumstance. All of Pracimayasa buildings room is the main
media offered to the tourists in building the simulacrum of welcoming
Mangkunegaran Palaces guest.
The third treatment is that tourists are allowed to enter into Pamedan
with vehicles, just like the Palaces guest. It is different from the regular
tourists who should go down the vehicle out of the Mangkunegaran building
area, so that the vehicles should be parked out of Mangkunegaran building,
while dinner or lunch tourists car can enter into Pamedan. This dinner or
lunch tourist can go by car until Pamedan toward Topengan. Pamedan is an
opened area in the right, left, and front of Pendapa. Pamedan serves as
Mangkunegaran soldiers practicing place in Kingdom age, in addition to be
an opened room circumventing the Pendapa. To reach Pracimayasa building,
the tourists should not actually pass through Topengan, Pendapa, Paringgitan,
and Dalem Ageng, because there is a straight door from Pamedan to
Pracimayasa Park. As the guest in Javanese peoples tradition, in
Mangkunegaran Palace, the guests is not allowed to pass through gandhok
(kitchen) gate but through the main gate in Topengan, although finally, the
guest will be directed to certain room by status. Not all guests can pass
through and enter into Dalem Ageng.
Topengan is the forefront building out of the main building in Javanese
traditional house, exactly in front of Pendapa or as Pendapas terrace. So far,
some prominent figures call spatial layout of Javanese traditional house
building, particularly Pendapa, as Topengan (Anderson, 2000: 38). Topengans
function is very significant in Javanese human behavior, to welcome the guest.
Topengan is the veranda or a kind of inner terrace in the layout of Javanese
traditional house main building, recalling the main building of Java traditional
house is circumvented by supporting rooms. In Topengan, the guest is
welcomed warmly by Mangkunegaran still in standing posture before entering
into Pendapa. Tight handshake from the Palace along with non-formal
conversation is another ritual to welcome the guest.
The fourth treatment to dinner or lunch tourists in Pracimayasa
building is that the tourists are allowed to sit down for a moment in Pendapa to
watch Mangkunegaran arts performance. Sometimes, Pendapa becomes the
room passed through when the performance is held in Pracimayasa ward.
Pendapa serves as the place to welcome the guest or outsider other than
relatives in Javanese etiquette. One interesting point is that in the phenomenon
of dinner or lunch tourist in Mangkunegaran the seats in Pendapa are arranged
facing in outside direction. This layout has shift from paugeran (rule) about
the furniture layout in Javanese traditional house. The seats have never been
arranged backing the Dalem Ageng in which senthong tengah (central
bedroom), senthong kiwo (left bedroom), and senthong tengen (right bed
room). In Pendapa, the guests seat should face Dalem Ageng, while the house
owners should face outside. Pendapa serves as the guests seat to watch
performance in Paringgitan, creating the pattern of seat to face Dalem Ageng.
Nevertheless, the phenomenon occurring in dinner or lunch tourist is that the
guests sit down facing outside Pendapa. It indicates that there has been a shift
in traditional life concerning the direction of guests sitting in Pendapa of
traditional Javanese house in the phenomenon of dinner or lunch tourists in
Pracimayasa building of Mangkunegaran.
Art performance usually held in Paringgitan is more frequently held in
Pendapa in the phenomenon of dinner or lunch tourist in Pracimayasa building
of Mangkunegaran, although it has ever been held in Pracimayasa ward. It
indicates that the Mangkunegarans traditional life has been eroded related to
etiquette in Pendapa room. This explanation presupposes that
Mangkunegarans cultural actors have now ignored the presence of paugeran
concerning room use unconsciously. Pracimayasa ward still functions as
keputren particularly for mbakyu dalem when they stay in Mangkunegaran,
but it likely serves to hold dinner or lunch event for tourists as well. The room
specialization in Pracimayasa building has changed amid tourism world
current.
The fifth treatment to dinner or lunch tourists in Pracimayasa building
is that tourists receive flower necklace after enjoying the beautiful art of
Mangkunegaran Palace. Hyper-reality is actually created when tourists receive
flower necklace. They as if become the actual guests of Palace, however is it
possible for Kadipaten Mangkunegaran to give flower necklace to the public
who is not special guest, although in this case the one giving flower necklace
is dancer. In Pracimayasa ward, hyper-reality is felt again when the guests get
the honor to sit down on the seven (now six) chairs. The six and the fourteen
chairs in Pracimayasa ward is arranged in the layout concept of hierarchy for
those sitting down on it. Comodification has obscured the difference of the
original from the simulacrum. Tourists can take picture in Mangkunegaran as
if they are the relative of Mangkunegaran.
