638 ways
Over the weekend, I stopped by one of the newest places in town where knock-offs abound. It is conveniently located between where I had come from and where I was eventually going to end up at and it is right along the road I was taking.
I had bought some music DVDs there before and I thought to check if the stall I bought those from would have new offerings. I wasn't looking for anything particularly new though, in fact, my taste in music definitely leans towards the old or the classics, to use a term that cannot be accused of ageism.
I'm not sure if the stall had disappeared or just the stack of DVDs -- I remember that stack but not the name of the stall -- but those DVD's were nowhere to be found.
Still, since it was located at the corner of this place where most of the computer stuff were to be found, I thought, I might as well have a look if the other stalls had anything interesting.
True enough, one stall had a gem of a find. The way it was displayed made sure that the image on the packaging was seen first.
As a visual and graphic artist images have a special pull for me. And, then this wasn't just any image but one done in the style of one of my favorite artists, Andy Warhol.
So the pull was irresistible, though, at first, I had a case of mistaken identity. It must be because the the single most popular image of this person whom I mistook for is also done in this similar style.
Yet, it was the title, that had me reaching for my wallet when I finally spied it: 638 Ways To Kill Castro. So, it was Castro and not Che, as I had mistakenly thought at first. Of course, the iconic cigar should have been the dead giveaway.
And, of course, too, I had known that there had been numerous plots to assassinate Castro. But numerous doesn't really say much. 638 does, which is, to say the least, astounding.
Both because it's really just too many attempts to beg skepticism and because none of them succeeded. This, especially since all those attempts were known and the majority of them were initiated, planned and funded by the worlds biggest military power that is just a spit away from Havana.
While this documentary presents the two sides of this 'murder' story, it is, as expected, from the side of those thwarting the assassination attempts that this particular number comes from, in the person of Fabian Escalante, now retired head of Cuban intelligence.
By his count, this is how the different US Presidents weigh in in terms of plots during their watch: Eisenhower – 38, Kennedy – 42, Johnson – 72, Nixon – 184, Carter – 64, Raegan – 197, Bush, Sr. - 16 and Clinton – 21.
The plots range from the simply bizarre to the spectacularly bumbling. Of the latter, none was more publicly humiliating than the Bay of Pigs fiasco where a supposed invasion of Cuban exiles was made short shrift by the Cuban self-defense militias and the US consequently taking all duplicitous routes to escape responsibility.
While this documentary is particularly enlightening as regards this very peculiar if utterly irrational, not to say anything about completely illegal and criminal way with which the US is dealing with Cuba, it should lead one with the slightest interest in Cuba, and not just Castro, to a bigger picture.
In the run up towards what could still be catastrophic consequences of global warming and the climate crisis and the very possible oil shortage as well, many – including Americans – are now looking at the experience of Cuba in what has been called transition, post-oil politics and economics.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union Cuba has had to deal with the loss of its main trading partner and source of oil. Cuba's dependence on the Soviet Union was almost complete and they had had to completely work around this loss which led to novel ways at managing their society from production to distribution to transportation, etc., including the recognition and encouragement of small entrepreneurial initiatives.
With the recent illness of Castro, it might just as be that no assassination will succeed better than the one hatched by the Grim Reaper himself. No matter one's view of Castro, there is much to learn from Cuba's on-going experiment that has kept them despite its admitted problems, from experiencing massive hunger, widening inequality, deepening oppression, social dislocation and explosion.
Despite its being in the middle of hurricane belt the shocking images of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, that also passed through Cuba, did not from Cuba. Instead, what came from Cuba were offers to send doctors, nurses, medical and emergency response personnel.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
10.18.07 kulturnatib
Re: Cycling
I was going to write about something else when I received mail from our publisher and Chief Editor, Eileen Mangubat. She wrote, 'here is something you might be interested in.'
That something was a news item from the Associated Press with the head: 'Cycling gains ground in NYC amid harried commuters, belching cabs.'
Of course, I was interested. I downloaded the attached item and read it.
While reading, my thoughts would wander every now and them to the bunch of 'items' that fellow columnist and colleague in the arts, Radel Paredes, sent me almost a month ago, which he also wrote about in one or two of his columns.
