20 Days Less and a Mental Block

I can’t believe it! There I was surfing for some materials for a paper and I saw on a website, my dad’s ancestral house. All in its decaying glory like what happened on all of my dad’s other properties. But at least it was taken artistically. I hate it when other people are taking an initiative to document our province. It has to be me, someone in the family, or someone I know! It can’t be strangers… That privilege should belong to me!!! Well all that’s in that site is glorified crap anyway.

And again the word…Crap, deadlines are fast approaching and I still got to finish 3 papers. Done are most of the researches, but I just cant get them to all fall into place. They are like scattered Lego pieces scattered in the floor, ready to be swiped away.

It’s a shit when I can’t find any resource about architecture about my dad’s hometown of Baler. I can’t help but be annoyed when all that is there are those photos and articles of the “manufactured” culture being promoted by the Angaras to give a sense of so called “character” to our old poor town. What do they think of making festivals, dressing up streets in coconut products? That it would be an instant Pahiyas festival like that of my mom’s hometown of Lucban. What is with dressing up pageant queens in sabutan costume making them look like sumans (with the delight of the dirty old foreigners)? A great piece of nativist garbage!
People sometimes ask me why do such research about Baler to just expose what is rotten about it. My 2 previous paper tackles the dirty politics in logging and the other the sad state of Baler’s art and Culture. Even my college interior design thesis tackle in portions certain social issues (and it was suppose to be of just interior designing). I can’t explain, at first I don’t intend to throw all that dirt, but I just can’t help to just shut up when I see failures in a system. If you’ll make a thesis about Baler, a town ridden by dirty politics and a backward social culture, it is hard to be nice. To hell about tourist promotion, to hell with it being the shooting location of the movie Apocalypse Now! The façade that what the powers that be wants to project is not the real face of the reality. I am in a unique position, I am from the inside but I am also from the outside. I speak for the locals, with my heritage coming from Baler. As I also speak as an outsider, being born and growing up here at Manila (actually QC, a misconception of probinsyanos, they don’t define Metro Manila to the city. That’s why when asked “taga maynila ka ba otoy?” I answered “di, tiga QC po”). I see this as a “privileged” spot/situation to do some criticism.

I am really having a hard time finding a theory that would fit. I have problem boxing myself, with a theory. My style is what I want to call ”free flow writing”. I just write what comes, ill create an outline of topics, have my datas, do my analysis and that’s it. I am an outsider in critical writing, I don’t feel comfortable basing my theories to people I just read in books. I want to concentrate on the issues, exposing what I feel are valuable blah blahs. But again the word crap, that wont pass here at UP. Got to think of an idea… as what John Nash (as interpreted by Russel Crowe) said, “we got to figure out our original idea”. For in the end, "it is by that how we are going to matter."

Fuzzy Logic Review

A Review of Fuzzy Logic
(Lopez Museum)

Fuzzy Logic, in its narrow sense, is symbolic logic with a comparative notion of truth developed fully in the spirit of classical logic. It is a branch of many-valued logic based on the paradigm of inference under vagueness. It can be thought of as the application side of fuzzy set theory dealing with well thought-out real world expert values for a complex problem.

The exhibit entitled Fuzzy Logic is currently being displayed at the Lopez Museum from November 2006 to March 2007. It is a compilation of abstract works of arts, from various genres, artists, and collections, which is comprised of thirty-one pieces of works. Most of the works have themes concerning technology as a theme in art; the use of optics and its relation to the perception, texture, light, and color of an art work; and the use of film documentation as a tool for the preservation of art. The mixture of art works on exhibit also depicts the role of the artist, through the use of abstraction, as a communicator of certain social and personal issues. Majority of the artworks on exhibition reflect the influences of “mass-media culture” and inhibitions by the museum’s appropriators.

The work by Louie Cordero, titled Crash Test Broadcast, was presented by the curator as an installation art. The artist’s main presentation is the actual act of destruction and crashing of the installation’s main material, the television sets, presented in the video. The act of destruction is probably the artist’s reflection on the media of television, which in a way, is heading to a breaking point on the merit of the media’s artistic quality.

Federico Jimenez Jr.’s sculpture titled Miss Saigon, made out of metal scraps that abstractly depicts a helicopter. Also ionized the logo of the famous play of the same title. The piece is Jimenez’s homage to the art piece’s namesake which is a big part of the Filipinos’ theater history.

