tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-259162962024-02-19T11:30:26.528+08:00cavemanifestoart blog and punk criticismTad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.comBlogger114125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-57023819928430909662019-04-18T11:03:00.004+08:002019-04-18T21:22:39.907+08:00Life in the Adhocscape<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<br />
Shared Resources and
Media Art Production in Manila</div>
<br />
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">L’essentiel est invisible pour les yeux.</i></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;">
<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>—
</i>Antoine de Saint-Exupery</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In a country where institutional support is rudimentary and
scarce and where media art is still unfamiliar and very new, the production of
media art faces more difficulties than marketable artifacts such as paintings
and objects.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For the purposes of this essay we will define ‘media art’ as
works involving film, sound, video, and machines and/or made with cameras;
sound and video recorders; and computers. There is no deliberate ideological
rationale behind this definition, only the brute fact that my own artistic interests
and practices revolve around these things, which have in turn determined the
circles I move in and the artists I meet, know and talk to. However, it should
be noted that the same difficulties surround many minority art genres,
particularly any with a large performance element. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In the Philippines, media art is still a relatively minor
and unfamiliar tradition, whose products currently face microscopic or
nonexistent markets and an absence of friendly exhibition spaces. However, its
practice often requires specialized and sometimes expensive equipment and
specialized knowledge. Such impediments appear to have engendered three major
consequences: </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
1) a media art scene that is primarily centered around
performances and screenings in ad hoc or popup events</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
2) the sharing of knowledge and resources by its
practitioners</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
3) the creation of informal, ad hoc arrangements that
facilitate production</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Interviews and discussions with fellow media artists
clarified three characteristics of the solutions/adaptations that have emerged
in response to the factors of outlined above. The first is:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Almost all
“shared resources”, whether in the form of space, material, service, or
equipment, are owned by a single person who shares the resource out to a
selected number of people. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
As a result, all those who make use of the resource always
have the status of either <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">friend</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">guest,</i> or some nested variation such as<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> friend of a guest of a friend</i> and so
on. There currently are no arrangements of the type that underly the so-called ‘hacker
spaces’ popular in more prosperous countries, which are owned and maintained
communally by a group of peers. In the case of nearly every resource, it is always
owned or administered by a patron -- very often an artist himself--- who possesses
and administers the resource by virtue of a) being richer/more successful, b) belonging
to a prosperous family or c) being attached to a richer person. Thus sculptor
and sound artist Lirio Salvador was the sole signatory of the lease of the
gallery and event space known as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Espasyo
Siningdikato</i>, and did not collect contributions towards its expenses. In
the same vein, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Terminal Garden</i>, a space
which hosted residencies, concerts, performances, and workshops, was the family
residence of its director Tengal Drilon. The gallery/event space/studio known
as <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Green Papaya </i>is owned and financed
solely by the visual artist Norberto “Peewee” Roldan. The furniture fabrication
company <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bespoke</i> occasionally manufactures
objects for artists, but only and solely at the discretion of its director
Jeremy Guiab. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
It is worth relating that Tsinelas Labs attempted to
transplant the communally-run hackerspace structure to Manila. It closed in
less than six months as a result of a lack of subscribers. On the other hand, the
Philrobotics Philippine Electronics and Robotics Enthusiasts Club was founded
in 2010 and is still going strong as a consequence of being able to use a room
rent-free in the offices of E-gizmo, an electronics parts store specializing in
sensors, microcontrollers, and industrial automation components, whose owner is
a founding member of the club.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The second characteristic is:</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Physical
spaces are constantly in flux. </i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Spaces are constantly being started, ended, opened, closed,
initiated and abandoned. As of this writing, the aforementioned Terminal Garden
closed in December of 2015, when the house was turned over to new owners. By
the same token, the painters/sound artists Pow Martinez and Manny Megrino built/are
building home-recording studios in their residences that they plan to open to friends
and collaborators. The art collective WALA (Windang Aesthetics Labor Army,
whose acronym means “Nothing” and whose practice centers on public interventions
with a heavy media art/performance aspect)
effectively spent a four-month residency in 2015 at an abandoned horse stable that the UP Diliman made available for their use. This residency that ended when the
stables’ electrical supply was cut off. Because the art made
at these spaces currently generates next to no income, these spaces are always dependent
on the existence of a disposable surplus. As these surpluses are always in
danger of drying up or being channeled to more profitable ends, (the more so if
they are formally owned collectively, as for instance by the patron’s family) artists’
access to these spaces is often short-lived. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Finally:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -36.0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "symbol"; mso-bidi-font-family: Symbol; mso-fareast-font-family: Symbol;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">·<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Cooperation
and sharing is based less on physical locations, formal membership and communal
ownership than on networks of personal relationships that facilitate arrangements
-- ad hoc, temporary, informal, and improvised -- that determine how surpluses
are deployed, exceptions made, and fees reduced or even eliminated.</i></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Some detail regarding WALA’s practices may go some way in
illuminating this particular notion. It is a difficulty specific to improvised
arrangements that they can appear as trivial or inessential, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">even to those who make and depend on these
arrangements</i>. Certainly my own practice, and that of my band/noise
collective <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Children of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Cathode Ray</i> --riddled as they are with
such jerry-rigged transactions, did not prevent me from initially characterizing
the current landscape as “experiencing a drought in shared spaces” until the
curator Merv Espina suggested to me that in the Philippine context, physical
spaces might be a secondary consideration –one among many resources generated by
social relationships. I understand that shifting the focus from physical spaces
to social arrangements complicates the conversation. However, if art relies
primarily on these arrangements in order to exist and function, then these
arrangements, however archipelagic, multifarious, changeable, tangled and
hard-to-talk-aboutable, -- these arrangements have to be acknowledged as the primary
and essential infrastructure. The discourse must adapt to reality.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
WALA is a loose collective of some eight core members, who
wish not to be named<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>as they consider
the collective to be the primary artistic entity. As has been noted, they focus
primarily on public actions/interventions, though this focus generates a
variety of media and objects, including videos, zines, musical/noise
instruments and sound recordings. In terms of where they operate, they work and
meet primarily at 3 locations:</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>In Green Papaya in Quezon City, where two of the
members –a couple-- live as formally employed assistants of the visual artist
Norberto Roldan. The two members live in the upper floor, which also serves as
their studio.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>In a house in Mandaluyong that functions as the
offices and storage rooms of Avante Garde Greeting Cards, where another of
WALA’s core group <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>—a friend of the
company’s owner—lives. The offices are equipped with a rather gorgeous
copier/scanner/color printer, which WALA is suffered to use.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l1 level1 lfo2; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>In an abandoned horse stable -- still open to
the elements – on the grounds of the University of the Philippines in Quezon
City. The stable was given over to the use of artists as part of the Project
Bakawan Art Festival in February of 2015. WALA used the space as meeting room and
gallery and staged sound/media performances there until electrical power became
unavailable in late May of the same year. It is interesting to note that they effectively shared
the space with JKS -- a fraternity/gang based in a nearby village that had
co-opted the abandoned stables before UP management invited WALA to use the
stables during an art festival -- whose members still maintained a proprietary
view of the premises.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These details illustrate that the group’s practice relies heavily
on resources that they have access to by virtue of personal relationships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This access often becomes another resource
that they in turn share out to their friends, such as to the Cavite-based sound
artist Erick Calilan, who stores sound equipment in the living
quarters of the Green Papaya contingent of WALA.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
These details suggest that in Manila (and possibly in the
Philippines) it might be more appropriate to frame the notion of ‘production
space’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>in terms of a space of
production <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">opportunities</i>, rather than
in terms of physical real estate. In spite of the word “real” of “real estate” pre-loading
the notion of physical space with primary significance, I would argue that a
serious investigation of how art is actually produced cannot presuppose that it
knows what it is looking for, lest it run the danger of discounting something
essential just because it does not accord with one’s prejudices. Sometimes
the essential is invisible to the eye; and I believe that the more abstract and
dynamic notion of socially-generated “opportunity space” must be considered as the primary and
enabling space in which equipment and resources are shared by Manila’s media
artists.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
-END- </div>
<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: left;">
Note: A SLIGHTLY shorter version of this article was previously published in a.m. post, issue 115 </div>
</div>
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</style> Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-43451192139839573812019-03-28T11:31:00.001+08:002019-03-30T07:58:33.310+08:00OSCgroups Tutorial<br />
<div style="-en-clipboard: true;">
</div>
<div style="-en-clipboard: true;">
I wrote this because I couldn't find an OSCgroups for Dummies tutorial.<br />
<br />
OSC stands for Open Sound Control, a communication protocol that functions like MIDI. It's a protocol that allows computers to communicate with one another. It is much more powerful than MIDI, but at the same time it can be a bit clumsy to use, as it operates over computer networks (rather than dedicated hardware, as MIDI does) and so requires that that the the IP address and port number of the receiver be specified in order for an OSC message to be successfully transmitted. As you can imagined, this can easily become be a fiddly and tedious requirement.<br />
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OSCgroups is a data distribution program that simplifies matters by enabling group members to send OSC messages to every other member without knowing or specifying each member's IP address. Group members simply register with a central server, which handles the task of forwarding all OSC messages received to all registered computers. OSCgroups consists of two independent files: a server executable, and a client executable. They are tiny programs that are run from the command line in a Terminal window. This is a very economical form of programming, but not a very intuitive one, which is why beginners can use some tips when getting started. Unfortunately, the files do not come bundled with instructions, which is why something like this tutorial may come in handy to newbies. Interested parties may download the files from here:
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<a href="https://code.google.com/archive/p/oscgroups/downloads">https://code.google.com/archive/p/oscgroups/downloads</a></div>
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and here:
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<a href="http://www.rossbencina.com/code/oscgroups">http://www.rossbencina.com/code/oscgroups</a></div>
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I should mention here that I am not going to go into detail about OSC. OSCgroups is basically a program for people who are already familiar with and use OSC, and who are looking for ways to streamline their communication routines. <br />
<br />
The way this all works is that the OSCgroups client program is run
on each of the participating computers. OSC capable software (such as Pure Data, MAX/MSP, and Resolume, to name only a few) running on such a member computer sends its OSC messages to this client program, which passes the messages to a third computer, a central server. It is this server which ensures that all member computers receive copies of every message it receives. (See graphic below)
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So basically in order to join a group, a computer needs little more than the group name and the group password. It is not clear to me why a member needs a personal password, but OSCgroups requires each member to make one.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgjp-OSnz8A94h_4ALbAP37CAwEfXcQsqa000AEm2y7U4j0GvdXWuLLp54N-5em3UoKkZLAKLUsH1E9wG0NmEBI6fITT9xt0Y2nz-0lNJKPLM3aHl20x7lbAEsLPqbiAmIxltVg/s1600/OSCgroups3.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="596" data-original-width="684" height="278" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiMgjp-OSnz8A94h_4ALbAP37CAwEfXcQsqa000AEm2y7U4j0GvdXWuLLp54N-5em3UoKkZLAKLUsH1E9wG0NmEBI6fITT9xt0Y2nz-0lNJKPLM3aHl20x7lbAEsLPqbiAmIxltVg/s320/OSCgroups3.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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ALL PARTICIPATING COMPUTERS:
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1) Put the two files OscGroupServer and OscGroupClient in a convenient folder (e.g. on the Desktop, in Documents, etc.) A convenient folder is one that can be reached without too many cd operations from the Terminal.