These items were mostly writings by Radel's brother who is based in Surigao City and who is a cycling activist as far as I can gather from his pieces.
Like most activist for whom an organized response to a problem or an issue is a first necessary step, he has called for bicylists to organize in order that, first, their rights as commuters were recognized and respected – they don't get run off the road -- and that, second, commuting by bicycle becomes a legitimate mass option with the same infrastructure support, financial and economic incentives that other more polluting and more resource hungry forms of transport enjoy from local, regional and national governments.
The news item is something that I'm sure Radel's brother, Judel, would salivate over, as I did. But, more than I, he will not stop at simply salivating. He will organize, while I just join fun rides and other actions that other bicycle activists here – a rare breed, so far – will organize. And, of course, write about them, as well.
The news item was mostly about the award or recognition New York City received from the League of American Bicyclists which was an endorsement of the efforts of incumbent Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican turned Independent, who, most unRepublican like, is promoting cycling for a cleaner environment and a healthier populace.
The item reports that New York city is, 'installing 400 to 500 bike (parking) racks a year and plans to have more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) of bike lanes and paths by 2009. There will then be 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) of bike lane for every 10 miles (1.6 kilometers) of road; the ratio is now 1 to 15. In San Francisco, it is 1 to 7.'
According to city transport commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, the report said, “The way we think about transportation and how we use our limited street space is changing.”
For us, that is a gross understatement. Changing? How about Revolutionized?!
Well, I'll make that, for us and for here. Consider: there are 130,000 bicyclists on the road in New York City’s daily. Because New York is the largest U.S. city at 8 million, that is more total cyclists than any other U.S. city can claim. But according to Census figures, just 0.5 percent of New Yorkers ride bikes to work. That compares to 2 percent in Seattle and San Francisco and a whopping 34 percent in Copenhagen.
We don't have such figures here. Bicycles are ignored as a means of transportation and does not figure at all in any of the transportation plans of the city. Maybe because bicycles do not need overpasses and all those other muscular and ugly – but must be extremely lucrative – infrastructure projects favored by our present city officials.
Yet, the fact is that many factory, itinerant and service workers do bike to work and back, enduring the daily hazard of inconsiderate to abusive drivers, pot holes and uneven road surface, no parking facilities and a largely invisible road existence.
And that their effort and contribution – though maybe unwitting – to reducing pollution and traffic congestion lacks any kind of recognition, support and encouragement from both government and business.
Plus there is really a sizable cycling population here, who, for the most part, still view and practice cycling as mere recreation and not – or not yet -- as a feasible and workable alternative to the dominant ideology of the motor vehicle as kings of the road and there is no other road but this road.
It is difficult to see from the here and now, how this cannot be and will not always be the case. But then that is what activists are for. They are supposed to nudge all the rest of us in the direction where real alternatives are available and the better alternative prevails.
In the case of New York City, there is the unlikely though not unheard of activist. A government who has a vision sees its vision through. A cleaner environment and a healthier populace is a good vision. And Mayor Bloomberg is showing us the way from the saddle seat of a bicycle.
I was going to write about something else when I received mail from our publisher and Chief Editor, Eileen Mangubat. She wrote, 'here is something you might be interested in.'
That something was a news item from the Associated Press with the head: 'Cycling gains ground in NYC amid harried commuters, belching cabs.'
Of course, I was interested. I downloaded the attached item and read it.
While reading, my thoughts would wander every now and them to the bunch of 'items' that fellow columnist and colleague in the arts, Radel Paredes, sent me almost a month ago, which he also wrote about in one or two of his columns.
These items were mostly writings by Radel's brother who is based in Surigao City and who is a cycling activist as far as I can gather from his pieces.
Like most activist for whom an organized response to a problem or an issue is a first necessary step, he has called for bicylists to organize in order that, first, their rights as commuters were recognized and respected – they don't get run off the road -- and that, second, commuting by bicycle becomes a legitimate mass option with the same infrastructure support, financial and economic incentives that other more polluting and more resource hungry forms of transport enjoy from local, regional and national governments.