The sixth special treatment to dinner or lunch tourist in Pracimayasa
building is that the tourists get banquet in Mangkunegaran. Mangkunegarans
typical menu for dinner or lunch in Pracimayasa consists of timlo sayur,
sambel goring beledhek, garang asem bumbung, gado-gado, bestik glinding
(ball beefsteak), complete yellow rice, white rice, lodhoh pindang, vla
pudding, and optional menus such as sate ayam, semur lidah, asem-asem
daging. Lodhoh pindang is one of most complicated menu in Mangkunegaran
consisting of a variety of food types so that not everyone can enjoy it
(Anderson, 2000:61).
The most interesting problem is not only tourist that can obtain menu
served by Mangkunegaran, but the treatment from dinner or lunch tourists
receiving team in Pracimayasa building. Hyper-reality actually occurs when
the guest is positioned on the honored place, invited to eat with typical style,
as if the hosts invites the guest presents to eat, while they are not eating.
Behind the play presented in the simulacrum of courts guest, at the same time
when tourists eat in Pracimayasa ward, some members of tourist receiving
committee sit down outside, while drinking coffee in Pracimayasa terrace.
Ironically, they eat after the guests go home. It is the internal circumstance
constituting hyper-reality for tourists to be the palaces guest even the king in
two hours. Many of them express their pride and happiness to have tour
experience with Pracimayasa building in social media as an individuals
prestige.
If faced with the change, Pracimayasa building in Mangkunegaran is
made as commodity in tourism industry. Such action is a reengineering in
individual relation and production relation. Individual relation is fluid, not
related to other individual. Meanwhile, the commodified and sustainable
production relation is a unity. Of course, there is no interaction between both
of them but the compelled integration from need system to production system.
In this system, it can be seen that an individual is building his/her own idiom
until he/she losses the correct sentence, so that dispute and competition for
influence or arises. It of course is a classification system rather than a
language. Such the needs are created by consumption object because the
object acts as object category arbitrarily, determining human category (Barker,
2005: 97).
Furthermore, the advance of mass media and technology indirectly
leads to creating the consumer society, and then the object signs the social
status and replaces any existing difference of social hierarchy. An introduction
of a universal code informs the society that those getting dinner or lunch
banquet because of they are Mangkunegaran Palaces guest and put in
Pracimayasa along with a variety of photograph facilities and flower necklace
have high and special social status, as not everyone can get it. Urban tourism
leading Mangkunegaran to take a stance to comodify Pracimayasa building to
create consumptive society is opened widely; as a result, consumption in this
view can determine an individuals social status.
The difference of status is interpreted as the difference of sign
consumption, so that the wealth is measured from the number of sign
consumed. Consuming or accessing certain object like tourism in
Mangkunegaran indicates the difference from certain social group.
Consumption can be the strategic discussion object determining power,
particularly in value distribution corresponding to the rule beyond its relation
to other social sign such as knowledge, power, culture, tourism, and etc.
Tourism in more advanced production like in Pracimayasa building of
Mangkunegaran Surakarta is analogized with the screen and network making
the private room of Pracimayasa disappeared changing into public-
consumption room. In the created hyper-reality in Pracimayasa building
comodification in Mangkunegaran Surakarta, there are various dramatizations
made through a plot replete with dramatic action. Generally, dramatization is
driven by production house, tour agent in collaboration with Mangkunegaran
Tourism Service, under Mandropuros control, as the one responsible for
Pracimayasa Building as the asset in Mangkunegaran, rather than the main
actors having the story (locality in Mangkunegaran). Eventually, it is
impossible to differentiate the real from the spectacle one, so that there is no
longer reality, but hyper-reality. The effect of hyper-reality in Mangkunegaran
is the societys trust in the reality that is not actually the reality. The
foolishness over this reality can result in cultural pattern of imitating easily
everything seen as a reality in tourism promotion media realized into the
implementation of Royal Guest Banquet in Mangkunegaran.
Simulation process in Pracimayasa building comodification in
Mangkunegaran concerns the creation of reality through conceptual model or
something related to the myth that cannot be seen for its truth in the reality, the
history of Pracimayasa Building functioning. This model is the determinant of
perspective on reality. Everything that can attract humans interests such as
lifestyle, art, house, household need, and etc is shown through a variety of
promotion media with ideal models. Therefore it is here that the border
between simulation and reality is mixed thereby creating hyperreality in which
the real cannot be distinguished from the unreal one.
