my photo essay

guys, i really tried my best to post my photo essay pero wala’y nahitabo. i might blame it to my outdated info bank bwt technology. you might as well want to click on this sight to view my photo essay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Z3InWqToEc

that’s the best i can do for now. and that’s the best you might want to do to help me with this. thanks!

p.s. i hope you’ll see the flashes of photos the way i wanted to mean by it. btw, it’s entitled “BLOCKED VIEW”. salamat!

 credits:

>www.flickr.com

>fireandgrace.splinder.com

>www.ayishaknight.com

>www.facades.us

>techcrazy.theppn.org

>www.tropicalisland.de

>www.borglum.net

hay, ambot nalang gyud guys!
kung dili pa gani ni mu-epekto, i-click nalang gyud ang link sa taas. salamat!

BLOCKED VIEW

 This is composed of pictures taken from different sources which I failed to mention in my faint hope, which by the way turned to dismay, of submitting this project on time. I deeply apologize for that. Anyway, I hope you’ll see this the way I want to mean by it. Enjoy!=>

citizen kane

wala lang

kaleidoscope

I knew it! When I read through the entire article on Performance Art by Noël Carroll, I thought I was enlightened in how the Cremaster’s Cycle by Mathew Barney should be viewed at.
At first, I was really puzzled at such abstract things in the film. Almost nothing bound them together to make them interconnected and comprehensive. Whenever I see a movie, especially if my assessment is preempted by an information or comment by those who have already watched it; that the story is intellectually intimidating, I tend to look for meaning and symbolism in every gesture, or every angle of the scene, or in other elements of the film just to dig out the connection between these things to know the story. But I seem to find none when I was watching Cremaster’s Cycle.
However, contemporary art is a kaleidoscope of performance “numbers”, as represented by the cabaret show entitled “Lulu”. This, then, gave me the idea that Mathew Barney’s Cremaster’s Cycle, which falls under Performance Art, also presents a kaleidoscope image of what contemporary art covers. The different levels of the gallery (of which name I cannot recall) bears different forms of Art, but are all in the contemporary style. One level showcased a rock concert while another presented what seemed to be a musical, as a bunch of girls, neatly dressed with bunny headdresses, compressed with each other and pranced to a tune that only them seemed to hear. At the same time, a man seemed to be making his masterpiece of an abstract expressionism using liquefied wax at one level and a feline girl sat on an elevated corner of another level, licking her body parts while triggered by the presence of Barney who tried to climb higher towards the top of the gallery, and back to the bottom. When we look at the spiral structure of that part of the gallery from the top, we would see a kaleidoscope of performances and other contemporary art forms. For me, all of such are presented in abstract form to portray a sense of generalization or holistic approach to each field of art that they represented, considering the many categories or genres that still fall under each form of art.
For me, the whole performance basically presented a holistic view of the various contemporary arts, zoomed out from a detailed way of seeing each art form. Perhaps, it wanted to convey a message that we should not confine our appreciation of art in the frame of paintings or in the walls of a theater house, but that we should have an eye for every work of art. Also, contemporary art may be a bastardization of the classical art to many people. But we should think that art evolves through time and its content and origin, say the emotion or mood of a painter for abstract expressionism, also changes (e.g. from the popular portraits of influential people in the society to the figures of various emotions and scenes in our daily lives).