The news item is something that I'm sure Radel's brother, Judel, would salivate over, as I did. But, more than I, he will not stop at simply salivating. He will organize, while I just join fun rides and other actions that other bicycle activists here – a rare breed, so far – will organize. And, of course, write about them, as well.
The news item was mostly about the award or recognition New York City received from the League of American Bicyclists which was an endorsement of the efforts of incumbent Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a Republican turned Independent, who, most unRepublican like, is promoting cycling for a cleaner environment and a healthier populace.
The item reports that New York city is, 'installing 400 to 500 bike (parking) racks a year and plans to have more than 400 miles (644 kilometers) of bike lanes and paths by 2009. There will then be 1 mile (1.6 kilometers) of bike lane for every 10 miles (1.6 kilometers) of road; the ratio is now 1 to 15. In San Francisco, it is 1 to 7.'
According to city transport commissioner, Janette Sadik-Khan, the report said, “The way we think about transportation and how we use our limited street space is changing.”
For us, that is a gross understatement. Changing? How about Revolutionized?!
Well, I'll make that, for us and for here. Consider: there are 130,000 bicyclists on the road in New York City’s daily. Because New York is the largest U.S. city at 8 million, that is more total cyclists than any other U.S. city can claim. But according to Census figures, just 0.5 percent of New Yorkers ride bikes to work. That compares to 2 percent in Seattle and San Francisco and a whopping 34 percent in Copenhagen.
We don't have such figures here. Bicycles are ignored as a means of transportation and does not figure at all in any of the transportation plans of the city. Maybe because bicycles do not need overpasses and all those other muscular and ugly – but must be extremely lucrative – infrastructure projects favored by our present city officials.
Yet, the fact is that many factory, itinerant and service workers do bike to work and back, enduring the daily hazard of inconsiderate to abusive drivers, pot holes and uneven road surface, no parking facilities and a largely invisible road existence.
And that their effort and contribution – though maybe unwitting – to reducing pollution and traffic congestion lacks any kind of recognition, support and encouragement from both government and business.
Plus there is really a sizable cycling population here, who, for the most part, still view and practice cycling as mere recreation and not – or not yet -- as a feasible and workable alternative to the dominant ideology of the motor vehicle as kings of the road and there is no other road but this road.
It is difficult to see from the here and now, how this cannot be and will not always be the case. But then that is what activists are for. They are supposed to nudge all the rest of us in the direction where real alternatives are available and the better alternative prevails.
In the case of New York City, there is the unlikely though not unheard of activist. A government who has a vision sees its vision through. A cleaner environment and a healthier populace is a good vision. And Mayor Bloomberg is showing us the way from the saddle seat of a bicycle.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
10.11.07 kulturnatib
Cyberactivism
A long time ago, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) had this really creative slogan: Let your fingers do the walking. No, let me correct myself. This wasn't PLDT's slogan but that of the Yellow Pages (GTE Directories Corporation) or what became, in 1989, the Directories Philippines Corporation. In fact, the logo for this company that works with PLDT to produce PLDT's phone directory is that of fingers walking over an open page.
What it meant or promoted was that with the telephone one no longer had to walk over to some business to conduct business. One could simply let one's fingers do the walking. First, finding the number on the phone book, second dialing the number, then, voila, business can be conducted.
With today's touch tone phones, fingers do even less walking than with the rotary dialing phones of that time when that slogan came out.
Since the infrastructure of the telephone is the same one used for the internet (telephony) was only a matter of time that fingers could do more just walking.
Now fingers are becoming full-fledged activists on a scale and with an impact that the activists of a generation ago could only dream or theorize about.
Recently, I have become an active participant in petition signing campaigns of Avaaz.org. Avaaz is the word for 'voice' or 'song' in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Turkish, Nepalese and others.
Avaaz.org was developed and established by a group of social entrepeneurs, identified formally with Res Publica, a global civic advocacy groupo, and MoveOn.org., who have worked at the intersection of global justice issues and new online organizing techniques.
As the introduction on their site says, '. . . Avaaz is a community of global citizens who take action on the major issues facing the world today. Our aim is to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people -- and not just political elites and unaccountable corporations -- shape global decisions. Avaaz.org members are taking action for a more just and peaceful world and a vision of globalization with a human face.'
