End Frame 3 and Finale Art File present Wanted: Tubero, solo exhibition by Claro Ramirez

END FRAME VIDEO ART PROJECT 3, the 2011-2012 Philippine Video Art Festival,

with Finale Art File presents

WANTED: TUBERO

a solo exhibition by Claro Ramirez

Opening on 6 October 2011, Thursday, 6 pm.

Artist talk on 22 October, Saturday, 4 pm. Exhibition runs until 27 October.

A prequel to Claro Ramirez’s offering for the upcoming 2011 Jakarta Biennale, Wanted: Tubero features an initially minimal installation of television monitors connected with PVC pipes. During the exhibition opening and throughout the show’s run, visitors will be invited to adjoin to the installation through available pipes which may be connected to the existing work. Wanted: Tubero, particularly within the arts, emphasizes the importance of engagement, participation and community. Ideas that are reflected as well in the monitors' content, the televisions play videos of other artists’ work as well as Ramirez’s own. The process of audience involvement in the installation will also be documented to eventually become a part of the evolving work.

Wanted: Tubero is the 10^th solo exhibition of Claro “Chitz” Ramirez, who practices both as an artist and curator. A recipient of the Thirteen Artists Award in 2000, Ramirez’s works are often site-specific installations, attached to the exhibition space, context and audience. With the latter, he gives particular value to reception, connection and interactivity. Having studied Commercial Arts in the University of Santo Tomas and Fine Arts in the University of the Philippines, Ramirez held his first solo show in 1996 and has been exhibiting his video installations since 2002. From 2005, he has also been acting as consultant for Lopez Memorial Museum in artistic direction and in multimedia exhibitions.

Ramirez’s Wanted: Tubero is the third offering of End Frame Video Art Project 3, a project of the non-profit organization Visual Pond. Throughout the Philippine video art festival, artists stage a solo show presenting new video work in various venues from 2011 to 2012. Curated by Clarissa Chikiamco, the theme of the third edition, Present, refers to the current project’s focus on the video art practices of selected Philippine contemporary artists. Ramirez’s exhibition follows the End Frame 3 shows of Tad Ermitaño and Manny Montelibano and will be followed by the exhibitions of Kiri Dalena, Yason Banal, Kaloy Olavides and Maria Taniguchi.

The show opens at the Video Room of Finale Art File on 6 October 2011, Thursday, at 6 pm. An artist talk will be held at 4 pm on 22 October, Saturday, and the exhibition runs until 27 October 2011. Finale Art File gallery hours are Monday to Saturday, 10 am to 7 pm. Finale is located at Warehouse 17, La Fuerza Compound, 2241 Don Chino Roces Avenue, Makati Metro Manila with telephone number (632) 813-2310, 812-5034. For more on Visual Pond projects and End Frame 3, visit http://www.visualpond.org or call Rica Estrada at +63917-8170198 or email visualpond@gmail.com.

End Frame 3: documentation of Manny Montelibano's exhibition Sorry for the Inconvenience

Below is a photo slideshow of Manny Montelibano's End Frame 3 exhibition Sorry for the Inconvenience at Gallery Nova which ran from 13 August to 9 September 2011. End Frame Video Art Project 3 is the series of solo art exhibitions I'm curating which presents new video work in various venues from 2011-2012.



We're still working on the video documentation and will post it as soon as it's ready.

End Frame 3 and Gallery NOVA present SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE, an exhibition by Manny Montelibano

inviting everyone to my next curated exhibition opening this Saturday, 13 August 2011

End Frame Video Art Project 3, together with Gallery NOVA,

Presents SORRY FOR THE INCONVENIENCE, an exhibition by Manny Montelibano,

Opening on 13 August 2011, Saturday, 6.30 pm.

Artist Talk on 16 August, Tuesday, 6 pm. Exhibition runs until 9 September.

Visual Pond’s End Frame Video Art Project 3: Present, together with Gallery NOVA, presents Manny Montelibano’s Sorry for the Inconvenience, the latest exhibition of the 2011-2012 Philippine video art festival. The solo exhibition of Montelibano opens at Gallery NOVA on 13 August 2011, Saturday, at 6:30 pm with an artist talk on 16 August, Tuesday, at 6 pm.