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2) Log all computers onto a common network. This network can be a LAN or a wifi network. The network needn’t be connected to the Internet. On the other hand, the network can be the internet itself. People have used OSCgroups to perform and collaborate while physically being in different countries.</div>
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<div>
<span style="background-color: #fffaa5; font-weight: bold;">SERVER:</span></div>
<div>
One can use dedicated OSCgroups servers on the internet (see below), but I favor running my own server over a small, private network isolated from the internet.<br />
<br />
Paranoia says it would be best to run the server on a separate and dedicated computer, but it IS possible (and, my friend and resource person Chris B assures me, "normal") to run it together with a client on a single computer.
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Computers communicate with each other through things called ports. Ports are essentially numbered data addresses in the computer where data is exchanged. When doubleclicked, the OscGroupsServer program grabs port number 22242 for its use. This is good enough for me, but if you want to use a different port, you can specify it (along with other items) by running the program from a Terminal window. Type ./OscGroupServer -h to learn about the other items/specifications.</div>
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NOTE: When clients log onto the server, it is possible that the server computer will have to manually be told to accept the connections.
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<span style="background-color: #fffaa5; font-weight: bold;">CLIENT:</span></div>
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The Client program is the file named OscGroupsClient. To run it, you will have to know the IP address of the server. On a Mac, this is done by clicking on the Wifi icon and then clicking Open Network Preferences on the menu. On Windows, it's easiest to type<br />
<br />
ipconfig /all<br />
<br />
in a Terminal Window. Terminal is a programming window usually found in the Accessories folder of the Start Menu.<br />
<br />
NOTE: the IP address 127.0.0.1 is a special address that basically means "this computer". The word "localhost" means the same thing and can sometimes be used in place of "127.0.0.1" Both terms are used when passing OSC messages within a single computer. <br />
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OscGroupClient cannot be run by being double-clicked, as it requires several arguments to be specified in order to run properly.
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OscGroupClient must be run, and the arguments specified, from a terminal window.
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<div>
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<div>
<span style="background-color: #fffaa5; font-weight: bold;">Mac:</span> Open a Terminal window, cd to the folder where the OscGroupClient file is located. run the OscGroupClient file by typing
</div>
<div>
a command like the following:
</div>
<div>
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<div>
<span style="background-color: #fffaa5;">./</span><span style="background-color: #fffaa5; font-family: "arial";">oscgroupclient 192.168.1.101 22242 22243 22244 22245 john abcd beatles wxyz</span></div>
<div>
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<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial";">The ./ identifies the sentence as an executable command.</span></div>
<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial";">The arguments following oscgroupclient refer to the following values. </span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">oscgroupclient serveraddress serverport localtoremoteport localtxport localrxport username password groupname grouppassword</span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
If the Mac insists the file is damaged, Go to System Preferences>Security & Privacy>General, and unlock the lock icon in the lower left corner. Give the Mac permission to run files from “Anywhere”, and lock the icon again.
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<span style="background-color: #fffaa5; font-weight: bold;">Windows:</span> Open a Terminal window, cd to the folder where the files are located. Run the OscGroupClient file by typing a command like the following:
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<span style="background-color: #fffaa5; font-family: "arial";">oscgroupclient 192.168.1.101 22242 22243 22244 22245 john abcd beatles wxyz</span></div>
<div>
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<div>
<span style="font-family: "arial";">The arguments following “oscgroupclient" refer to the following items: </span></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
<span style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px; color: black; font-family: "arial"; font-size: small; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; word-spacing: 0px;">oscgroupclient serveraddress serverport localtoremoteport localtxport localrxport username password groupname grouppassword</span></div>
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<div>
When clients log onto servers, it is possible that the server computer will have to manually be told to accept the connections.
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<div>
<br /></div>
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You can test that the client file is working by logging onto a server on the internet, e.g. <a href="http://oscgroups.kiben.net/">oscgroups.kiben.net</a> or <a href="http://oscgroups.iua.upf.edu/">oscgroups.iua.upf.edu</a>
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<div>
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Sample command:<span style="background-color: #fffaa5; border-spacing: 2px;"> </span><br />
<span style="background-color: #fffaa5; border-spacing: 2px;">oscgroupclient oscgroups.kiben.net 22242 22243 22244 22245 </span><span style="background-color: #fffaa5; border-spacing: 2px; font-family: "arial";">john abcd beatles wxyz</span>
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<div>
PURE DATA, PROCESSING, RESOLUME, ETC
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<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Configure the software to route messages to and from the local txport and local rxport allocated to the client.
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See below for an example in puredata.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLlCInGIU9mpY-D8sq6b8xyrV7YO3OP4hTC683vxdfsq51Tf8M515PJYEzIza9TqK1ilmuXuxoe-4RCgB0_DghpRhKk31gwUH_5wtkpQZ3B7i9a5VJGkk2Rh3diHFPABKOJiovpQ/s1600/OSCgroups+PD.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="397" data-original-width="862" height="292" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjLlCInGIU9mpY-D8sq6b8xyrV7YO3OP4hTC683vxdfsq51Tf8M515PJYEzIza9TqK1ilmuXuxoe-4RCgB0_DghpRhKk31gwUH_5wtkpQZ3B7i9a5VJGkk2Rh3diHFPABKOJiovpQ/s640/OSCgroups+PD.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">click to see full image</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
<div>
The Ross Benscina README is here: <a href="https://github.com/RossBencina/oscgroups/blob/master/README">https://github.com/RossBencina/oscgroups/blob/master/README</a>)
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<table>
<colgroup><col></col></colgroup><tbody>
<tr><td><div>
If multiple users are behind the same NAT and you experience difficulties. you
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</td>
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<tr><td><div>
might like to try all using a different value for localtoremoteport
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</td>
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<tr><td><div>
for each user, although this shouldn't usually be necessary.
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</td>
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<tr><td><div>
<br /></div>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody></table>
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<br /></div>
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<br /></div>
Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-75193679999738386602016-09-27T12:38:00.003+08:002016-09-27T15:57:26.463+08:002016 Venice Architectural Biennale<style>
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Notes on GILLAGE/PANDACAN </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ovEtz3YLukBZRxLyqwtFkRxrWOH_KVnYOvaTlyFvfjJuNRTpkHwJp_kQFwnLjrn_FTniQN_emDV8WtKjsQOe9ScKzsfwTUJ_EgpWw8vYs_DspLRPljhpuMNKvQr4AXOC8h9Mkw/s1600/Tad+Alcazaren.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1ovEtz3YLukBZRxLyqwtFkRxrWOH_KVnYOvaTlyFvfjJuNRTpkHwJp_kQFwnLjrn_FTniQN_emDV8WtKjsQOe9ScKzsfwTUJ_EgpWw8vYs_DspLRPljhpuMNKvQr4AXOC8h9Mkw/s320/Tad+Alcazaren.jpg" width="206" /></a>This is a post about the work I contributed to "Muhon: Traces of an Adolescent City", the exhibition (curated by Andy Locsin, Sudarshan Khadka and Juan Paolo de la Cruz of LVLP ) that was the Philippine Pavilion in the 2016 Venice Architectural Biennale. The work is a tripartite video sculpture I titled "Gillage", a meditation of socio-architectural issues examplified by the informal structures built on and around the Pandacan bridge. The exhibition consisted of 3 rooms of objects representing conjectures and meditations on the history, current state, and possible fate of various iconic pieces of Manila's architecture, which rapid development has been flattening like pancakes. </div>
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<br /></div>
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“Gillage” is a portmanteau word composed of “gilid” (which
means “border” or “edge” in Tagalog) and “village”. The word “village” in this
case refers to the exclusive, gated communities that dot Manila. Gillages are
the informal settlements that inevitably surround the gated communities. The
architect and historian Paolo Alcazaren points out that gillages arise in the
peripheries of gated villages, because the villages require an army of laborers
that need to be housed. Since low-cost housing and efficient public
transportation is unavailable, all workers who are not live-in domestics have
to make their home in informal settlements near -- sometimes literally just
outside the walls of – these gated communities. This state of affairs means
that the gated villages effectively sustain, and possibly even generate the
informal settlements that are conceived as their opposites. It is a particularly ironic detail of this arrangement that many of the security guards that these villages rely on to maintain their borders make their homes in precisely those settlements
that their employers regard as the dwelling-places of criminals and
undesirables. </div>
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<br /></div>
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It was a small step to realize that iconic buildings, which
house businesses with their own labor requirements, participated in the same
paradox. It was clear to me then that an exhibit that focused on iconic
architecture ought to have its own gillage somewhere.</div>
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This realization merged with a long-simmering curiosity
about the so-called “trolleys” that ply the tracks of the Philippine National
Railway, which I had often seen crossing the Pasig river in the Pandacan area.
“Trolleys” here refer to the makeshift, foot-propelled vehicles that, like
jeepneys, have arisen in response to the shortage of<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>public transportation. The trolleys are<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>made of wood and bamboo, light enough to be
carried by a single man, and strategically padded to facilitate this operation.