'In our inter-connected world, the actions of political leaders and corporations are having a profound impact on all of us. To match the power and reach of global leaders and borderless corporations, Avaaz.org members are building a powerful movement of citizens without borders. As citizens without borders, we might not have the resources of governments, corporations or the media, but working together we can bring together millions of people around the world and make global public opinion really count on major global issues like poverty, climate change, human rights and global security'.
'Using the latest technology, Avaaz.org empowers ordinary people from every corner of the globe to directly contact key global decision-makers, corporations and the media. By signing up to receive updates from Avaaz.org, members receive emails and text messages alerting them to new campaigns and opportunities to act online and offline, and to make a real difference on pressing global issues.'
The most recent and still continuing campaign of Avaaz.org is petitioning to support the democracy movement in Myanmar (Burma) and to remind China, the staunchest supporter of the military dictatorship in there, that it is China's responsibility to urge the Myanmar government not to resort to repression and violence like they did with the massacre in 1998.
As with the other campaigns (on global warming/climate change, Darfur, Palestine and others) the target is to gather a million signatures and to present these signatures, or, actually, signatories, to those concerned or those who can bring about positive change or action. In this case, the UN ambassador of China.
In an example of how with intenet technologies one is able to view how a particular petition signing camping is progressing, there is, on the campaign page, a kind of signature-o-meter.
When I opened this page and added my name into the petitioners list the number of petitioners stood at 720,835. By the time I was finished and invited a few other friends to also add their names into the petition, the count had jumped to 720,917!
I don't see it yet, but I wouldn't be surprised that they would feature another way by which those signatories can be confirmed. This is with use of cluster maps where in a global map one is able to see where these numbers are coming from. Again in real-time. Meaning you can watch the numbers grow or emerge.
But, Avaaz.org also organizes offline action. And they encourage others to do so, and to post online a documentation of such action again to be shown globally, if possible, in real time.
Here is where old-style activism and cyberactivism meet. Hopefully, today, at UP we shall have the opportunity to do both. At noon, near the gate, we will again hold a Burma (Myanmar) Solidarity Performance Art Event. Join us!
A long time ago, the Philippine Long Distance Telephone Company (PLDT) had this really creative slogan: Let your fingers do the walking. No, let me correct myself. This wasn't PLDT's slogan but that of the Yellow Pages (GTE Directories Corporation) or what became, in 1989, the Directories Philippines Corporation. In fact, the logo for this company that works with PLDT to produce PLDT's phone directory is that of fingers walking over an open page.
What it meant or promoted was that with the telephone one no longer had to walk over to some business to conduct business. One could simply let one's fingers do the walking. First, finding the number on the phone book, second dialing the number, then, voila, business can be conducted.
With today's touch tone phones, fingers do even less walking than with the rotary dialing phones of that time when that slogan came out.
Since the infrastructure of the telephone is the same one used for the internet (telephony) was only a matter of time that fingers could do more just walking.
Now fingers are becoming full-fledged activists on a scale and with an impact that the activists of a generation ago could only dream or theorize about.
Recently, I have become an active participant in petition signing campaigns of Avaaz.org. Avaaz is the word for 'voice' or 'song' in several languages including Hindi, Urdu, Farsi, Turkish, Nepalese and others.
Avaaz.org was developed and established by a group of social entrepeneurs, identified formally with Res Publica, a global civic advocacy groupo, and MoveOn.org., who have worked at the intersection of global justice issues and new online organizing techniques.
As the introduction on their site says, '. . . Avaaz is a community of global citizens who take action on the major issues facing the world today. Our aim is to ensure that the views and values of the world’s people -- and not just political elites and unaccountable corporations -- shape global decisions. Avaaz.org members are taking action for a more just and peaceful world and a vision of globalization with a human face.'
'In our inter-connected world, the actions of political leaders and corporations are having a profound impact on all of us. To match the power and reach of global leaders and borderless corporations, Avaaz.org members are building a powerful movement of citizens without borders. As citizens without borders, we might not have the resources of governments, corporations or the media, but working together we can bring together millions of people around the world and make global public opinion really count on major global issues like poverty, climate change, human rights and global security'.
