Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

My caregiver has just finished making a crocheted beaded hat for her friend who will be leaving for Mauritius soon. It’s quite nice though I’d like to have more beads on it! And today, a friend of hers who does reflexology massage and is a novice of the Sisters of Chartres (or something like that! ) saw the hat, she liked it so much that he asked if my caregiver could make one for her nieces.

Anyhow, the hat reminded me of an event in Australia that had lots of beanies in it, the Alice Springs Beanie Festival. It seemed a really fun event. On their website it said:

In the vast Anangu Pitjantjatjara Yankunytjatjara Lands of Australia’s Central Desert the traditional people (Anangu) have been making and wearing beanies for all of time. Traditionally in Pitjantjatjara and Luritja languages beanies were called ‘mukata’. If you venture further south-west, then the language is Yankunytjatjara, where they call them ‘muna’. The Walpari people of theTamami Desert, north-west of Alice Springs call beanies ‘mukati’. All languages are dynamic and these days lots of people in the centre just call beanies mukata.

This year we celebrate mukata made from emu feathers, seeds and yarns spun in the old way that embody the Central Desert. They remind us you can tell people’s address by their head-dress – whether it’s a chullo from Peru, a fez from Morocco, a beret from France, or a ushanka from Russia. What’s your head-dress? We invite beanieologists everywhere to join us by making beanies with your own traditional twist.

The colors and designs of the beanies are really beautiful works! My caregiver has been jealous ever since and wishes she could go to Australia! Or better, she could start a festival here herself with two or three manangs in Vigan. Actually, I don’t see why there shouldn’t be such a similar event in Baguio City …

Then just a couple of days ago her husband got an email about the 1st Nauvoo Quilt Festival in Nauvoo, Illinois, USA. The quilts looked really nice … Really lovely patterns. I imagine they’re quite complex to make (they also have a Quilt Design and Execution lecture called “Quilting with Both Sides of the Brain”!) Well I suppose a good quilter should be able to work not only with both sides of the brain but also see with eyes in opposite directions!

I am inspired!

You are invited to

Korakora Proyekto: Open On-Line Dialogue
“Surfers or Serfs: Digital Freedom or Digital Feudalism?”
From 26 February - 26 Marck 2008
http://korakora.org/proyekto/dfd08/

An on-line event organized in conjunction with
Document Liberation and Open Standards
26 March 2008 Document Freedom Day
http://documentfreedom.org/

In response to efforts of promoting, adopting and raising awareness for Free Document Formats and Open Standards, the Philippines-based art initiative Korakora.org is organizing an open on-line dialogue entitled “Surfers or Serfs: Digital Freedom or Digital Feudalism?”

Within the context of issues addressed within the free, open-source, and open-standards community, “Surfers or Serfs” seeks to investigate realities of Freedom within the Culture of Ignorance: Are humans being turned into machines so others can exploit them without them questioning their own slavery? Why do we consider somebody “computer literate” when they can only operate the controls of a commercial computer system?

“Surfers or Serfs” also seeks to interrogate the methodologies of “free, open-source, and open-standards” from a broad philosophical perspective, in particular, the celebrated shift from the image of the computer as a complex rule based simulation system to a simple communication device that has enabled the computer to be commercially and politically exploited as a (postmodern) propaganda machine.

“Surfers or Serfs: Digital Freedom or Digital Feudalism?” opens 26 February and runs until Document Freedom Day March 26, 2008. The on-line dialogue is created and facilitated by Fatima Lasay (PH) and Trevor Batten (UK). To participate, go to http://korakora.org/proyekto/forum/4

About the Document Freedom Day:

The Document Freedom Day (DFD) is a global day for Document Liberation. It is a day of grassroots effort around the world to promote and build awareness for the relevance of Free Document Formats in particular and Open Standards in general. The DFD is supported by a large group of organisations and individuals, including, but not limited to Ars Aperta, COSS, Esoma, Free Software Foundations Europe and Latin America, IBM, NLnet, ODF Alliance, OpenForum Europe, OSL, iMatix, Red Hat, Sun Microsystems, Inc., The Open Learning Centre, Opentia, Estandares Abiertos.

About Korakora Proyekto:

Proyekto is an exercise in mindful building and constructing (language-making) as antidotes to distortions of the mind: if it is true that language deceives us then maybe at least language-making may allow us to lay the land to see where deceptions and distortions lie. Proyekto is maintained by Fatima Lasay, artist/writer based in the Philippines.

Trevor Batten is a British pioneer computer artist, making his first computer drawing in 1967. From 1972 to 1984, he devoted study and research on his concept of Cross-Media Mapping at the Instituut voor Sonologie, Rijksuniversiteit Utrecht, the Netherlands. In 1987, he was invited to the International UNESCO Seminar “Synthesis: Visual Arts in the Electronic Culture” in Offenbach/Main FDR. Trevor Batten was teacher of Media Art at the AKI School of Fine Art in Enschede, the Netherlands,1988 to 1999. He now resides in the Philippines.