Tourism industrial culture increasingly obscures the distance between
fact and information, between information and entertainment, between
entertainment and political excesses. The society is unconscious of the effect
of simulation and sign (signs/simulacra), it makes the society try new things
offered by simulation condition bravely in the form of purchasing, choosing,
working and touring to Mangkunegaran and can create tourism-induced
hypereality. Hyperreality creates a condition containing counterfeit mixed with
the originality between Mangkunegarans honored guest and tourists who can
access it as they have money. Therefore, access to be the guest in
Mangkunegaran in Pracimayasa building in this scheme is as if exchanged in
the presence of money. The society seems to be able to buy the facility
perceivable during visiting Pracimayasa building of Mangkunegaran.
Subsequently Mangkunegaran and Pracimayasa is no longer the axis of
Javanese culture but develops into a production room of newer popular culture
to which material interest is inherent despite some learning about etiquette of
exalting the guest.
Tourism industry dominates many aspects of life; this industry
produces so many products from primary, secondary to tertiary needs in
tourism domain. Equipped with semiotic and simulation powers, it makes the
distribution of tour product advertising in Pracimayasa building in
Mangkunegaran wider. Moreover, information technology enables the
employers to get information about what kind of society they face, and the
consumers can get information on their unnecessary but wanted needs. The
assumptions created in human thinking and thought makes human being
inseparable from this hyperreality condition (Aji, 2008: 75).
Signs and sign-symbol, in the form of status, prestige, style expression
and life style, luxury and respect are the main motive of consumptive activity
among consumer community choosing tour to Mangkunegaran. In
consumptive community, consumption as the semiotic system is no longer
governed by need or will factor to get enjoyment, but a series of will to get
respect, prestige, status, and identity through a signifying mechanism, one of
which is by becoming honored guest in Mangkunegaran in order to get
banquet in Pracimayasa, actually constituting the private room in
Mangkunegaran.
This establishment of simulation logics indicates that the society is
now in postmodernism era. Simulacrum or simulation made through
reproduction (with information technology, communication and industry, and
 knowledge) replaces production principle, while the game of sign and image
dominates nearly all of human communication processes in tourism domain.
In society, simulation is determined by the relation of sign, image, and code.
In tourism simulation world in Pracimayasa building of Mangkunegaran, an
individuals identity is no longer determined by and from inside. Identity is
now determined by the construction of sign, image, and code reflecting how
an individual understand him/herself ad his/her relation to others through
his/her tour prestigiousness.
Furthermore, economic, political, social and cultural realities are
governed by this simulation logic, in which code and models determine how
an individual should act and understand his/her environment. Simulacrum like
the reception of Palace (Royal) guest in Pracimayasa building in tourism
concept enables an individual within it to explore a variety of reality
fragments, either real or pseudo, to reproduce, to reengineer, and to simulate
everything until the farthest border. Reality has fused into sign, image, and
reproduction models. It is impossible to find the real reference, to distinguish
representation from reality, image from reality, sign from idea, and the pseudo
from the real, because what exists is the mix of all.
The utilization of Topengan, Pendapa, Pracimayasa Park, Pracimayasa
Ward, and Pracimayasa Dining Room in the condition above seems to be a
media of creating simulacrum for welcoming the royal guest in dinner or
lunch tour in Mangkunegaran. Pamedan serves as parking area that will not
occur in regular tour. Topengan usually functioning as circulation path to
Pendapa only becomes the place to welcome tourists by Mangkunegaran
relative in dinner or lunch tour. The quiet ward and dining room without
lighting in ordinary days will be lighted well in diner tour indicating that an
activity is held there. The mature preparation, particularly for tidiness and
cleanliness of Pracimayasa building is maintained during dinner or lunch tour
in Mangkunegaran. Abdi dalems are preoccupied with preparing all of rooms,
art, and banquet for dinner or lunch tour in Mangkunegaran.

D. Conclusion
 Simulation process in Pracimayasa building comodification as the
tourist object leads to the creation of simulacrum or object or event
reproduction concerning welcoming the guest of Mangkunegaran Palace.
When the separation between sign and reality becomes confusing, it is difficult
to estimate the real things and those things simulating the real ones.
Mangkunegaran is one almost perfect model of an urban prestigious
simulation order. So simulation as honored guest in Mangkunegaran is the
form/representation of something real in the real world but represented again
in the new form and packaging. Therefore, it is true that simulacrum is defined
as the construction of imaginary thinking on a reality, without presenting the
reality itself essentially. So, the manipulation of reality drowning the
representation into simulation reducing equivalence (balance) between image
and reality (although this equivalence is considered as pseudo) is called
simulacrum. Thus, the utilization of Pracimayasa is intended not only to get
profit but also to give the public the lesson related values and customs in
Mangkunegaran environment particularly in royal guest banquet procession
with table manner, costume and good and healthy menus.

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