'Using the latest technology, Avaaz.org empowers ordinary people from every corner of the globe to directly contact key global decision-makers, corporations and the media. By signing up to receive updates from Avaaz.org, members receive emails and text messages alerting them to new campaigns and opportunities to act online and offline, and to make a real difference on pressing global issues.'
The most recent and still continuing campaign of Avaaz.org is petitioning to support the democracy movement in Myanmar (Burma) and to remind China, the staunchest supporter of the military dictatorship in there, that it is China's responsibility to urge the Myanmar government not to resort to repression and violence like they did with the massacre in 1998.
As with the other campaigns (on global warming/climate change, Darfur, Palestine and others) the target is to gather a million signatures and to present these signatures, or, actually, signatories, to those concerned or those who can bring about positive change or action. In this case, the UN ambassador of China.
In an example of how with intenet technologies one is able to view how a particular petition signing camping is progressing, there is, on the campaign page, a kind of signature-o-meter.
When I opened this page and added my name into the petitioners list the number of petitioners stood at 720,835. By the time I was finished and invited a few other friends to also add their names into the petition, the count had jumped to 720,917!
I don't see it yet, but I wouldn't be surprised that they would feature another way by which those signatories can be confirmed. This is with use of cluster maps where in a global map one is able to see where these numbers are coming from. Again in real-time. Meaning you can watch the numbers grow or emerge.
But, Avaaz.org also organizes offline action. And they encourage others to do so, and to post online a documentation of such action again to be shown globally, if possible, in real time.
Here is where old-style activism and cyberactivism meet. Hopefully, today, at UP we shall have the opportunity to do both. At noon, near the gate, we will again hold a Burma (Myanmar) Solidarity Performance Art Event. Join us!
Monday, October 08, 2007
10.08.07 art exhibit review
Now serving
In historical time, a hundred years is a good enough measure of longevity. A third of that, or roughly 33 years, is or should also be a good indicator of maturity.
Next year the University of the Philippines System – starting as the American University in the Philippines in 1908 and becoming the UPS in 1972 -- will have made that measure and the Fine Arts program of UP Visayas, College Cebu will also have reached maturity.
But, while one really has to wait till next year for UP's centennial, one does not have to do any such waiting to view the UP Cebu Fine Arts program's proof of maturity.
Now, and up till October 18, at the SM Cebu Art Center, is incontrovertible proof of this program's maturation that only a certified contrarian will dispute.
'Haon : Memories From The Basement,' is an alumni exhibit of this program. Though not completely represented, as most batches are without representation, the exhibit is nonetheless representative of the development of the fine program that Dean of UP Cebu, Dr. Enrique Avila, has declared, quite visibly proud and without a hint of bias, to be the center of excellence in the arts.
While rather sparse, with just 26 works, and considering that a total of 28 batches would have graduated since its start in 1975, they are, just the same, able to span the breadth of the visual art practice in Cebu. Though with decidedly contemporary leanings, including one work ('Helian Thrope,' Eloise Daniot) that, strictly speaking, heralds the upcoming works of the industrial design majors who will yet have their first graduates in 2009, while she herself is a studio arts (painting) major.
As if to emphasize this contemporary tilt, only two works ('Ulo,' Dondon Bayawak and 'Mother and Child,' Mar Vidal) are of the realist-representational genre. And both are drawings. The former, pen and ink and the latter, pastel.
Two other works ('Inahanong Panglantaw,' Celso Pepito and 'The Church in Lazi, Siquijor,' Dennis 'Sio' Montera) straddles the ground between realism and cubism, in the former, and realism and colorfield texturism, in the latter.
Both can be seen as attempts (completely unwitting) to mitigate the obvious disparity of presence between the conservative and the contemporary genres as practiced in Cebu in this exhibit.
It is surprising then that the realist-classical representationalism -- landscape painting in particular -- is under represented in this exhibit considering that this genre continues to hold dominant sway among the general public and even among the art consuming minority and, more to the point, a genre most of the exhibiting artists would be technically proficient at.
On the other hand, towards the contemporary end of the visual art practice, digital art is well represented. It is worth mentioning that digital works are produced in this exhibit are almost exclusively by graduates of batch '96. Immediate mention should also be made of the fact that these digital artists work as graphic designers and two, Jethro Estimo ('Foreplay') and Phillip Muaña ('Naa Tanan Sa Basement'), are award winners in recent national digital works competitions.