Wire Tuazon’s huge (244cm x 488cm) oil painting titled The Death of Piet Mondarin: Field over Human Skin is a portrait of a zeppelin disaster, probably inspired and based on the Hindenburg disaster of 1937, one of the first well known disaster captured lived on the media of film and photography.

Elizalde Navarro’s work titled Grand Prix: Homage to Dodgie Laurel is a wood on aluminum with ready-made machine parts depicting a cycloptic eye inside a race car helmet. The piece pays tribute to legendary Filipino racecar driver, and two-time Macao Grand Prix champion, Dodgie Laurel, who died in a racing accident at the Guia Racing Circuit at Macau in 1967.
Francis Cabrera’s Beisdel Station, a metal relief made out of various junks, depicts the top view of the power plant. The artist is trying to imply a theme of power, with the artwork’s God’s eye view of the subject.

Ronald Achacoso’s three works on mixed media on canvas titled, Frequency, Magnitude, and Atom, installation type of presentation. This is not clear if it is the original concept of the artist, or of the curator. The pieces’ interconnecting dots and lines forming geometrical forms signify the connection of the three subjects on its role in broadcast.

Roberto Robles’ ABS-CBN commissioned work titled On Air (Dedicated to the People Who Dedicate…), is a mixed media presentation. It is composed of various junks such as, television and radio parts, an on-air sign, and various metal scraps and wires. The piece is greatly dedicated to the radio culture that is brought to fame by ABS-CBN. Noticeable in the said works is that it is paying homage and is heavily influenced by the mass-media culture of which the exhibit’s benefactor is all about. It is also noticeable that a great majority of the works are trying to iconize the Lopez’s’ influences on society in general. The art works, On Air (Dedicated to the People Who Dedicate…), Frequency, Magnitude, and Atom, Beisdel Station, and Crash Test Broadcas, are representation of the media and business empire that the Lopez’s possess. While, Miss Saigon, The Death of Piet Mondarin: Field over Human Skin, and Grand Prix: Homage to Dodgie Laurel, pay homage to its subjects that signify a certain aspect of the media culture, (entertainment, tragedy, and sports). As pure as the artists’ intention on their works, it is noticeable how the curatorship of this exhibit was arranged and is being used to reflect the importance of its benefactor, be it intentional or otherwise. This reflects an intention to project an image of power and influence. Putting a picture in the mind of the audiences that Lopez influences radiates even to the art world.

Not the entire exhibit carries a mass-media based theme. A great number of art works also reflect on the artists’ vision, reflection, and interpretation of certain social themes. Charlie Co’s oil on canvas titled Biological Armageddon is an image of a cavalristic super-hero alone in the middle of the battlefield. A depiction of a one-man crusade over his adversities, Gabriel Barredo’s sculpture titled Camera Bug is visually making pun of the phrase “camera bug”. Wire Tuazon’s enormous (244cm x 488cm) oil on canvas titled, Enlightenment has the phrase “search for the meaning of art” together with an image of a violent vehicular crash collision. It is a powerful statement of the artist on critic’s need to define the meaning of art, which often ends in futility.

An untitled work of J. Elizalde Navarro, a mixed media presentation is composed of the artist’s various used painting materials and junk, mounted to a canvas, and white washed with paint. The artist’s motives for doing such a process may not that clear or obvious. It could be interpreted as a sort of reaction on how one assesses a value of an artwork based on economics. One’s thrash covered with white paint mounted on a canvas becomes an artwork for others. One of the most prominent features on exhibit is Kidlat Tahimik’s Perfumed Nightmare, a 93-minute video presentation and documentation on a practice of a certain community. It is specifically showing life in a slum during the holy week. It is a powerful imagery of the act of penitence in a society of cultural and religious tradition.

On the whole, I viewed the exhibit as a battle between the “agenda” of the curator to reflect on a statement of power, and the role of the artists to portray a reflection of his thoughts and of his society, through his art. With this exhibit, the artists were able to pull one over his competition. Though I think that the exhibit doesn’t intend to reflect a particular statement, rather than to present the art works of abstraction. It is noticeable that certain choice of works reflects otherwise. Once it is noticed by an audience, the influence of the Lopezes can’t be just set aside. The fact that they own the museum speaks a lot over their control of the exhibit. One may come to a suspicion that they may be using art for their own glorification.