Examining the idea of aggravating disturbances amidst the thrust for the public good, Sorry for the Inconvenience stages an audio-visual affront on the rhetoric of the politically powerful. In a gathering, manipulation and collision of declamations, the exhibition suggests of the all-consuming nature of dominance, which comes at both the impact and expense of others.

The show forms the fourth solo exhibition of the Bacolod-based Montelibano, who has been practicing as an artist and showing at various venues in Manila and the Visayas since 2002. Montelibano received his training through his experience as technical director at University of St. La Salle in Bacolod and through a 2004 director’s apprenticeship under filmmaker Peque Gallaga. Crossing fields, Montelibano is a member of the Black Artists in Asia Association Inc. and founded Bacollywood: The Visayan Film Festival. He also cofounded the production collective Produksyon Tramontina Inc. An active member of his community, he often shows in group exhibitions in his region. His other solo shows include Greater than or Equal to Infinity (Gallery NOVA, 2010), Escabeche: Filipino Sweet and Sour (Galleria Duemila, 2009) and PO Asa (Gallery Orange, 2008).

Montelibano’s Sorry for the Inconvenience is the second offering of End Frame Video Art Project 3, following Tad Ermitaño’s exhibition last January. Curated by Clarissa Chikiamco, the theme of the third edition, Present, refers to the current project’s focus on selected Philippine contemporary artists’ practices in video art. Throughout the festival, each artist stages a show presenting new video work in various venues from 2011 to 2012. Otherartists presenting for End Frame 3 include Claro Ramirez, Kiri Dalena, Yason Banal, Kaloy Olavides and Maria Taniguchi.

Sorry for the Inconvenience runs until 9 September 2011. Gallery NOVA, located at Warehouse 12A, La Fuerza Compound 2241 Don Chino Roces Avenue, Makati Metro Manila, is open Monday to Saturday from 11:00 am to 7:00 pm. RSVP for the artist talk at tel. no. (632) 392-7797 or +63922-8006925. For inquiries on Visual Pond projects and End Frame 3, call Rica Estrada at +63917-8170198 or email visualpond@gmail.com.

Brief statement on the reaction to Mideo Cruz's work

I am appalled and, at the same time, exasperated on the hysteria regarding Mideo Cruz's work Poleteismo which was exhibited at "Kulo" at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. I also condemn the closure and, in effect, censorship of the exhibition, the apparent result of the overwhelming threats against the people at CCP.

Regardless of the CCP being a state institution, the artist, like the other people in this country, has an absolute right to express himself, whether or not the majority will find this offensive. Democracy does not mean mob rule. There is a lot of rubbish as well being bandied about such as the art in CCP having to express Filipino values, Filipino identity. Pray tell, what are Filipino values? What is the Filipino identity? We are coming dangerously close to propaganda.

What kind of art would the majority like to find in CCP? Are we to put it to a vote? If we are to follow what the majority desires, we're going to wind up with a lot of terrible to substandard art in there. This is not to say that majority of Filipinos have bad taste. It is a natural occurrence in art that even works simply recognized as art are first recognized by a minority. It is why the art world uses the term avant-garde ("advance guard"/"front guard").

Mideo's work is not harming anyone (at least in the literal physical sense). He followed the guidelines of the allotted space by the guest curator, as selected by CCP. As a curator myself, I've seen a lot of works and exhibitions which I do not like but it does not give me any right at all to vandalize and/or remove it. If I don't like the work, I usually just ignore it. Sometimes I may discuss this with others but that is all.

For those who do not like Mideo's work, you can scream and beat your chest--you are well within your rights. But you should not take away that freedom from someone else.

It should be said as well that Mideo's artwork does not necessarily represent his personal views on religion. How an artist expresses his artistic identity can be very different from his personal identity. There are some artists who work autobiographically (think like van Gogh), which is the popular conception of the artist. Yet, many contemporary artists today work more like sociologists, doing interpretations and interventions from their observations on culture. Due to this nature, they are able to personally distance themselves from the work.

People are reading Mideo's work as an attack on Catholicism. I actually don't see the work that way. To me, his work is about iconography, colonialism and capitalism. But even if it were an attack on Catholicism, so what? Criticism against Catholicism - in particular Catholic fundamentalism - is fair. With the death threats that the artist has been getting, it just goes to show the great irony of certain Catholics and the Church in this country and also how object-oriented their faith is.