Yet, the most popular work in the exhibit is a piece in a field of study or specialization and practice that is the natural adjunct to painting in a Fine Arts curriculum but is not yet offered at UP Cebu, which is sculpture.
'Innate,' is a paper mache, three dimensional work of Pierre 'Pikoy' Famador II. This piece, a slightly larger than full size torso that juts out of the wall and meticulously painted in the manner of tatoo art and body painting.
This work is reminiscent of the higantes which are a regular feature of the annual Sinulog festival and whose production is a competition in which Famador has distinguished himself by being a hall of fame awardee, a testimony and, ironically, a deterrence to his singlehanded domination of this component event.
Errol 'Budoy' Marabiles, better known as the front man for the popular Jr Kilat band also has an interesting wall mounted sculpture that extends his renown as an artist of challenging and controversial works.
His piece ('Your Savior') in this exhibit recalls, by affinity, his installation piece in the same venue some years back involving a live rooster whose over enthusiastic crowing earned the collective ire of the neighboring mall tenants leading to its recall.
To round off this review is the performance art pieces that opened the exhibit by Russ Ligtas ('Birth'), Raymund Fernandez ('Blowing in the Wind') and Roy Lu ('Demokrasilya'). They are associated with the performance art group XO?
Roy Lu's piece, in particular, highlighted the formal possibilities and aesthetic flexibility of performance art. As part of the performance, some elements of the piece were installed or transformed into a static sculpture.
Expectedly, among the guests during the opening were current students of the fine arts program, somewhat awed by the works of their elders, yet raring to step across the graduation line or, at least, tuck in so many school years, to earn a spot in the menu of the next serving. Hopefully, well before the next hundred years of UPS is reached.
In historical time, a hundred years is a good enough measure of longevity. A third of that, or roughly 33 years, is or should also be a good indicator of maturity.
Next year the University of the Philippines System – starting as the American University in the Philippines in 1908 and becoming the UPS in 1972 -- will have made that measure and the Fine Arts program of UP Visayas, College Cebu will also have reached maturity.
But, while one really has to wait till next year for UP's centennial, one does not have to do any such waiting to view the UP Cebu Fine Arts program's proof of maturity.
Now, and up till October 18, at the SM Cebu Art Center, is incontrovertible proof of this program's maturation that only a certified contrarian will dispute.
'Haon : Memories From The Basement,' is an alumni exhibit of this program. Though not completely represented, as most batches are without representation, the exhibit is nonetheless representative of the development of the fine program that Dean of UP Cebu, Dr. Enrique Avila, has declared, quite visibly proud and without a hint of bias, to be the center of excellence in the arts.
While rather sparse, with just 26 works, and considering that a total of 28 batches would have graduated since its start in 1975, they are, just the same, able to span the breadth of the visual art practice in Cebu. Though with decidedly contemporary leanings, including one work ('Helian Thrope,' Eloise Daniot) that, strictly speaking, heralds the upcoming works of the industrial design majors who will yet have their first graduates in 2009, while she herself is a studio arts (painting) major.
As if to emphasize this contemporary tilt, only two works ('Ulo,' Dondon Bayawak and 'Mother and Child,' Mar Vidal) are of the realist-representational genre. And both are drawings. The former, pen and ink and the latter, pastel.
Two other works ('Inahanong Panglantaw,' Celso Pepito and 'The Church in Lazi, Siquijor,' Dennis 'Sio' Montera) straddles the ground between realism and cubism, in the former, and realism and colorfield texturism, in the latter.
Both can be seen as attempts (completely unwitting) to mitigate the obvious disparity of presence between the conservative and the contemporary genres as practiced in Cebu in this exhibit.
It is surprising then that the realist-classical representationalism -- landscape painting in particular -- is under represented in this exhibit considering that this genre continues to hold dominant sway among the general public and even among the art consuming minority and, more to the point, a genre most of the exhibiting artists would be technically proficient at.