They are equipped with umbrellas and a braking system, and they ferry passengers
on the rails for a fee. Students of the nearby Polytechnic University of the
Philippines avail of them to cross the Pasig for the princely sum of ten pesos
(U$ 0.21) . Some of the students are children of the trolleymen, and help out
with the family business when their schedules allow. </div>
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<br /></div>
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As an act of architectural hacking, the trolley is in the
same class as the informal house. However, unlike houses, the stringent weight
requirements of the trolley trade eliminates all extraneous details except
those that directly address the needs of the enterprise. As every gram of the
trolley’s weight is a gram that must be pushed and carried by the operator, the
trolley has evolved into a distillate of successful, low-cost engineering
choices in a strong, light, and stable frame. While ingenuity and improvisation
are also called upon to make any sort of house from scratch, the trolley’s
minimalist construction make these powers easily visible. Representing informal
dwellings with structures made of trolley parts seemed a way to make visible
the ingenuity and resilience that informal dwellers call on every day to make
headway under the difficult circumstances of life outside the edges of property
law and government interest. Finally, I want to say I find the trolleys
beautiful in and of themselves. Their spindly, skeletal appearance reminds me
of the way planes looked in the early days of powered flight, and the image of
trolleys flying above the river is a moment of air and light in existences
generally conducted in cramped spaces and dark interiors.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In Pandacan, a man called Tongkie builds all the trolleys
for the area. My team and I tracked him down and commissioned him to build
three of them for us. After we agreed on the terms, we asked if he might find
three friends who might be willing to trade their old, patinated trolleys for
our new ones. This Alladinesque proposal (“<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New
lamps for old!”)</i><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>was initially met
with some puzzlement, but three takers were eventually found.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
For my contribution to Muhon, my team consequently took three well-used trolleys to the garage
of a friend’s house and proceeded to break them down into their component
parts. The parts were combined to make the stands for three video sculptures
whose silhouettes fit into the dimensions dictated by the curatorial brief, and
which allude to the shapes of office buildings and skyscrapers.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpFirst" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">1)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The sculpture my team and I referred to as
“History” was a structure of robustly joined trolley parts above which were raised
two 32” video screens in portrait orientation that displayed video of a)
Sketchup images of the Pandacan Bridge rendered in a style that alluded to
paper blueprints and b) footage of trolleys and informal structures built on
and around the bridge. The sculpture was intended to contrast the
quasi-Platonic architectural vision of the structure with the messy augmentations
produced by its collision with the sociopolitical realities of Manila.</div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpMiddle">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraphCxSpLast" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">2)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The sculpture we called “Modernity” is much
bigger, alluding to the progressive expansion and accumulation of architectural
hacks on formal structures. Four video screens feature looping videos of
details of informal houses and trolley construction and use. Close inspection
is rewarded with a view of jerry-rigged media players based on the Raspberry Pi
microcomputer, encased in a way intended to reflect the improvised and recycled
nature of informal settlements. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoListParagraph" style="mso-list: l0 level1 lfo1; text-indent: -18.0pt;">
<span style="mso-bidi-font-family: Cambria; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="mso-list: Ignore;">3)<span style="font: 7.0pt "Times New Roman";">
</span></span></span>The sculpture we nicknamed “Futurity”
recapitulates the form of “History”, except that the video screens are
suspended above a loose and amorphous pile of trolley fragments. This sculpture
hosts video of a) An animated Sketchup perspective for an informal dwelling and
b) video footage of the demolition of an informal dwelling by its inhabitants,
who as a rule accede to demolition orders so as to maintain possession of their
building materials. This final sculpture focuses on the cycle that informal
settlements are embedded in, and the fate they meet when market forces raise
the value of the land they occupy to the point that the profits that ensue from
demolition outweigh the political benefits of inaction.</div>
Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-29674742115472924702015-02-04T06:51:00.001+08:002015-02-04T06:52:33.750+08:00Uwang (Formerly called "Eye of The Storm")<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHxs6dvRqtJ5pD-SsmU-ndozSyJO_drRHQQetnKj81nPBTrc87590Ga0LCCy1LrJmo8K5LzboCapZfgCweJ1WuNJ7SS1AprOx8K-YhQkXCWaSDgZjr1uo8axZcipLCEWnI7tXDJA/s1600/kuok+in+a+bag.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHxs6dvRqtJ5pD-SsmU-ndozSyJO_drRHQQetnKj81nPBTrc87590Ga0LCCy1LrJmo8K5LzboCapZfgCweJ1WuNJ7SS1AprOx8K-YhQkXCWaSDgZjr1uo8axZcipLCEWnI7tXDJA/s1600/kuok+in+a+bag.jpg" height="239" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
"Uwang" is an interactive media installation. It is a new work created for Art Fair Philippines 2015. Formerly called "Eye of the Storm", "Uwang," which means "Coconut Weevil" in the dialect of Luisiana Laguna, consists of two parts. One part is made of real matter, while the other part is a computer program.<br />
<br />
The 'real matter' part is a log harvested from a kaong tree, . Uwang lay their eggs in the ubod, or pith, of toppled kaong trees. The eggs become larvae, which are called "kuok". The log on display is filled with live kuok, who feed on the pith, and occasionally exit into the basin on the left. The headsets above the log play a recording made of kuok harvested from the log. Funnels filled with water hydrate the log in order to keep the kuok alive. <br />
<br />
The computer program part is an interactive audiovisual instrument. The viewer interacts by putting headphgones and scribbling lines on a graphics tablet with an electronic pencil. The lines form virtual kuok, which crawl across the screen, creating sounds as they repeat the viewer's scribbled line. A maximum of 4 virtual kuok can be drawn, creating evolving sounds and graphics that translate and reflect the life and situation of the real kuok inside the log.<br />
<br />
The piece was created with the idea of enabling the viewer to jam with the kuok with a digital instrument I coded. The code builds on the work of Golan Levin, a pioneer in the field of software art. In the town of Luisiana in Laguna province, both ubod and the kuok that feast on it, are considered delicacies. Humans plant and harvest kaong. Uwang lay eggs in the kaong, which become new uwang, and another food for the humans. The tree, the insect, its larvae, and humans are tangled in a cyclic web of eating and reproduction. "Uwang" reflects and celebrated this tangle with both real and digital materials.<br />
<br />
On February 8, at the close of the Art Fair, Uwang will be dismantled by harvesting and cooking the kuok in The Link. Viewers are invited to come. The harvest takes place at 4 PM, at the roof deck. <br />
<br />
<br />Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-10460302700690131782014-06-19T14:16:00.003+08:002014-06-19T14:32:15.286+08:00BELLBell is an interactive installation named after Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the audio speaker. It imagines an alternative future where speakers are not transparent conduits of sonic information, but architectural artifacts that generate specific experiences.<br />
<br />
In its first iteration as Bell 1.0, the "clapper" --an electromagnet pressed to the cylinder by a metal armature-- vibrates the cylinder at the frequency if household current. This frequency is 60 Hertz in the Philippines and 50 Hz in countries like Singapore, whose electrical protocols were formed under English rule. This causes the cylinder to hum. However, because the cylinder is an imperfect physical artifact, other frequencies arise in it, filling the hum with other sounds and frequencies.<br />
<br />
In addition, the cylinder sways and wobbles when touched. This motion affects the sound experienced inside the cylinder, which wobbles in response to such motions.<br />
<br />
<i>(This text/post/entry is part of an experiment in using QR codes to tag art objects with metadata) </i>Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-77878993816693133392012-04-30T11:29:00.003+08:002012-04-30T12:10:26.792+08:00Notes on TranslectionSo: in my previous post, I coined the word "translection" to describe what I thought might be a computer-native form of musical variation, which I had previously been referring to as "tag-shifting". I like "translection" better because it contains a word fragment ("lect") that comes from <i>legere</i>, the Latin verb for "reading", which is the crucial operation here. The tags are not changed (as the word "tag-shifting" seems to imply). In translection, <i>the way the tags are read</i> is changed.<br />
<br />
I might as well try to make a short definition for translection here. Literally, it means <i>to change the way a signifier is mapped to an operation. </i>Put mathematically, this is equivalent to changing the transfer function. To changing the algorithm by which one set of symbols is mapped to another set of symbols (or, in the case of a computer, to a set of operations). It's a case of remapping that specifically refers to remapping the data of time-based media. Translection differs from Translation and Interpretation in that it involves using clear and defined algorithms to change the meaning. Translation and Interpretation invoke much fuzzier forms of remapping. They invoke an art reliant on using judgement, rules of thumb, code-shifting between various mapping systems. Translection refers a more literal, more transparent form of remapping.<br />
<br />
So why take such care in defining the word? I'm thinking it is already a way of talking about a specific kind of variation, and could be specifically useful in talking about/thinking of glitches as a source of musical (and possibly extramusical?) variation.<br />
<br />
It occurs to me that playing a traditional score in a different key is an instance of translection.<br />
<br />
I also realize that my sequencer's translective variations were the consequence of a feature of MIDI data structure, specifically of its feature of defining the note's duration with velocity (a note-on command consists of the note-number accompanied with a nonzero note-velocity, whereas a note-off command consists of the note-number accompanied by zero note-velocity). While traditional Western musical notation treated note duration as an atomic unity, MIDI grammar split note duration into note-on and note-off, i.e. two grammatical units. Doubling the number of signifiers that defined duration opened the possibility of performing operations on the two signifiers which not only were previously impossible but literally <i>unthinkable</i> in terms of traditional notation,.Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-59978287288498914312012-04-27T18:11:00.002+08:002012-04-30T10:41:09.123+08:00Translection: a computer-native form of musical variationMy collaborator Malek Lopez and I were playing around with some MIDI sequencer code. Based on
his desire to have a rhythm generator, I kludged a 16-step sequencer that would spit out a sequence of 16 commands. For the sake of simplicity, let's say the sequencer did this by randomly choosing a number between 0 and 2 sixteen times, and putting its choices into a list.<br />
<br />
So for instance, it might spit out: 0112 1020 2201 2021 <br />
<br />
The number sequence was then read as a sequence of tags/commands according to the following system:<br />
<br />
0= start a note; 1 = end a note; and 2 = do