Fatima Lasay is an artist, writer, and independent curator. She was professor of industrial design, computer art and art theory (1996-2004) at the University of the Philippines where she developed its first computer art electives and organized the Digital Media Festivals (2000-2003). In 2004, she was artist-in-residence with Ecole Cantonale d’Art du Valais in Sierre, Switzerland, and NICA in Rangoon, Burma. She has curated exhibitions, conducted workshops, and has been invited and given grants to Europe and Asia to present her work and theories on the socio-political dimensions of technology.

The long wait at the National Statistics Office yesterday allowed me to complete two rows of crochet - this is just the long screening queue (we got number 5,796 and number 4,000 was being served when we arrived). There was, of course another long queue for payment but it wasn’t possible to do any crochet work since we were moving from seat to seat as the line moved up.

It was in total over 4 hours waiting time, just to apply for an NSO-authenticated marriage certificate. In fairness, everything was rather orderly, and everyone worked really very hard.

By the time we finished the last stage of the process (payment), there was just a few people left and some of the NSO employees at the screening areas, mostly women, were preparing for their trip home - combing their hair, putting on make-up, etc. It was past 6PM when we finished. The women at the cashier looked really quite tired. Security personnel have started to relax and rest a bit.

I’m quite used to endless queues, something that the university was notoriously known for during registration of classes, at least way back in the mid-80s. I suspect things have greatly improved since a Computerized Registration System, was implemented some 15 or so years later.

The sight of everyone working really hard and working very courteously, and people in line defending the queue when someone tries to jump queue, makes all the waiting much easier to bear. In fact, it becomes a socially interesting experience.

Only in visa application queues at foreign embassies do I feel much revolt. The situation is very different — the people behind the counters work very slowly, almost deliberately slow, as the queues outside get bigger and more tense. The people behind the counters - protected by thick glass panels - also engage in their own special brand of harassment, a brand picked up from the colonial experience. Talking to people I have met in the queues, most of them are desperate to leave the country, and thus are at the mercy of the embassy staff.

So now the embassies employ means to make the harassment less visible (no more queues) and even more profitable (calling up a toll number for application appointments).

I guess queues are an effective way of keeping people too busy to think and question the systems which drive them to do the things that they do. So in this sense, queues aren’t really any different from the grind of the 9-5 work, whether sitting behind the desk or shuttling across town or country for meetings and conferences (one even gets paid for these sort of things).

The memory of my father sitting outside our house looking into the distance gives me a most melancholy feeling. It gives the same melancholy feeling when he looked at me for the last time, just a few hours before he died. It is like a rare glimpse into enlightenment, the only true existent state, when one has stepped out of the queue, the grind, the cyclic existence.

This is probably why “retirement” (stepping out of the queue) means to me a wonderful contemplation that busy and ambitious people can’t interpret outside of their attachments (such as income, ego, drive and motivation, career). Surely, I am becoming more and more in disagreement with others about the external sensible world…

Continuing my account of our recent visit to Bohol. At the moment I am preparing the photos I took for Sandy’s book. It is a book about Spanish colonial church music in Bohol, in particular Baclayon. Below is a photo I took of the Kirial de esta Yglesia de Baclayon año 1826.

And below is a photo of Baclayon church interior.

After taking photos of the choir books (kirial) and musical instruments kept in Baclayon parish, we proceeded to Loon church to take photos of the old pipe organ there. The organ was in dire need of restoration - which should be soon after Baclayon’s own pipe organ is brought back from restoration work (and of course as funds permit). Below is a photo of the Loon church pipe organ as seen from the doorway to the belltower.

I also took a photo of the Loon church interior, below.

From Loon, we proceeded to Loay. Below is a photo of the pipe organ which has been restored and therefore in use during church service.

Below is a photo of the Loay church interior.

Then from Loay, we went on to Loboc. The pipe organ there has also been restored. Below is a photo of the organ and the church interior.

I also took a photo of the choirloft, below.

The day after, I set off to take photos of the famous Loboc Children’s Choir. Below is one of photos I took while rehearsing in the Loboc church convent. The interior is absolutely amazing.

Later that afternoon, the kids all ran off to the other side of the river where they were scheduled to perform with the Little Companion Art Troupe from Shanghai. Below, I took a photo of the kids coming down after they crossed the infamous “stupid bridge”!

The collaborative concert was marvelous! The kids from China were really good too, and I especially loved the girl who played the ban-hu. Anyway, below is a photo of both children’s choirs together on stage.

And below is a photo of the musical director and teacher of the Loboc Children’s Choir, Madam Alma Taldo.