On the other hand, towards the contemporary end of the visual art practice, digital art is well represented. It is worth mentioning that digital works are produced in this exhibit are almost exclusively by graduates of batch '96. Immediate mention should also be made of the fact that these digital artists work as graphic designers and two, Jethro Estimo ('Foreplay') and Phillip Muaña ('Naa Tanan Sa Basement'), are award winners in recent national digital works competitions.
Yet, the most popular work in the exhibit is a piece in a field of study or specialization and practice that is the natural adjunct to painting in a Fine Arts curriculum but is not yet offered at UP Cebu, which is sculpture.
'Innate,' is a paper mache, three dimensional work of Pierre 'Pikoy' Famador II. This piece, a slightly larger than full size torso that juts out of the wall and meticulously painted in the manner of tatoo art and body painting.
This work is reminiscent of the higantes which are a regular feature of the annual Sinulog festival and whose production is a competition in which Famador has distinguished himself by being a hall of fame awardee, a testimony and, ironically, a deterrence to his singlehanded domination of this component event.
Errol 'Budoy' Marabiles, better known as the front man for the popular Jr Kilat band also has an interesting wall mounted sculpture that extends his renown as an artist of challenging and controversial works.
His piece ('Your Savior') in this exhibit recalls, by affinity, his installation piece in the same venue some years back involving a live rooster whose over enthusiastic crowing earned the collective ire of the neighboring mall tenants leading to its recall.
To round off this review is the performance art pieces that opened the exhibit by Russ Ligtas ('Birth'), Raymund Fernandez ('Blowing in the Wind') and Roy Lu ('Demokrasilya'). They are associated with the performance art group XO?
Roy Lu's piece, in particular, highlighted the formal possibilities and aesthetic flexibility of performance art. As part of the performance, some elements of the piece were installed or transformed into a static sculpture.
Expectedly, among the guests during the opening were current students of the fine arts program, somewhat awed by the works of their elders, yet raring to step across the graduation line or, at least, tuck in so many school years, to earn a spot in the menu of the next serving. Hopefully, well before the next hundred years of UPS is reached.
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
10.04.07 kulturnatib
Legs
The definition of a chair always includes the fact that it has legs. These hold up the chair making it possible for it to support any weight often heavier than itself. Just how heavy is easily imagined by how heavy one is. Together with the weight of the chair itself, one can imagine the stress the chair is subjected to even without the additional weight of an occupant. This image is difficult to grasp until one is somehow made to feel some of that weight.
These were my ruminations some two weeks back when we did a 'guerilla' performance at UP. We did this commemorative performance on the occasion of the declaration of martial law, which, as an aside, there were more of such activities this year than any year previous that I can remember.
My performance piece titled, ' Democrasilya,' involved having a white monoblock chair taped to my left leg that was substituting for the chair's missing leg that had been broken off. I saw this disabled chair leaning forlornly at one of the classrooms where fine arts students had gathered for a workshop of performance art that I had been invited to. This was the creative spark that led to the development of the piece.
While waiting for my cue to start, I saw Kenneth Cobonpue, a leading local and internationally recognized furniture designer, waiting to witness the performance. He had just come from a class in industrial design he is teaching at UP. Looking at me with a look that asked, “and what in the world are you doing with that chair taped to your leg?”, I remarked, “I now finally know how a chair's legs feel.” “It's surprisingly heavier holding up a chair with one's leg than holding it aloft by hand, even by one hand,” I continued, as he ambled into the canteen where Raymund Fernandez, chairman of the UP Humanities Department and fellow performance art artist, was holding court.
Not only was my leg standing in for the chair's missing leg, it had to do something no chair's legs does or is ever made to do. My chair-leg had to walk, dragging the chair along. And it wasn't just to be any sloppy, haphazard, whatever walk. It was to be a brisk, stern, ramrod straight military walk. A march.
To emphasize the point further, on that foot I was a wearing full leather military combat boot. By design, such boots are not meant to be comfortable. They are meant to help drive fear into the enemy's hearts by saying, “I can suffer more than you can and I can make you suffer many, many times more!”
But, my performance piece was also saying something else. On the back rest of the chair and hanging from the backside as well was an eye chart, normally, one of the diagnostic tools used by optometrists or eye doctors to determine visual acuity or its decline through the measured decrease in sizes of letters that one is asked to read as far, smaller or bigger, as one is able.