nothing.<br />
<br />
Now, if we assume that the numbers determine the gating of a single sustained pitch, then the sequencer would output a sound that could be represented as: <br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8PvSxQEs5xLOmJUsSfpB3kuoPNJgaOOeFFa_3WQ9heaAbS_0XI7fx7bddqYK6ZomUo60O3OdzanAve2rK690M3uzTEAdZ_O4_j31ivkGG1qCR443x5otGaSMJj2m9VnWe25F3w/s1600/tag-shift_0.bmp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="72" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhp8PvSxQEs5xLOmJUsSfpB3kuoPNJgaOOeFFa_3WQ9heaAbS_0XI7fx7bddqYK6ZomUo60O3OdzanAve2rK690M3uzTEAdZ_O4_j31ivkGG1qCR443x5otGaSMJj2m9VnWe25F3w/s320/tag-shift_0.bmp" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Where a stretch of blue squares indicated a sustained pitch, and a stretch of white squares indicated silence.<br />
After listening to the sequencer do its thing for a few hours. I realized that changing the way the sequencer interpreted the commands would create musical phrases that would differ from one another, and yet be related by rules of translation.<br />
<br />
The most obvious variation would be produced simply by inverting the interpretation of the start and stop tags, ie<br />
<br />
0 = stop note; 1 = start note; 2 = do nothing.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5EgEc_NvFTf5KgTf69TSKNnQpYWqYk7WXZsN1m0OO5yo9sSAjQDjA62DGk4AXQ-5LG0RrTf1K3MZ8TfsNN81jCHEPYK_5cfFdnJKg_xseV2E4anXGCkyNfs7dtSQU7CC5tykfig/s1600/tag-shift_1.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="51" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5EgEc_NvFTf5KgTf69TSKNnQpYWqYk7WXZsN1m0OO5yo9sSAjQDjA62DGk4AXQ-5LG0RrTf1K3MZ8TfsNN81jCHEPYK_5cfFdnJKg_xseV2E4anXGCkyNfs7dtSQU7CC5tykfig/s320/tag-shift_1.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Well, I said it was the obvious variation. It produces a negative of the previous sound, where previous tones are replaced with silences of equal length, and previous silences are replaced with tone.<br />
<br />
However, if we use a different system of tag interpretation, say<br />
<br />
0 = do nothing; 1 = start note; 2 = end note; <br />
<br />
then we get something like this:<br />
<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9tyx-YSx9Hws67wcPmENHdOYeWY0G4vsjii1XG8mavBNdWCi4vUbGUr9mxhh-b-fKz3vWj5ib153FMhH-hsy4Gg3oz0Yg2I1dUdclZ_hJWnZdu7gqSyM3vNqJE_KYzVLyfb9UjQ/s1600/tag-shift_2.PNG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="59" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9tyx-YSx9Hws67wcPmENHdOYeWY0G4vsjii1XG8mavBNdWCi4vUbGUr9mxhh-b-fKz3vWj5ib153FMhH-hsy4Gg3oz0Yg2I1dUdclZ_hJWnZdu7gqSyM3vNqJE_KYzVLyfb9UjQ/s320/tag-shift_2.PNG" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
Which is a sonic product with a different and less obvious relationship.<br />
<br />
I'm currently referring this kind of variation as <b>Translection</b>, as it consists of changing/shifting the way the tags are read ("lector" = reader, from the Latin verb <i>legere</i>: "to read"). I find the idea of translective variation interesting because this kind of variation is native to music made with computer code. As far as I know, it is not a named, known or acknowledged form of musical variation. Still not sure where it goes from here, but tag-shifting functions will definitely be coded into the coming sequencers we'll be making..Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-27389729417897996202011-09-09T11:26:00.001+08:002011-09-09T11:26:44.238+08:00Art and Evidence<span jsid="text" class="commentBody">An object can become art in the same way it can become evidence. In both cases, the object is placed within a specific context/given a certain role.</span>Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-32509851936617046042011-08-27T14:37:00.003+08:002011-08-27T14:42:05.192+08:00Not-Very-Subliminal Advertisment<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqwP8wF8S4qn8t7-wmtFnnTJgqCtgzWrXs1IlIntNx1n1blyLf-RffARkYtx-vjAR9TneQMUQsDesjGlvAmSLSRmYt_qbMI0vcVPBiCs2Yh4g9yvQ2kdMxBXQIqIMVi2Ta2YGwHA/s1600/Subliminal+gay.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqwP8wF8S4qn8t7-wmtFnnTJgqCtgzWrXs1IlIntNx1n1blyLf-RffARkYtx-vjAR9TneQMUQsDesjGlvAmSLSRmYt_qbMI0vcVPBiCs2Yh4g9yvQ2kdMxBXQIqIMVi2Ta2YGwHA/s400/Subliminal+gay.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5645421634797781330" border="0" /></a>
<br />Should mention that his left hand's pointing downward, in case the photo's too blurred to be clear. Apologies. Hard to drive and shoot at the same time.
<br />Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-15076061128366139812011-08-06T13:29:00.001+08:002011-08-06T13:30:44.099+08:00Postmodernese instructionalhttp://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/how-to-talk-postmodern.htmlTad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-40866566983723758522011-07-25T12:57:00.002+08:002011-07-25T12:58:07.391+08:00Alan Moore on American impunityI do have a feeling, particularly in this last decade, that some of the appeal of superheroes that originated in America — who has done them better, with a few exceptions, than the rest of the world — has become symbolic of American impunity. You have to start wondering how brave somebody who comes from Krypton and is invulnerable to all harm, or someone who has an adamantium skeleton, can actually be. I know ordinary people who put far more than that on the line every day, and don’t expect to be called heroes.So is it heroes that we’re really talking about? Or is it invulnerable bullies from a culture of impunity, which also shows signs of being on the wane? --Alan MooreTad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-77373435640256233462011-06-22T10:20:00.012+08:002011-07-05T16:38:30.050+08:00Note on Keanu ReevesJust watched A Scanner Darkly, the Richard Linklater adaptation of the Philip K Dick novel. This movie is the final word on Keanu Reeves as an actor.<br /><br />In the film, Reeves plays Bob Arctor, an undercover cop who sustains brain damage as a result of the drugs he takes. Unbelievably, Reeves plays the brain-damaged Arctor and the healthy Arctor <span style="font-style: italic;">identically</span>. Reeves literally cannot tell the difference (or at least cannot act the difference) between characters with and without brain damage. If we note the fact that he plays Arctor the same way he plays Neo, John Constantine, Johnny Utah etc etc etc , then the transitive property of equality leads to the conclusion that <span style="font-style: italic;">Reeves plays brain-damaged characters as normal</span> or the logically equivalent<span style="font-style: italic;"> Reeves</span><span style="font-style: italic;"> plays all character as brain-damaged</span><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><br /><br />This sounds like a cheap one-liner, and it is one line long; it might or might not be cheap, but it is literally true.Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-27567880508345584362011-05-25T21:59:00.002+08:002011-05-25T22:00:59.326+08:00Gene Wolfe on SF and the mainstream"Incidentally, I'd argue that SF represents literature's real mainstream. What we now normally consider the mainstream—so called realistic fiction—is a small literary genre, fairly recent in origin, which is likely to be relatively short lived. When I look back at the foundations of literature, I see literary figures who, if they were alive today, would probably be members of the Science Fiction Writers of America. Homer? He would certain belong to the SFWA. So would Dante, Milton, and Shakespeare. <i>That</i> tradition is literature's mainstream, and it has been what has grown out of that tradition which has been labeled SF or whatever label you want to use." --Gene Wolfe--Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-5246206380714887862011-03-16T23:03:00.023+08:002011-03-17T12:58:28.023+08:00Meaning and the Body<span style="font-style: italic;"><br />Below: Another email, (inevitably improved in the act of posting) which caused me to clarify ideas that had been much more diaphanous.</span><br /><br /><br />Hi Lisa!<br /><br />Glad to hear you got so much out of your Japan trip! Yes, nothing like traveling on your own to broaden the mind. Cliche, but again, something that has enormity when experienced yourself, especially when quite young. When (and I didn't mean to lead up to this) experienced in/by/through the body. :-)<br /><br />I'm always intrigued by questions about the point or meaning of an art work, as they are markers, not only about what the questioner believes is are valid points for art to make, but sometimes also about his attitude towards play, and the limits of his imagination. It's a class of question that is there all the time. People who are used to seeing nudes, landscapes and icons ask it when seeing say, cubist portraits, color fields and conceptual art. Ringo dismisses abstract video as eye-candy, social realists don't get the point of art about language. In my case I remember it was a revelation for me the first time I saw Gerry Tan's figurative painting of a bunch of things, (it's in Daisy Langenegger's living room, gotta take you to her place some time) --plates, tape measures, doughnuts, etc and was told by him that it was a painting of "round things." I mean, it was sesame-street obvious as soon as he said it, but it shocked me because I realized that I had been unable to see this because I was looking for some other meaning. I was studying linguistic philosophy at the time and so was very prepared to appreciate art about language and classes when I realized that's what it was (or could be) about, but at the same time had been unaware of the possibility that art could treat of it.<br /><br />It may in fact be the commonest question asked in the face of an art object. Now that I think of it, I realize that most discourses treat the question as a mistake, caused by "a lack of education" or "unfamiliarity with the discourse" or something like that. The question is treated as a local anomaly, and not as a class of inquiry. When I think of the times I've seen this question asked and been asked this question myself (which, as an experimental filmmaker and builder of art machines, I got asked a LOT when I first started in the late 80's) I realize that that when people asked this question, the most difficult encounters were those when it emerged that it was necessary for them to first become convinced that the point I was making was a point worth making/thinking about/ is funny/fun or that the issue I was addressing was in fact an issue. To illuminate this, imagine having to explain the sentence "This image deconstructs gender" to someone who has no idea of what deconstruction is and/or who is unaware of/does not agree with the idea that gender is <i>essentially</i> performative. On the other hand, sometimes the difficulty is the mirror image of the previous case: the questioner must be convinced that not all art has to do or be about what he thinks it should do or be about. Or, in a more extreme case, that what he thinks art should be about is a specific issue that the artist is attacking or abandoning and that there is some justification to this attack/abandonment. That the questioner, as Wittgenstein put it, needs to unask his question.<br /><br />So the answer to that question is a specific and tactical one, depending on what positions the questioner and the artist/work occupy vis-a-vis art, what art can/should talk about..<br /><br />As an example of the mechanic/flow/structure of a tactical negotiation, it is the case that I often run into people from what we call developed countries who think (usually unconsciously) that it is the specific mandate of Southeast Asian art to deal with social issues. They like protest art and feel confused when a Southeast Asian artist deals with technological or abstract issues like virtuality or generativity instead of using tools like sound and video to make social/political comments. However, this type of questioner is usually prepared to accept my answer when I assert that in this work blablabla, I have deliberately decided to abandon political/social issues as I feel that a SEAn has as much right to talk about technology as a European/Japanese artist, blablabla and so on. The answer makes a bridge to a familiar position in their minds. It removes a preconceived notion that had been preventing them from accepting the idea that the artwork was commenting/can comment on virtuality or whatever.