“Unaccessorized” stripped

    I didn’t see him on TV in the program “Queer Eye for the Straight Guy” nor did I hear of him in Philippine media saying “another Filipino made it to the TV screens of America,” or any noise that he could make. But Rich Kiamco made it to UP Mindanao the best way he could.
Allow me to borrow NYTheatre’s comment posted on those blue glossy flyers distributed to the viewers: sparkling, warm and funny are indeed the words fit to describe such performance, and a solo one at that. It was brilliant of him to interweave such characteristics that a typical Filipino seeks in an entertaining play. If every part of it is the accurate account of Kiamco’s life, then those best represented a warm story. Putting it in the Philippine context, his struggles, although mostly presented in a funny way, are the same struggles that a Filipino gay experiences. Families generally do not welcome such sexual preference from among their children, to think that it is basically the group of people whom a person should open up and be honest with. So people like Rich try to find it – the situation where they can come out totally and solicit openness from the people around – in other things and places. The same thing happened to Rich when he traveled to New York to fulfill his dream of becoming a fashion designer. Yet all throughout the play, it seemed that his family frequently intervenes in his life, trying to pull him back to who they want him to be.
This very part makes the story a “good story” since it presented the highlights of Rich’s life that would best represent the thought that it wanted to deliver. It grounded on his early years as an overachieving boy trapped in a traditional Filipino kind of rearing and unhappy with his family’s manipulation of his life. Aside from that , it relayed a real scenario, as I have added earlier, of a gay’s life. It doesn’t stray away from what a typical “Juana dela Cruz” (a name I started coining to Filipino gays when I took Anthropology 1) experiences. And as a character, Rich depicted the usual gay that we find nowadays, and was consistent about it. Analyzing further, Rich depicted the Dionysian character of the story who wanted to freely express himself and what he truly feels. And he did not somehow fail to grant his desires as he went to NYC and attended in a fashion school, began his career as fashion designer and other related jobs, had a love affair with an extremely wealthy man, and most of all, went public to come out. Of course, the Appolonian character was constantly depicted by none other than his beloved family who repressed him of his true self and tried to manipulate his whole life to become the ideal son that they wanted him to be.
Taking off from the Character aspect, the Diction or use of words in the story further elevated its rating. The lines were clear because of the use of simple and understandable words since most of it were conversational, adding to its closeness to reality. The thought, likewise, were in the same line since the personages’ thought were revealed through their lines and actions. Furthermore, they were consistent with the kind of character that they were, all persistent in their own way: Rich with his desires to freely express himself; and his parents with their manipulative attitude to change their gay son. Spectacle, then, seems in parallel with the preceding elements because, like Diction, it is also the venue for the audience to see through the characters’ minds. And since the element of thought was consistent in every character, the spectacle also showed the same quality in the story.
There was also this part of the story that I noticed. Rich included a scene in his play about his dream which he described to be peculiar and something that he could not figure out. And it’s the same description that Freud gave to dreams. Similar to how everybody would describe it, dreams are disjointed patches of events that do not make an overall sense. But significantly, these images are our drives that compete with each other to appear in our subconsciousness. And in Rich’s case, that image in his dream has a role in his real life, seemingly telling him that he will be in that place in the future. Such quality is also present in most people’s dreams, wherein we suddenly notice that a place or scenario seems familiar and something that we’ve been to or we have experienced, wherein we frequently use the expression “Deja vu!”    Well, if I am to assess Rich Kiamco’s “Unaccessorized” based on Aristotle’s requirement for a good play, it is undoubtedly good. But setting aside the standards for a good play, the word “unaccessorized” says it all. It is close to reality instead of fantasy, relaying Rich’s wanting to be true, to be himself, and to be unaccessorized.

poetics (a review) and nietzsche

poetics: character, diction, thought, spectacle, song

he somehow makes sense…

Aristotle’s concept on imitation seems tempting to agree upon. Every point presented in his Poetics is backed up with examples, and what’s amazing is that my mind seems automatic in providing samples to concretize such points. What I mean by this is that every point to support such concept traces into a real experience in my past to serve as application or explanation. For example, the following lines of his seem realistic:

“… Imitation is natural to man from childhood, one of his advantages over the lower animals being this, that he is the most imitative creature in the world, and learns at first by imitation…”

Such point can be grounded upon observing babies, as it is seemingly apparent on the last few words. Babies indeed learn their first gesture, their first word, and most “first” things that they do on their own by following the people around them – mother, father, siblings, etc. They learn their first “mama” by listening to and observing their surroundings refer the same word to the woman whom they are with most, if not, all of the time. They do their first “align” and “approve” hand gestures to follow the person in their front doing the same, so on, and so forth. And so the parents teach the babies how to spoon food, how to do “close-open” and “Twinkle, twinkle little star” actions, and other things. So basically, we learn at first by imitation.
By the time that these babies grow up and become us, right now, going to school, making friends, going out and watching movies or theater plays, we tend to like more of those things that are close to reality. Like in the movies or TV series that we watch, the most likeable character or the best actor or actress is the one who acts naturally, like how we, the viewers, would tend to act in a similar situations. At the moment, Kasal, Kasali, Kasalo is the most popular MMFF entry among my classmates. And as we know, Judy Ann Santos and Gina Pareño were hailed Best Actress and Best Supporting Actress respectively. For me, they received such distinguished awards because they all act naturally, as if putting themselves in the character’s shoes. You don’t notice awkward points in their acting, wherein there seem to be a barrier between them and their characters. In other words, we also like those that can imitate what is real and natural, or those things that are close to reality. Even in movies of fantasy, they still inject reality in their stories like the lines that the actors deliver or the lesson that emanates from it. Like Aristotle’s view on what is good plot, good character, good diction and thought – those that are close to reality.
It’s hard to put a boarder between this concept of imitation, as innate to humans, and my concept on humans as instruments of God to materialize His ideas rather than imitators of original idea which I raised in my previous article entitled “We’re no copycat”.
But I guess, they still do not meet. I just can’t draw the line between them. Perhaps that’s what I am to find out.