Instead of the usual letters, that eye chart formed a sentence whose letters were arranged like that of a typical eye chart's. The sentence reads : A MAN MAY BUILD HIMSELF A THRONE OF BAYONETS BUT HE CANNOT SIT ON IT.
I am doing this performance piece again tomorrow (5 October) during the opening of the UP Centennial Fine Arts Alumni exhibit at SM City Cebu. But, beyond the performance by itself, this will develop into a sculptural piece. The chair, boots and eye chart will be installed on a platform that, together with some red resin liquid that I will pour over the boot until it makes a small bloody pool, will constitute the sculpture by the same title, 'Democrasilya.'
This is what I am attracted to with performance art; the opportunity for an artwork to transform yet into another work. Especially, with this work, it fully carries out the metaphoric and even literal dynamics of its most engaged element; Legs. Seen two ways, in both cautionary or celebratory perspectives, one question: See where they lead to?
The definition of a chair always includes the fact that it has legs. These hold up the chair making it possible for it to support any weight often heavier than itself. Just how heavy is easily imagined by how heavy one is. Together with the weight of the chair itself, one can imagine the stress the chair is subjected to even without the additional weight of an occupant. This image is difficult to grasp until one is somehow made to feel some of that weight.
These were my ruminations some two weeks back when we did a 'guerilla' performance at UP. We did this commemorative performance on the occasion of the declaration of martial law, which, as an aside, there were more of such activities this year than any year previous that I can remember.
My performance piece titled, ' Democrasilya,' involved having a white monoblock chair taped to my left leg that was substituting for the chair's missing leg that had been broken off. I saw this disabled chair leaning forlornly at one of the classrooms where fine arts students had gathered for a workshop of performance art that I had been invited to. This was the creative spark that led to the development of the piece.
While waiting for my cue to start, I saw Kenneth Cobonpue, a leading local and internationally recognized furniture designer, waiting to witness the performance. He had just come from a class in industrial design he is teaching at UP. Looking at me with a look that asked, “and what in the world are you doing with that chair taped to your leg?”, I remarked, “I now finally know how a chair's legs feel.” “It's surprisingly heavier holding up a chair with one's leg than holding it aloft by hand, even by one hand,” I continued, as he ambled into the canteen where Raymund Fernandez, chairman of the UP Humanities Department and fellow performance art artist, was holding court.
Not only was my leg standing in for the chair's missing leg, it had to do something no chair's legs does or is ever made to do. My chair-leg had to walk, dragging the chair along. And it wasn't just to be any sloppy, haphazard, whatever walk. It was to be a brisk, stern, ramrod straight military walk. A march.
To emphasize the point further, on that foot I was a wearing full leather military combat boot. By design, such boots are not meant to be comfortable. They are meant to help drive fear into the enemy's hearts by saying, “I can suffer more than you can and I can make you suffer many, many times more!”
But, my performance piece was also saying something else. On the back rest of the chair and hanging from the backside as well was an eye chart, normally, one of the diagnostic tools used by optometrists or eye doctors to determine visual acuity or its decline through the measured decrease in sizes of letters that one is asked to read as far, smaller or bigger, as one is able.
Instead of the usual letters, that eye chart formed a sentence whose letters were arranged like that of a typical eye chart's. The sentence reads : A MAN MAY BUILD HIMSELF A THRONE OF BAYONETS BUT HE CANNOT SIT ON IT.
I am doing this performance piece again tomorrow (5 October) during the opening of the UP Centennial Fine Arts Alumni exhibit at SM City Cebu. But, beyond the performance by itself, this will develop into a sculptural piece. The chair, boots and eye chart will be installed on a platform that, together with some red resin liquid that I will pour over the boot until it makes a small bloody pool, will constitute the sculpture by the same title, 'Democrasilya.'
This is what I am attracted to with performance art; the opportunity for an artwork to transform yet into another work. Especially, with this work, it fully carries out the metaphoric and even literal dynamics of its most engaged element; Legs. Seen two ways, in both cautionary or celebratory perspectives, one question: See where they lead to?
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