<br /><br />Now, Passage is kind of a departure and also a return in that in a way it's a return to non-ironic fictive/narrative film, (even if everted) which has -- for the last half century maybe? -- been positioned as a dominant discourse, to be combated by "real" art. I have the feeling that things are going to get worse/complicated for me (again), now that I find myself compelled to talk about and consider a work's psychosomatic effects. It takes me into places/ideas which people might not easily accept or understand, to which it might be hard to build such tactical bridges.<br /><br />The reality is, I do what I am compelled to do, or find amusing/interesting, and often find patterns in retrospect. I suspect that some people might find this hard to believe because I'm so articulate once I get going, but the simple truth is that I'm just good at building linguistic houses structures for/around inarticulate suspicions. Also, sometimes the houses change. My own retrospective ideas of what these patterns are change. This aspect could easily be painted as a kind of cynical story-mongering, a creation of justifications to make my work seem more important. Now that I think of it, it is fair to describe it as story-mongering, but I can in all conscience assert that it isn't cynical. In fact, it might be more accurate to call the act hypothesis-mongering.<br /><br />Well, one possible story/hypothesis you can tell people is that Passage is part of a large, multifaceted attack/commentary on the limits of film -- essentially the story I told in my talk when I introduced my other works. However, aside from the "Film Rebel" idea, one of my pet hypotheses right now is that what I think can be called "traditional gallery art" acts as if it literally believes that works are only significant insofar as they illustrate theory. Or, to put it in my terms, it appears that art discourse is only comfortable with works that speak in words or speak to the mind. It won't be an easy thing to tell people that I want to speak to the body, or that I think the body can hear. That I literally subscribe to Brian Eno's assertion that "the body is the large brain." They are much more prepared for discourses using pollysyllabics like virtuality or deconstruction or simulacra. I suppose I could soothe them by using words like "somatic cognition" or "extraverbal cognition" but that would be going even deeper into exactly the territory I want to get out of. I talk too much and too well, that's my problem. I should have the courage of Zen and just spout non-sequiturs until people get it, but I'm too impatient.<br /><br />Fuck it. People WILL insist/persist in recasting/translating that sentence about "talking to the body" into the language of manipulation. "You are manipulating people's reactions." Do you manipulate a person when you raise your voice? Sometimes that is in fact the case. But sometimes it is more accurate to say you got angry. And so for example, I wasn't manipulating people by putting slamming doors in the soundtrack. I came up with the conviction that I should project a door on the wall coming out of sleep at something like 2 in the morning. I had no idea what the image/sound meant. I put it on the wall because it seemed right to put it there, and then later made observations and hypotheses about psychosomatic effects, childhood, and the relationship of hearing to the survival instinct.<br /><br />Now, after a long journey round, I return to your interpellator's question: what is the point of a work about passages? My answer to him would take the form of a series of questions, as I do not believe the audience has a monopoly on questions, still less that all answers take the form of declarative sentences. And so I would ask: Does nothing occur to you in the experience of such a journey? Does it feel completely devoid of connection to anything in the world or perhaps, in your own life? Do your bones feel no response to a garden behind a locked gate? You don't feel referred to, spoken to? Then perhaps what the work is saying is: "you must change your life."<br /><br />Or at least, perhaps some of your ideas about art.<br /><br />;-)<br /><br />Tad<br /><br />PS will definitely link to your blog<br /><br />Cheers,<br /><span style="color: rgb(136, 136, 136);"><br />Tad</span>Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-61897291801644702852011-03-14T13:56:00.024+08:002011-03-17T01:43:52.865+08:00PASSAGE: Additional Materials/DocumentationHere I'll be posting links to materials created/collected by my curator, the brilliant and indefatigable <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lisa Chikiamco</span> of <a href="http://visualpond.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Visual Pond</span></a>, who, together with <span style="font-weight: bold;">Boots Herrera</span>, rescued the painter <span style="font-weight: bold;">Lee Aguinaldo</span> from obscurity, curating a <a href="http://manilaartblogger.wordpress.com/2010/10/26/ateneo-art-gallery-at-50-lee-aguinaldo-and-modern-masterpieces/">major retrospective</a> on the man and writing the major chunks of the <a href="http://www.vibalfoundation.org/?books=the-life-and-art-of-lee-aguinaldo">book</a> about him. Lisa is also currently reinventing Philippine art documentation as something to be practiced as multimedia on the net as well as atoms on bookshelves. I'd be the first to admit that the audio of my talk is falls somewhat short of hi-fidelity standards, but that the talk was recorded at all (and, further, that it is up for access on the net) already constitutes better and more proactive documentation than that of most Philippine art institutions. It should also be noted that everything was shot and recorded entirely on her own initiative, with her own equipment. Now I think I should have helped her with it, but at the time I felt it was all I could do to make the work, figure out what the work was and what I was going to say about it. Perhaps I also felt it was a bit unseemly to be too interested in the process of recording my own sound and image. Go figure. Traces of old Catholic school injunctions against self-promotion, self-regard. <span style="font-style: italic;">Vanitas</span>.<br /><br />At any rate, my talk is up on Visual Pond's youtube channel in five parts<span style="font-weight: bold;"> <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2bU5l3g_tUk">here</a></span>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwgohML28RY&feature=related"><span style="font-weight: bold;">here</span></a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhriL2JpcQ8&feature=related"><span style="font-weight: bold;">here</span></a>, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oGRbZFVp4k&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL"><span style="font-weight: bold;">here</span></a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aGIR3Vq0IpE&feature=related"><span style="font-weight: bold;">here</span></a>. The last part shows me exhibiting <span style="font-weight: bold;">iPatch 1: Teddyvision</span>, the smallest and most mobile video installation in the Philippines. I'll be writing that up in another post.<br /><br />The catalog is available for download <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/visualpond/EndFrame3-tadermitano-passage-catalogue.pdf"><span style="font-weight: bold;">here</span></a>.<br /><br />Visual Pond has a <a href="http://visualpond.blogspot.com/2011/02/gb0x000000-pluginspagehttpwww.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">slideshow</span></a> up on their blog as well.<br /><br />Lastly and most interesting is Lisa's own blog <a href="http://writelisawrite.blogspot.com/2011/01/reflections-end-frame-video-art-project.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">here:</span></a> I really like her move in deciding to refrain from thematic grouping in favor of a preliminary empirical investigation. As there actually is a possibility that the artists here are not doing something that had been forseen by Baudrillard etc.Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-65840843158678255642011-03-11T10:28:00.063+08:002011-03-14T18:41:53.734+08:00Notes on Passage, my first solo show<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLsBHt-0EPNZOQJqy5v95IlKrYfIazUPpjwlmud6OW7AuzRiOeQXET_eqKJvpGuIeoYbce8gKxczE5kC1GeYzRFhFpnIYHKtLq1jmlIkinV4GDICkYkH7qo4jaSi5UunT0ojaQeQ/s1600/Passage_adj.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLsBHt-0EPNZOQJqy5v95IlKrYfIazUPpjwlmud6OW7AuzRiOeQXET_eqKJvpGuIeoYbce8gKxczE5kC1GeYzRFhFpnIYHKtLq1jmlIkinV4GDICkYkH7qo4jaSi5UunT0ojaQeQ/s400/Passage_adj.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582727877469909634" border="0" /></a>This is a photo of a doorway that I shot somewhere in Hong Kong, during my residency at the Hong Kong Arts Centre back in 2009. I shot it because the doorway seemed like one of those obscure/ sleazy doorways in stories that lead to/camouflage something/ someone alien/magical. The weapons stash of a half-mad exile from Arcturus. A defrocked sorcerer selling hallucinogenic dragon pee to bohemian socialites. The Aleph. Dr. Jekyll's second apartment, etc.<br /><br />Directly below is a still of the staircase portion of <span style="font-weight: bold;">PASSAGE</span>, my first solo show. (documentation video <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPGGnN1if_Q"><span style="font-weight: bold;">here</span></a>) Can't believe it took this long, but I guess I'm just one of those late bloomers/slow workers. Part of the reason is that major part of my practice seems to incorporate the process of technological development: Every work is based on or uses some technology or technique I haven't tried before. That I find this fun goes without saying, but it naturally slows down my production speed, as there's a lot of testing, exploration, discarding, revision and so on.<br /><br />At any rate, the show ran from Jan 15 to Feb 5 2011 at the Pablo Art Gallery in Fort <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Bonifacio</span>, in <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">Taguig</span>. It was curated by Lisa <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Chikiamco</span> of <a href="http://visualpond.blogspot.com/">Visual Pond</a> as the first show in <span style="font-weight: bold;">End Frame 3</span>, her series of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cPGGnN1if_Q"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjIrSrnmBJBzSgaMFv06Tx9BEE5bRSTwksGiVeGw6prMtRMy-Qijd9o__0WDJi9t_Bob3Qi718jjUcsJXNyEGog7C1srERJf7_JNuMqNPQm9BL_4Li2mgnmPeCdwcE-Obi7bJFeqg/s400/Passage_Stair+2.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582645873623394002" border="0" /></a>exhibitions showcasing the current state of video art practice in the Philippines. I'm looking forward to seeing the other shows, as it promises to look outside conceptual art practice, which had till recently succeeded in equating the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">conceptualists</span>' use of video as the entirety of video art.<br /><br />In the case of this work, I was concerned with transforming the gallery into a single work, a space which would enclose people and within which they would have a unified experience. Pablo in The Fort is a very sculptural space, kind of an upside-down L, with built-in cabinets in the back. I've simplified it in my drawing but not by much:<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc7BAOISZcHH9MOX4iTr2NpTpZftRyhlkNJh2Hod6yMjMxACzswTiUy-TCOMXvN1Do33km5e3mqtmJ9fWmn-8NYnpmmuIExKClrDYyItiyJ5Yt8gjyR-li-oW4L_Lgs7tQlknX-Q/s1600/Pablo_2.GIF"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 319px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhc7BAOISZcHH9MOX4iTr2NpTpZftRyhlkNJh2Hod6yMjMxACzswTiUy-TCOMXvN1Do33km5e3mqtmJ9fWmn-8NYnpmmuIExKClrDYyItiyJ5Yt8gjyR-li-oW4L_Lgs7tQlknX-Q/s400/Pablo_2.GIF" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582666561009346882" border="0" /></a><br />The ground floor is linked to the upper floor by a simple stair without a banister that leads to an open doorway. It seemed pretty obvious that the second floor room should host some kind of revelation or climax, reached by the stairway, and that the first room should host some kind of preparation, or contrast to it.<br /><br />Memories of magical doorways had been swirling about my head for months since I'd run across the <span style="font-style: italic;">Girl in the Fireplace</span> episode of <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Who</span> late in 2010: The Guardian of Forever in the <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> episode written by Harlan Ellison. <span style="font-style: italic;">The Time Tunnel</span>. The rabbit hole in <span style="font-style: italic;">Alice in Wonderland</span>. The wormholes in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Time Bandits</span>. The mirror in <span style="font-style: italic;">Through the Looking Glass</span>, reprised in <span style="font-style: italic;">Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell</span>. The cabinet in <span style="font-style: italic;">Narnia</span>. The doors into other worlds in Pullman's <span style="font-style: italic;">His Dark Materials</span> trilogy and so on. (SF geek.)