A stimulating debate and discussion on Media, Art
Posted by: Fats in: Katawan > PagtatanghalThe visit of Gunalan Nadarajan (USA/Singapore) and Yoshioka Hiroshi (Japan), co-artistic directors of Ogaki Biennale 2006, two days ago became the opportunity to discuss and debate media art practices in the Philippines, Asia and the rest of the world. Again, it was made possible through the openness and generosity of the Ateneo Art Gallery and its curator, Richie Lerma. It is perhaps not presumptuous to say that the forum/presentation was special, as Guna himself also admitted. I believe the forum/discussion was special because it somewhat diverged from the established protocols of artistic presentations to an international “biennale” selection committee.The call to participate in the forum/presentation was made public - through public mailing lists and individual email invitations to artists, galleries, organizations and artist’s groups. I thought that this was unusual because I do remember how some artists would speak in low whispers whenever a foreign curator arrived for purposes of selecting artists for an international exhibition. Supposedly, the intention was to inform only those who are best suited to present to the selection committee, and thus prevent a stampede. I liked the way Filipino artist Lena Cobangbang (on the Filipino performance artist Mideo Cuz’s Artforum Yahoogroups) described the scene of the selection for the Venice Biennale: “Di naman kaya parang pilahan ng portfolio pa rin to na parang nag-aaply sa Saudi?”
Even more telling was how Lena described the power of curators:
“Yet there’s always this picture in my head of the curator as a globe-trotting, intellectual tyrant balancing chardonnays and moets and pates in one hand, and volumes of french art theory in the other while looking through tiny opera glasses the improvised portfolios of artists all queuing up for a millisecond of the curator’s time. Of course he/she wouldn’t be looking at the works that much as he/she is trying to label each one according to a historic/stylistic/theoretical model, ennunciating so carefully the term for the eavesdropping neophyte.”
The source of the power of curators are the artists themselves. Thus, the limits of a curator’s tyranny is defined by the artist. It is quite right, then, in the midst of the lively discussions at the forum/presentation, what Guna remarked that it is the artist and not the theorist or curator who defines the categories of art. Although I would only agree to the indirect implications of this remark - that is, it is the artist who serves as fodders for the theorist/curators’ can(n)ons - I would not agree to this in practice, that is, I would interpret this in terms of the theorist/curator’s power to define the limits by which an artist creates his or her art.
That these issues at all came up at the forum/presentation was important. Thanks to Guna’s query, at the very start of the open discussion after the presentations, pertaining to the anxieties (if any) towards the term “new media.” Thanks to Trevor Batten’s persistent criticality, these issues were pursued, and thanks to the articulations of Tad Ermitaño (his parallelisms with discussions in the field of music were very useful) and the honest involvement of the artists, the forum/presentation did not degenerate into cutthroat competition for a place in the biennale.
Hiroshi, who teaches at the IAMAS which organizes the Ogaki Biennale, also presented a very unique position. The fact that the biennale takes place within the context of a “small quiet town” of Ogaki in Gifu as opposed to the spectacular cities within which “biennale cultures” are organized proposes the viability of small, alternative and fairly independent creative communities concerned with what are often regarded as big and ambitious projects involving high technology. Beyond the hype of technology having the “power to change the world and the way we live,” Ogaki proposed the re-thinking of our relationships with technology to the simple and the basic. Perhaps only through the small-scale and independent is it truly possible (and safe!) to question many of the most tenacious perpetuations and assumptions we have been bombarded with through media, society and our education.
This forum/presentation on media art was another valuable learning experience for me - although all the lessons are yet to be fully gleamed. The diversity of works presented - from paintings (Jevijoe Vitug) to video (Yason Banal, Eileen Legaspi-Ramirez for Claro Ramirez), performances (Ronaldo Ruiz, Kleng/Jeffrey for Mideo Cruz/NewWorldDisorder and Mannet Villariba and friends from Tupada) to prints (Amiel Roldan) and sound (Jing Garcia and Tad) - for one, tells me much about our potential conceptualizations of media or new media art: conceptualizations that have the potentiality to articulate itself outside of the biases of the “international” epistemologies (or the dominant nature of thinking) within “new media.”
My own position on this issue is a concern with “articulation,” beginning with three functions within which I see art:
First, that of art as a tool for means of expressing and exploring structure; Second, that of art as a means of exploring the intellectual and sensorial aspects of media; and Third, that of art as developing a self-consistent language system.
Language is particularly important to me: if language is the medium by which concepts are internalized and externalized (as Jesus Peralta would say), then it must constitute a very significant aspect of the creative process. It is crucial how artists develop their own language of art - that is, how artists articulate their creative spaces.
In language or speech (mechanical, vocal or other), “articulation” is characterized by division into syllables and words. This makes it possible to distinguish articulate sounds from other sounds. In “articulation”, precision, logic, rules and grammar are crucial. The articulation of space involves language, grammar and rules. It demonstrates the computation of structure and meaning within the limits of insufficient information. These processes enable a structure upon which meaning is articulated, rather than simply being a representation through which meaning is conveyed.
Within our media environment, our education and the society which enforces it, is the systematic destruction of the need and the ability to develop our own languages. I can identify the elements of this mediatization, education and society, as such:
First is the mind/body problem; Second, the “bilang”-“isip” (number-thinking) split; and Third, the divide between mathematics and symbolic logic, between science and art.
These constitute the destruction of “articulation”, the modern and high-tech destruction of “articulation” – sometimes we call this “postmodernism” or the “computer age”, or the “information society.” The loss and destruction of “pagtutumpak”, of “computing”, in our language, thinking and perception is manifested in the diminishing of our capacity for understanding based on precision, rule-making, and language building.
But if we can identify how we are being destroyed, then we can develop a means of survival. I would liken this to what Guna called “the pessimism of the intellect and the optimism of the will.”
Thus, out of the process of “articulation,” I have developed a concept of “Aesthetic Equilibrium”: The inter-flowing of kaluluwa (knowledge), ginhawa (body) and wika (language) that describe the elements of buhay (life) and bisá (life force). With these three, is it possible to envision art as truly sustainable and life-giving: an art capable of expressing and exploring structure (kaluluwa/knowledge); an art capable of exploring the intellectual and sensorial aspects of media (ginhawa/body); and an art capable of developing a self-consistent language system (wika/pagsasagisag).
I believe that that these three elements comprise aesthetic equilibrium, a computational process in the achievement of balance taking into account the organism, the environment and the symbolization that ensues from the fact of life and life force.
After many years of mis-education, and after several years of mis-use of art, I can hopefully move forward with these realizations, although they are still evolving and developing. I am not, however, as excited to start making art again (for some yet undefined reason). What I am sure of is that I would really like to have a nice and quiet (perhaps long-term) vacation in the countryside. 