The thought of coming home - back to Manila - was awful, as it was awful when I concluded my research in Bohol in 1999. Maybe someday I will be back to Bohol to stay for good.

Below is a photo I took of Bohol’s beautiful coastline, on our flight back to Manila.

The rest of our Bohol photos are at the Korakora Gallery.

Last night I spent some time finishing up the crocheted sleeveless blouse that I started ages ago - and finally finished it! I even had time to finish mending the hem of Trevor’s new trousers.

The work may seem boringly domestic, but I am very glad to accomplish these things, especially the crochet. I also got two knitting magazines at the book-sale for only PhP20 each! Now I’m continuing the pink and gray sleeveless blouse that I started making several weeks (maybe a month or 2) ago.

Anyway, below is a photo of the crocheted olive-yoke sleeveless top that I finished yesterday. I might decide to wear it tonight when Trevor and I go out for dinner (with Edward and Tarsie, of course).

The pattern, hopefully, will be on-line someday!

Spam today, spam yesterday, spam tomorrow. Spam is now an inevitable part of our email life. My spamtrap captures over 50 spam messages a day. Trevor’s email system filters out probably even more. Sometimes a few manage to pass through, and provide some entertaining reading.

A more recent one in circulation is an offer from a fellow called George.

Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2008 12:41:51 +0100
From:
To: unlisted-recipients:; (no To-header on input)
Subject: Hello

Dear,

My name is Mr.George Manda. Please kindly allow me to inform you about this deal which I have been wrapping up for years now, and which I will love to do with you as it is the reason why I have contacted you. Although this proposal may come to you as a suprise, but I would want you to understand that this deal is 100% legal and risk free, though it requires confidentiality. What I need from you is trust and your honest coperation for us to execute this project for our benefit only. If you really believe in deal, get back to me or give me a call on my private telephone number for details. I await your urgent response.

Have my best regards.
Mr.George Manda
+22508900599

Not only is this spam, it is also a scam, and many of us are already familiar with such proposals. Recent events however, revealed to me how scams such as these take place around us everyday in less obvious ways. In retrospect, I see now how a project that we signed into just a month ago has transformed itself into its own version of a Nigerian scam.

Thus ends the well-meaning and ambitious project Websining Process/yon (but surely not the spirit of Process/yon which will live on elsewhere). Perhaps this was what the ominous old man and the ominous crying woman was all about - the signs were there, and my own intuition was telling me not to get anywhere near potentially dirty politicking in the neo-colonial art scene. But I re-interpreted the signs and pushed on, out of naive idealism.
The ordeal brought the project team closer through a re-affirmation of our values and principles. At a meeting the other day we refuted calmly all malice and deliberate mis-contextualizations thrown at us by the new head. No fit of victim rage, despite the injustices, harassment and threats - I still believe in karma.

And as Al told us, “But let us not talk of valedictories…there is much work to do and much to change in this country (or world) of our sorrows…”

And next time, especially when the signs of danger are not so obvious, I will heed my intuitions.

Or was it hopeless but not helpless?

Whatever an old news report on the crisis in Germany actually stated (as far as Trevor could remember), those were reflective of my own sentiments as I deleted the entire Korakora Proyekto website and - a few weeks later - resurrected it. Thus, the new Korakora Proyekto.

Some two months earlier, Indi asked if she could include Proyekto in a study “of the practice of civil society media by artists and technology experts as citizens and media activists.”

To me, it was initially an encouragement to keep Proyekto going. Later, it became a challenge to shut the whole thing down and re-think.

Indi mentioned James Hamilton’s proposal for possibilities for alternative media to move away from mainstream media’s patterns of consumption:

• strive for an everyday, spontaneous, non corporate mode of organization that requires little if any capital outlay;

• should be part of other realms of life instead of divorced from them;

• should erase the division between producers and consumers and become popular means of cultural organization and exploration instead of individualised media products to consume. (Hamilton 2000: pp 370-371)

Recently, I realized that these are similar to what corporate and mainstream media networks have been doing since the “Web 2.0″ propaganda, and the 1999 Clue Train Manifesto that gave the old corporate firewalls new ropes for turning even the most resistant or isolated of people into (hyperlinked) markets. What happened was that civil society (and similar) tactics got hi-jacked by the very elements that civil society itself was trying to critique, oppose or open alternatives to.

Again, this reminds me of the old Chinese adage, if the wrong man uses the right means, the right means turn out the wrong way.

The reincarnated Proyekto is not a media activists tool anymore nor does it operate in the context of advocating communications and media democracy. With “peoples of the earth” now migrated to markets and consumers, communications and media democracy merely hyperlink them. What I need is a medium (a language) to protect myself from this global anathema - an antidote to distortions of the mind: if it is true that language deceives us then maybe at least language-making may allow us to lay the land to see where deceptions and distortions lie.

Helpless but not hopeless? Will see …