<br /><br />I'd been seeing video mapping around the net for months (Essentially, video mapping consists of projecting a video image very precisely onto 3D objects so that perspective cues within the image like foreshortening, keystoning, and so on coincide with the appearance and orientation of the objects, with the result that the images appear to be a property of the object, instead of being something imposed upon it by a projector.) however, it wasn't until I saw the video artist/film editor Edsel Abesames' execution of it at <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A61bM6rSl5U">Tujiko Noriko's set at Fete dela WSK</a> last November 19 that I finally decided to try my hand at it.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Seed Ideas</span><br /><br />My first idea was to try to make the walls of the upper room disappear, which, aside from the wow factor involved, tickled me for being an inversion of the usual use of video mapping: I would have been using it to eliminate the 3D properties of an object. I wanted to create another green world on the second floor, a forest planet that you could reach by climbing a staircase made of water, which would be the magical space-time-crossing passageway to the planet, and the passage in show's title. Of course, this would have entailed projecting images on most of the five of the six walls of the room, and it didn't take long to confirm that I didn't have enough projectors or the right lenses to do this, so I scrapped that and eventually came up with the idea of keeping the video mapping idea, but using it to make another passageway, this time a door that appeared to punch through the edges and surfaces of the part of the room that had cabinets in it, violating the space of the room, even as it led to another space altogether. I cobbled together the loop of a wind-ruffled flower garden behind an ancient and disused gate, an image that seemed to ring with archetypal ideas. In a way I liked this idea better, as it made it so that the passage didn't end on the second floor. By putting a gate there, the second floor didn't host Fairyland or Utopia or Eden, something which no projection could hope to live up to, but only a gate that you felt you could <span style="font-style: italic;">almost</span> pass through.<br /><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT3nnw2Q9OWBqRgwDOdJ7s8EViret2ty9vHW6dP278W7JRdJG4dFC72C_eD6iLtVyYXhmoRkjOjpyFeeRu0zLgFciOJUVjKIvxKkT5Pl7Z_QLInFpHx5dVQ4tDVPEGT9s8jshy5w/s1600/Video+Map+of+gate.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 267px; height: 400px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgT3nnw2Q9OWBqRgwDOdJ7s8EViret2ty9vHW6dP278W7JRdJG4dFC72C_eD6iLtVyYXhmoRkjOjpyFeeRu0zLgFciOJUVjKIvxKkT5Pl7Z_QLInFpHx5dVQ4tDVPEGT9s8jshy5w/s400/Video+Map+of+gate.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582682972723738930" border="0" /></a>On the left is the image of the gate, predistorted so that it would look right when projected on the cabinets in the back. Apparently this technique of predistortion is called <span style="font-style: italic;">anamorphosis</span> and is supposedly described by Leonardo da Vinci in one of his notebooks. Hans Holbein the Younger famously used it to insert a skull/memento mori in his painting <a href="http://theartdaily.blogspot.com/2010/07/hans-holbein-younger-ambassadors-1533.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Ambassadors</span></a>.<br /><br />The other instance of video mapping in the show was of course the staircase, which I mapped with a loop of water canted so that it appeared to flow upwards, and cropped so that the projection was confined entirely within the surfaces of the stairs. I'd initially thought of mixing science fiction with fantasy and having the words "CLIMB ME" rolling on the stairs in some kind of LED/dot matrix font, but in the end I thought it was too cute, and too obvious a reference to the mushroom scene Alice in Wonderland.<br /><br />One of the touchstones of the work was the experience of being a child in a strange place. A place filled with looming presences and operating procedures that were beyond anything you knew or were familiar with. This is a state that a young child encounters almost daily, a state whose invocation is perhaps the main reason we read fantastic literature, or even encounter art. The image and sound of a door opening and closing that I projected high up on the wall of the first floor, beside the doorway at the top of the stair came from memories of fantastic literature filtered through the memories of that state. A child's perception of loud and unfamiliar things happening in a distant room. Arguments, perhaps, or maybe just adults yelling instructions to each other, the way waitresses will yell orders in noisy diners, or supervisors will yell instructions to the drivers /operators of large machines. A construction site or loading dock, where everyone except you knows what they're doing and what's going on.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Happy Accidents</span><br /><br />One of the things that I hadn't anticipated was the sheer amount of light that would fill the ground floor room whenever the projected door would open onto the image of a white room. The image was brightest at this point, and its light of the image would bounce off the walls, <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS8mQN4ly3jT809G2PP4UA3Ije-wGCE2rVkzZ_YOuyJUaMdrBO65dNyx0zopn1hyphenhyphen-lyM4vrX225hFL7iUTpnod4ugneHKjYWxs9JUDkOf_NsZyl7BW4UDk52SCKLuqatNo52BCXA/s1600/Passage_Door+LS+4.JPG"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjS8mQN4ly3jT809G2PP4UA3Ije-wGCE2rVkzZ_YOuyJUaMdrBO65dNyx0zopn1hyphenhyphen-lyM4vrX225hFL7iUTpnod4ugneHKjYWxs9JUDkOf_NsZyl7BW4UDk52SCKLuqatNo52BCXA/s400/Passage_Door+LS+4.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5582814012586147330" border="0" /></a>illuminating everything, wiping out the image of water on the stair. However, I found I liked the way the light levels seemed to breathe -- how stair would oscillate between being an ordinary stair and a stair made of water. I liked that people would feel the pull of the illusion again and again in spite of its having been extinguished only seconds earlier.<br /><br />I also found that the work tended to co-opt the spaces surrounding it, to associate itself with bits of the world outside the gallery, something I discovered while visiting there with my cousin and his wife. On stepping out of the chilled darkness of the gallery, we felt assaulted by bright noon sunlight and the wind gusting on us and had to wait a few moments to readjust. It definitely felt as if we were returning from an interlude outside ordinary reality. The sense of this persisted as we walked across the sidewalk by the vacant lot towards High Street, where I had parked my car, the sense that the emptiness of the space was a bridge, another section of the journey to Fairyland.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Somatic/Sound</span><br /><br />Key to the work was my sense of how the elements in it "spoke" to the body, something that I'm relying on more and more when making things. It's involuntary somatic reactions -- eyes darting around, people watching their feet, stopping to listen, microexpressions of fear or searching that I watch out for. Lately I get the sense that people are composite entities and that I'm trying to talk to the submerged half, the mute and muted twin who can only be approached by slipping past the daylight twin's power to put things into words. Sound is effective in reaching this twin, but so (I think) is almost any other stimulus other than words and images. Smells, sounds, tastes, haptic sensations - they all enter through doors most people cannot consciously close. Working in the gallery at night, I found myself time and time again being startled, irritated and/or surprised by sounds I had created and layered myself. Sounds in particular seem to have a very intimate relationship with the survival instinct, causing the body to lurch and hesitate, declare and confess before we know what it's doing. We rely on sound to let us know where we are, who is there with us, what is approaching. Voices and instruments drifting in and out of hearing as doors opened and closed. The sound of water in the corner where the staircase was. Birds and wind upstairs, coming from the direction of the doorway. The writer/publisher Erwin Romulo observed that the work seemed to be a narrative of some kind, an observation that I had some difficulty understanding, as the work contained no human figures or characters, let alone anything like a protagonist. Took me a while to realize that he spoke out of a sense that the work was a kind of everted film, with the character displaced to occupy the body of the viewer, a story with a setting, a sequence, a rudimentary plot of revelation, and --with the viewer's addition -- even a dazed/bemused antihero.Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-55283841891167139582011-01-11T10:41:00.004+08:002011-01-11T21:37:33.038+08:00Postmodernism isn't PostmodernFrom an email I sent to the curator/critic/writer Clarissa Chikiamco. Some of my best stuff might come out of writing/talking to friends. Forces me to sum up things as quickly and clearly as I can:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Something I noticed: postmodern criticism isn't postmodern! By which I mean its writers generally position themselves in relation to a French canon of ideas. Postmodernism however, (as I understand it) relativises the idea of canon. Which means it SHOULD be possible to write criticism from a completely different set of assumptions, context! To write, I dunno, Punk Animist Socialist criticism and begin with an invocation to a bulul in the pantry or something.</span>Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-53495197469168559832010-12-18T21:00:00.005+08:002010-12-19T11:16:39.145+08:00"Logic Bending"<span jsid="text">Wonder why I never thought or read of it before. Seems an obvious logical and praxological extension of the idea of circuit bending. Logic bending: To alter a program's source code by trial and error. Seems a genuinely novel thought. Google didn't turn up a single hit as of this writing.<br /><br /></span><span>(Logical and praxological extension by etymological extension. Hmm.)<br /><br /></span><span jsid="text">Anyway, "logic bending" would be the </span><span jsid="text">the programming equivalent of the circuit bending as practiced by Reed Ghazala and his kind. </span><span jsid="text">About rewriting source code by doing things like commenting out, changing parameter values, deleting libraries, inverting while and for loop sequences, reordering blocks of code and so on --and then seeing what happens. </span>More an antidote to the usual state of affairs of consumers running the programs they're given and having them mutilate them empirically instead. It's likely the results of running a program so treated would produce results that would tie in to the aesthetics of machine failure, incorporated by musical genres like glitch and so on.Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-30094740020514784342010-12-09T00:13:00.016+08:002010-12-10T16:48:43.032+08:00"Somatodelic"<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wuaSzFf7yq0?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wuaSzFf7yq0?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br />Malek Lopez (a friend and a spectacularly talented composer who can compose and produce in a variety of styles but who personally favors a kind of Aphex Twin type of crammed, fractured techo) linked to this clip on facebook, and I commented as follows:<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;" jsid="text">Almost a science-fiction trope, like something out of Delany. The blind, black Mozart backed by two whitehaired old English scientists ministering to the Machine, coaxing somatodelic, booty-shaking funk out of silicon. Gotta be a book out there with the black history of electronic music, away from Stockhausen, Babbit and all the white avant-garde. Scratch Perry, Stevie Wonder, Prince, Afrika Bambataa, etc etc etc</span><br /><br />"Somatodelic" -- a throwaway word I came up with. Analogous and complementary to "psychedelic." According to wikipedia, "The term <b>psychedelic</b> is derived from the Greek words ψυχή (psyche, "soul") and δηλοῦν (deloun, "to manifest"), translating to "mind-manifesting."" Visions manifesting in the mind. The mind's latent powers and contents making manifest.