antigong agong

I was almost amazed by the musical play Antigong Agong, as was expressed by my participation in the standing ovation at the end of the show, when we dissected it in the class and applied theories in it. Right then and there, I realized that htere is more to seeing beauty in that play than appreciating its physical aspect like the execution of the performers and the stage set-up along with the muscial aspect of it all. The story, and how it was constructed from the original event, was the foundation of the play, and of every play as well, thus, it should receive not only attention, but focus from the audience. What I mean by this is that we should consider how the story flowed and not just how it was packaged, since I could say that nowadays, we tend to generally appreciate a presentation based on how artistic and physically appealing it is.     Nevertheless, Antigong Agong did not miss that part, if we are to base our evaluation on how close the story was to Freytag’s Triangle. As what we noticed in the story, more than one conflict were present – one arising after another. Yet if we are going to zoom out, we can see that the whole story has a man vs. man conflict only. In other words, those “sub-conflicts” in the story arose because those parts of the story that presented sub-conflicts were the highlight of he actual story which ocurred more than 100 years ago. These highlights were put together, making up the whole story, since presenting it blow-by-blow is impossible first, because it would take us the same long time it took the story to happen, and second, perhaps because we don’t have the accurate blow-by-blow record of such history.

we’re no copycat

We never forget how most of us struggle for a perfect answer to an innocent question on whether or not everything, including the houses and things made by humans, are also created by God just because they are told that God made everything on earth. And so we’d postpone our answer until those children grow up and mature and discover the answer on their own, instead. So how does God really intervene with these things?

Indeed, Plato had enough logic to persuade his readers in the Book X of the Republic. Who wouldn’t nod her/his head in agreement to the argument he presented in the dialogue? I guess it would even be more appealing for devoted Christians since Plato here acknowledged, instead of disproving, the presence of a God, which is very important to them. As we all know, many philosophers were criticized by claiming that no God exists. Plato, in this case, freed himsilf from such claims and thus, from ennecessary criticisms. Moreover, he recognized the superiority of god, by claiming that the original form of something came from Him and we are but imitators of the original. Thus, it appears to be paying due respect to God and His works and putting God in the topmost level, which is somehow in line with the goals of Christians: to put God first in their lives.

However, his argument on imitation has not taken me. I beg to disagree that we are just imitators of the original. In line with the counter-argument of one of Plato’s students, whose name I barely remember, it must be that God provided the “concept” of a thing, like a bed, through our minds. Likewise, due to its necessity on our part, we make or produce something out of that concept. We make that concept tangible, thus, usable. It is our responsibility, therefore, as His very able creations, to bring that concept into existence and to put it into use. Thus, similar to the counter-argument of Plato’s students, we create a manifestation, instead of an imitation, of that concept that he provided.

Since Plato acknowledged the presence of God, let’s go back to the very basic and base this biblically on the Book of Genesis since this is when the earth was on its primary form yet – land, seas, trees, mountains, crawling and flying creatures. Everything was God-made, and so were Adam and Eve. Yet when they were banished from the Garden, they created the first manifestation, or imitation if we are to allow Plato’s concept to apply here, by making what appeared to be heir clothes made of leaves to cover their bodies. yet if we are to say that Adam and Eve were creations of God, so are their minds and souls. Thus, God also provided them the concept of a dress or a covering of the body. And if we are to claim that we, too, are creations of God, and so with our minds and souls, God, then, is the Provider of the concept or the original form of a thing. In this way, God is still the primary being in our lives.

So the next time that we are asked with the same question as I raised at the beginning of this article, don’t just say, “It’s a different kind of story, my dear” or “You won’t understand yet” or “It’s hard to explain, sweetie”. Instead, we can throw a reasonable alibi and say that God provided the knowledge and ability to human beings to make the things that we need and we use. Besides, you could cut the long dialogue with the curious child and end by telling her/him to pray for her/his needs and wishes so that God will grant them.