<br /><br />Substitute "soma" (σώμα, "body") for "psyche" and get "somatodelic," meaning "body-manifesting. " Visions received by the body. Not visions. "Visions" too oculocentric. Touches, sensations, pokes, strokes. Not visual revelations, but tactile revelations. Maybe "tactile" is even wrong, because it seems to refer to something touched outside the body, like a page of braille. I'm thinking of sensations from a Beyond that emerge from within the body, the way dreams and visions come from a Beyond but emerge from within the mind. A sneeze emerges from within the body. So does an itch, a shiver and an orgasm. Sequences of organized sound revealing, provoking new motions from the body. Intrasomatic, intratactile(?) revelations.<br /><br /><span jsid="text">Formal, written histories of "Electronic Music" usually trace it in connection with the goals of serialism, musique concrete, John Cage, e<span class="text_exposed_show">tc which are linked not only by their connection to the academe and European art music, but also by their unanimous neglect (or even explicit rejection) of danceability as an artistic goal. None of these traditions valorize the ability of a piece to evoke </span></span><span><span class="text_exposed_show">(to put "danceability" in more respectable language) </span></span><span jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show">preverbal, ecstatic somatic response. A totally different, alternative, dark-side-of-the-moon history of electronic music could be written from a viewpoint where funk/danceability was the highest value and the focus of all researches. A History of Electronic Music written as a history of investigation of Preverbal Somatic Response.<br /><br />Then Ill Primitivo, hiphop producer and another friend, introduced me to the term Afrofuturism, which, according to the facebook page he linked to, is<br /><br /></span></span><b></b> <span style="font-style: italic;">an emergent literary and cultural </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/112123958814156">aesthetic</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> that combines elements of </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/108157509212483">science fiction</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/103099723063092">historical fiction</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/109558222395150">fantasy</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/114963331848541">Afrocentricity</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, and </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/112010682145069">magic realism</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> with non-Western </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/114849788530958">cosmologies</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> in order to critique not only the present-day dilemmas of </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/110558968965807">people of color</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, but also to revise, interrogate, and re-examine the historical events of the past. Examples of seminal afrofuturistic works include the novels of </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/108373562518097">Samuel R. Delany</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> and </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/110549188972580">Octavia Butler</a><span style="font-style: italic;">; the canvases of </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/107725639256980">Jean-Michel Basquiat</a><span style="font-style: italic;"> and the photography of </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/103108203063283">Renée Cox</a><span style="font-style: italic;">; as well as the extraterrestrial mythos of </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/109467679079712">Parliament-Funkadelic</a> and <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/108389779184964">Sun Ra</a><span style="font-style: italic;">, and the recombinant sonic texts of </span><a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.facebook.com/pages/w/103992672971008">DJ Spooky</a><span style="font-style: italic;">.</span><br /><br /><br />So. In response to the dry, academic Histories of Electronic Music, a playful, mythopoetic, mythologizing history of black American music, a populist, dance-centric, somatocentric, rhythm-centric musical tradition. A multifaceted, sprawling inquiry into somadelia. Swing. Rock, Reggae, Funk, Hiphop, rhythmic discoveries engendering novel somatic motion.<br /><br />Stevie Wonder pursuing electronic timbres for their fleshy, buttshaking potential. The universe of electronic sound filtered through a sensibility tuned to dance, tuned to the body. Dance enshrined as the highest purpose of musical creation. Funk adept Bootsy Collins nodding in approval from behind sequin-studded glasses: "You can't cut that with a knife." Electronic timbres as inroads to the body, its verdant mysteries and sudden flowerings. As opposed to, say, Babbitt and Stockhausen's stuff, whose music inspired people to level words like "coldness" and associated epithets at synthesizers. People like Lee Perry, Stevie Wonder and Prince exploring the same sonic universe by a completely different light. Somatodelic. Turned out that musical synthesis wasn't a cold, mechanical process or field, only that it was being researched/tilled by people who liked the cold.Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-39737612793602282862010-12-06T15:54:00.025+08:002010-12-08T19:44:06.790+08:00Twinning Machine: Second Iteration<object height="385" width="480"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/wYAMZrZicGI?fs=1&hl=en_US"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/wYAMZrZicGI?fs=1&hl=en_US" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="385" width="480"></embed></object><br /><br />New Twinning Machine collaboration with Rhosam ("Sam") Prudenciado. This time occasioned by the 2010 <a href="http://www.wskfete.com/">Fete dela WSK</a>. "WSK" is pronounced "Wasak" whose literal meaning in Tagalog is "broken," or "crazy," but which means something like "bad" or "badass" in 2010. A hip, colloquial term of approval, like the terms "hayop," "hanep," "astig," and "ayos" before it. Fete dela WSK is, in the words of its director and chief architect Tengal Drilon, " a festival of post-music and sonic bricolage," which took place in Manila from 19Nov to 28Nov 2010, about which I'll go into greater detail in another post.<br /><br />(See <a href="http://cavemanifesto.blogspot.com/2009/07/new-work-twinning-machine.html">here</a> for my notes on the first iteration.)<br /><br />I'd like to thank Myra Beltran, DanceForum and the Contemporary Dance Network of the Philippines (of which Sam is a member) for their support, and the grant of the space and time to explore this enterprise, which is essentially an effort to make a dancer dance with himself. Sam and I do this with the use of the Twinning Machine --an original program that I coded with Processing-- basically a video sampler with a live camera input.<br /><br />Of course, I reserve my biggest thanks for Sam, without whom this would have been impossible or worse, unwatchable. Video feedback is a noisy and dangerous beast. It fills the screen with bodies, and if the choreography is cluttered, it can easily turn the screen into visual sludge. Sam's style of alternating modular variations of a single graphic gesture (most clearly illustrated in 7:00 to 7:35, where he basically stands in various locations on the stage) with sections of "lead guitar" is particularly suited to the idiosyncracies of the program. I really also like the way he will sometimes do things backwards, in order to complicate the reading of the images. Whether they are moving normally or in reverse becomes harder to tell when the dancer himself is prone to walking backwards.Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-10014640620864896972010-08-17T05:01:00.019+08:002010-08-17T14:50:12.491+08:00Paradise-A Pinoy Cafe 1First heard the phrase "brain drain" back in the eighties, I think. A couple of months ago the Danish theater director Ms Ditte Maria Bjerg, with whom I had been emailing back and forth, introduced me to the phrase "care drain." As soon as she said it, I understood: I suddenly saw the Pinays flooding the streets of the Hong Kong Sunday again, most of them married, with children back in the Philippines. For almost every family abroad who gets a Pinay helper, a family back in the Phil loses a mother. Her children are raised by their grandparents. Ditte however, wanted to focus on the grandmothers, who, on top of losing the help of their daughters, had to shoulder the rearing of a second generation of children even as they got weaker with age. It's a state of affairs that could inspire any number of gritty, Brockaesque, award-winning, entirely and excruciatingly unwatchable social-realist films, so I liked that what Ditte was planning did NOT involve any plans to make any such film.<br /><br />Denmark, along many other European countries, imports Pinays as "au pairs." "<span style="font-style: italic;">Au Pair</span> is a French phrase that means "equal," as in "you are my equal." Same root as the phrase "on par with." Pair. Par. Equal. Basically an au pair is a young foreigner who is supposed to live with a host family and perform some basic domestic work in return for room, board and an allowance of some 200-280 Euro -- ie some 11 to 16 thousand pesos -- a month, according to www.aupair-world.net. The arrangement was first conceived to facilitate a kind of intra-European cultural exchange so that students could live with host families in other countries. So that (for example) a Swedish college student could sharpen her French by living in Paris with a family in exchange for doing some cooking, walking the kids to school, and so on. Because this was the function the arrangement was supposed to serve, the governments of various countries cooperated in setting up basic rules that more or less meant to uphold the idea that au pairs were essentially cultural students, and not to be seen as a cheap way to get the washing done. And so for example, most countries forbid that the au pairs wear a uniform, specify that they must eat at table with the host family, and set limits as to how many hours they can work in the home.<br /><br />Of course the economy and and history of Europe has proceeded to develop a state of affairs where more and more Europeans disdain to perform domestic chores for other families. Naturally, an influx of Pinays have arrived to fill the demand for a cheap way to get the washing done. (Technically the au pair could be male or female, but in practice, the vast majority of au pairs are women for the same reason that most domestic helpers are women: they are generally less threatening to take into one's household.) So here we are in Denmark, with a steady influx of Pinay au pairs.<br /><br />Ditte's idea was to exaggerate the conveniences that the Pinay au pairs afforded to the Danish populace by playing with the idea of "Paradise". A Paradise of no work, where your needs are attended to by ministering angels. Uniformed Pinays were to enact a kind of theater of paradise for the Danish audience in various coffeeshops around Copenhagen. It would be my job to create a soundscape for this idea, to envelop the audience in the sounds of a Tropical Paradise, and perhaps to break the spell when necessary. Of course, the art part of the idea, the artistic problem, was how to introduce the customers to the idea that somehow, somebody somewhere was paying for this service paradise even as they immersed themselves in it. To show them, to paraphrase Kerouac, the naked lunch on the end of their fork.<br /><br />To this end, Ditte recruited the director Khavn de la Cruz and various stalwarts of the Manila independent scene to shoot footage of various Pinay grandmothers in their houses, going about their day, and even addressing their daughters through the camera, as they made video letters that Ditte would deliver to their daughters. Various bits of the footage will be displayed on video screens distributed about the cafe. We are currently in rehearsal, trying out various other bits to<br /><em></em>reinforce that aspect of the piece that the videos stab at constructing. The complacence-poisoning, insidiously educational aspect of the piece. Stay tuned.Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-24819227304747667572010-08-13T13:32:00.020+08:002010-08-13T15:56:58.802+08:00Cirque TrottolaWent to the circus last night. Ditte tells me Cirque Trottola is an exponent of New Circus, which mostly uses human performers. Cirque du Soleil is new circus, but extremely high-budget and gorgeous. Cirque Trottola has a punk feel, a Violent-Femmes-on-the-sidewalk version of the circus. Minimal, lean, stripped down. A return to the roots of human spectacle. 5 performers in a tiny tent that seated maybe 300 people. One strong man, one juggler, and an androgynous female acrobat ( "voltigeuse" on the CD) who looked like a tiny Rod Stewart, performing in trio and various duets. Occasional solo pieces, including a really memorable one by the juggler, who animated a dress hung on a stand that he balanced on the end of his push-broom. Ghostly and forlorn, like something out of Magritte. All sounds done live by two brilliant multi-instrumentalists playing detuned electric guitar, found percussion, violin and keyboards. Nobody spoke or ever changed costume. All characters, costumes and fragmented narratives reminiscent of Waiting for Godot. Or is it that Waiting for Godot is based on the imagery of the low-budget circus? A revelation for me, anyway. Bought the CD from the guitarist/percussionist Thomas Barriere who was hawking it by the tent exit with the violinist/keyboardist Bastien Pelenc (more punk aesthetics)! Should have got the CD signed. No fanboy/collector instincts, me. Oh well.Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-26281723313365419112010-08-07T16:02:00.036+08:002010-08-11T14:09:27.585+08:00Copenhagen 1 (København)<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWEja3cuBSReEsWModCLieGpQ_7rZO-15dAjdmVl7mW5TRKRDoJ8X2ZPEjTQTkQ91sAiDBDF_cMrocX_37tjptjWOdZsjN0KTp7VqG5VMgcwt_0zAgetL7hreoxSsc4D6K2q5Sug/s1600/Bacon+2.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 300px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgWEja3cuBSReEsWModCLieGpQ_7rZO-15dAjdmVl7mW5TRKRDoJ8X2ZPEjTQTkQ91sAiDBDF_cMrocX_37tjptjWOdZsjN0KTp7VqG5VMgcwt_0zAgetL7hreoxSsc4D6K2q5Sug/s400/Bacon+2.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5503682809405859058" border="0" /></a><br />These days I'm in Denmark. Technically on Amager island --which is pronounced Ama island. Silent "ger" and more on this later. Think Mactan to Cebu where Cebu is Copenhagen. Except closer, as I could literally bike over the bridge to Copenhagen or, since I'm writing this on a computer and it's the god-damn millenium, København, as she is spelled here. First time I've formally used that weirdo vowel. Been here since August 1 to do sound design for Pinoy Cafe, a multimedia theater piece with synchronized video, performance, sound effects and maybe 2 chickens (!) to be staged at various coffeeshops around Copenhagen. Will be here till October. Nice to be on a job in Europe, (I'm not good at taking vacations in foreign countries. I get bored and antsy) --especially in a place where people religiously preserve time for themselves and families. No pito-pito work-24-hours-a-day-on-2-cups-of-rice-and-adobo-sauce-without-sleep-for-a-week shit here. People take the god-damn weekends off from Friday afternoon onwards and have barbecues in a family cabin in the mountains of Sweden, or play with their kids in a city without skyscrapers and work is walking distance from home. Had a couple of strange nights wondering whether this was all real or my plane crashed and this was a weird pre-death hallucination I was having as my torn-off head sank to the bottom of the sea. Everything is so...rational, sculpted to give people pleasant lives, as opposed to Manila or Tokyo, where (and it never occurred to me to think this before) it seems that people assume that life is something you have to buy from the world at whatever cost it demands. If it demands that you work 36 hours without protection spraying lead-based paint on a wall in a windowless room for 200 pesos a day, well, that's the cost of biological life on this ball of dirt and say thank you, you piece of shit, if you want to keep your god-damn life. Instead, here, people walk over to bring their daughter to kindergarten before biking off to work in the neighborhood, and go home at 5PM, after the daily swim at the beach. Lives tracked by light jazz. Or so it seems from the vantage of this project. Since I'm working in theater, this might not be an accurate impression. Maybe high-powered stockbrokers in Copenhagen central live the usual hyper-slave-to-the-grind life in the Millenium. Maybe. Or maybe it's just that it's high summer in a cold country and everybody's high on sunlight and in some kind of Garden of Eden mode because of summer's 17 hours of daylight per day. Or maybe it's just that they were extremely rich until a few years ago (welfare state) and this are the last wisps of the rich life that their welfare state bought them in the 60's. Certainly life in Alabang on a Sunday afternoon (millionnaire gated community in Manila) seems blessed and rational, compared to the weekday grind of the average Filipino film production. So maybe Denmark is just a country-sized Alabang?<br /><br />Who knows! I'm completely at sea. Don't remember feeling this off-balanced even when I lived in Japan for the first time, where nobody spoke English, and (because this was back in '83) English signs were at a minimum. Dunno if it's because I was 19 or because I simply assumed nothing. Here, I find myself constantly being knocked back on my feet because I assumed something without even realizing I assumed it. For instance, people are passing around a box of grapes at the office. They look like grapes, they're colored green. I put them into my mouth, Bang! They're really sour, and I realize I had assumed I was going to taste a sweet musk grape flavor. I check out the faces of everybody around the table, but everybody seems to be enjoying the grapes. So they like sour grapes here? Or they assume there's a spectrum of acceptable grape taste that ranges from really sour to really sweet? Or take another example. I walk by a shop that looks like what Hollywood movies have assured me a butcher shop looks like. I see a sign saying "Bacon - 44.5dk 1/2 kg" standing next to a slab of dry red meat. So I congratulate myself on being so enlightened as to know that not all bacon comes in strips in greasy vacuum-packed packages in supermarket freezers labeled Swift's Honeycured. That bacon can actually be made by humans wielding salt, smoke, and slabs of pork hacked off an actual pig. So I buy a half kilo of this "bacon" that I also have the foresight to ask the butcher to slice, thinly. When I make breakfast this morning though, it seems that the bacon takes forever to crisp. It's like it doesn't want to crisp. So okay, I figure, not crispy for this breakfast. When I eat it though, I find it has a completely different taste from what I was expecting. It's...I don't know. Meaty. Meaty, like a pork chop. It is also strangely more salty that I thought it would be. But, in a way I can't put more accurately, somehow also less salty that I thought it would be. And it has a tough rind that I have to spit out (but which perhaps people just swallow here as something normal and bacony?), because the slab of meat it was cut off had skin, and the skin fries up tough, not crispy. I'm constantly bumping into things like that, hour to hour. It's endlessly fascinating, but it can get tiring. It can take a while to find a comfortable corner at the end of a long day.<br /><br />Another place that is a constant area of mild irritation is the language. And when I say irritation, I don't mean that I get annoyed or angry. I mean that I am constantly aware of language, like a coat that is slightly too tight or a new shirt that is slightly scratchy all over. I don't know why I never experienced this in Thailand, Bali, Japan, or Hong Kong, but it's something completely new. Nearly everybody can speak English, but nearly every written sign is in Danish. And Danish has almost no etymological information I can use as a clue. In Hong Kong, I could read signs in English, or read Chinese characters that they shared with Japanese (I can speak/read Japanese). If I were in France or Spain, I could use the store of Latin root-words that abound in the Spanish words that tagalog has absorbed as clues as to what words mean. Here, I see the word Rådhuspladsen or something and I don't know what any of the pieces mean. Is 'Råd' red? or 'Root' as in the latin 'Radix?' Is 'pladsen' the same as "place?" or maybe it's "plaza"?. My mind is convinced there is information to be had and so is constantly in overdrive, constantly seeking clues, order and information in the signs. And of course the sounds are different. I cannot even guess how the sounds that people are saying to me are meant to be spelled. I hear a name that sounds like "Kostko" and find it's spelled Kjærsgård. Somebody tells me I should meet "Annas Elbole" and when I tell him to write this "Annas"'s name down, he prints "Anders Elberling." It's like they're constantly using 3x the number of letters necessary to notate the sounds I hear. For the first time in my life I have an insight of how English can appear to the Japanese. You hear the word "laughter" and imagine it's spelled "lafta" then find out there's this u and g and h in there that basically do nothing.<br /><br />So that's what it's like, here on this side of the looking-glass. Will be meeting the Mad Hatter and Dormouse later. All for now.Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-89121776371205408312010-07-17T08:58:00.002+08:002010-07-17T09:04:36.477+08:00Night Festival1 gig down one to go! Performing again tonight at the 2010 Singapore Night Festival with Malek Lopez, and Caliph8 at No Bleeding Hearts, the show curated by Green Papaya. Anybody I haven't reached through the regular spam channels and in Singapore come on by tonight July 17. The Philippine contingent representing at 10PM-2AM at the 2nd floor of the National Museum (What they call the 'Glass Atrium' near that installation with the swinging lamps). Radioactive Sago is there, for all you guys for whom the prospect of seeing my/Malek/Caliph's work with networked sound and video is insufficient temptation. Woohoo!Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25916296.post-56026410327258703922010-06-22T07:45:00.022+08:002010-06-22T09:21:57.154+08:00Networking, Friendship and CollaborationWhy is the word "networking" respectable and grant-friendly, but the phrase "making friends" not? Bands are small networks of friends, and are responsible for some literally world-shaking achievements. There's some fuzziness, a missing word here. Maybe a whole missing taxonomy. We need a terminology for types of friends.<br /><br />Acquaintances. Exes. Drinking buddies. Fuck buddies. Close friends. Lovers. Notice that the activities we associate with the terms seem "trivial" in the sense that they benefit no-one else but the parties involved. Maybe "trivial" is the wrong word. Private and ephemeral: Drinking. Sex. Kwento. Hanging out, as in on a hike, or at the beach or something.<br /><br />"Collaborators" is a signpost towards the language we're missing. People who work and create together, ranging from cyber-acquaintances on a mailing list to incestuous, frankly polyamorous groups whose personal relationships deepen and are deepened (ruin and are ruined?) by the work. We need better terms. A more specific, technical, and nuanced taxonomy for collaborators. Friends you work with, produce with, research with, heal with. To be able to talk about the relationship of Henry Miller and Lawrence Durrell, say. Will and Ariel Durant. The Surrealists. The film crew of Ogawa Shinsuke. A Butoh dance commune. Factory Records. The Factory. The Situationists. The Beatles. Frank Doell and Helen Hanff. Einstein and Godel. Crick and Watson. Pierre and Marie Curie. A basketball team. The crew of the <span style="font-style: italic;">Rainbow Warrior</span>. William Burroughs, Ian Sommerville, and Brion Gysin. Five people who meet on weekends to build a cyclotron. A gamelan troupe. A research group. The communes described in Samuel R. Delany's book, <span style="font-style: italic;">Heavenly Breakfast</span>. Competing teams on a reality show. A terrorist cell. The translators of the Dead Sea Scrolls. The cast of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Brady Bunch</span>.Tad Ermitanohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16517790222403260751noreply@blogger.com0