Video Voyage on 18 July 2011, Langgeng Art Foundation, Yogyakarta

MON 18 JUL 1830 – 2030

Langgeng Art Foundation
Jalan Suryodiningratan 37, Yogyakarta, Indonesia

+Video Voyage
An informal artist’s presentation (Allison Holt, U.S.A.) , Akiq AW (MES56, Indonesia) and a screening featuring new and recent video work from The Philippines curated and introduced by Clarissa Chikiamco (Manila). Followed by Q&A session. In English.

Clarissa Chikiamco (Manila, Philippines) is currently curating projects and doing research on video art in the Philippines. She is working with several artists presenting new video work while simultaneously investigating Philippine video art histories. In a state of flux, she is going back and forth between practice and research, presence and reversals. She will be talking about her current focus on video which has provoked self-reflexive interrogations on the idea of postmedium and curatorial identity.

From 2009 to 2010, Allison Leigh Holt lived and worked in Central Java as a J. William Fulbright Fellow through the U.S. Department of State, where the focus of her independent research was traditional Javanese concepts of multidimensional reality: the tools that traditional culture has developed to navigate it and the logic that underlies it. Through her own experience and the combined lenses of cognitive science, philosophy, science fiction, and theoretical physics, she explored Javanese methods of comprehension that extend beyond the world’s temporal and spatial limits, and the ancient system within which they function. In an open dialog format, Holt will present her ongoing research-in-progress, consisting of video-sculpture and diagrams created in collaboration with members of House Of Natural Fiber, as well as video performances, and examples of video and media coalitions arising in the USA.

“On Photographic Time and Motion” by Akiq AW (MES56, Indonesia) examines the complexity of the processes that occur in photography and video works; and in what so called relevant boundaries between these mediums. The process here refers to when a reality captured by the observer (the artist) using the recorder until being presented before the audience. In particular, this work focuses on the logic of photography, in the tension between the moving and still images. In the past, to capture a movement, photographer created her/his works with a slow speed or multiple expose that produced images as if it’s moving; but in fact the movement with certain duration cannot be presented because of the medium’s limitations, which is being printed on paper. Benefiting from the invention of digital cameras and digital photo frames, the technological barriers have disappeared. Photography can now show a sequence of motion in certain duration.Another issue is the boundary between photography and video. In this work, the observer is always in a constant position / not moving (such as in photography), but the objects that were recorded show minor movements. This is photography work that is videographic, as well as a video work being photographic. All three series in “On Photographic Time and Motion” represent tradition in photography and painting: portraiture, landscape and still life.

bedroomlab 2011 July 15 edition

BedroomLab functions as an informal art + tech + diybio platform, wherein open discussions, brainstorming sessions, lectures, network meetings, performances, hands-on workshops, demonstrations and public gatherings take place in people's living rooms, gardens, laboratories, and other intimate spaces.

What: BEDROOMLAB LECTURE SERIES
When: 7:00PM | July 15 Friday
Where: Clay Cafe, Makati City, Manila, Philippines, Earth, Milky Way
How: Facebook Event Page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=169433956457930
For Whom: artists, engineers, scientists, filmmakers, musicians, hackers, professionals, academics, curators, cinephiles, and everyone in similar and opposing fields.

THIS FRIDAY (JULY 15 / 7:30PM) in BEDROOMLAB LECTURE SERIES, we have Samuel André, an artist trained in mathematics, physical and cognitive sciences. A specialist in modeling systems and artificial human knowledge by neuroscience, cognitive psychology, human computer interaction, computer science and philosophy of the mind. He will be talking about his work and will be performing a live improvisation set using multicast (see computer networking) with multi-layered field recordings creating an intense and emotional universe that you pass through as a waking dream; like cinema for the ear. He will also conduct a “sound walk” workshop focusing on field recording and sound ecology on JULY 16 (details at the end).

Talking about sound, Mark Laccay a specialist on “audio tape restoration and digital audio archiving for heritage preservation” will be talking about the project on archiving The Jose Maceda Tapes. One of the most influential pioneers in the field of Asian avant-garde music and ethnomusicology, “Jose Maceda is one of the the most original and under appreciated composers in contemporary music. Maceda has been creating remarkable compositions, often for large ensembles of the same instrument for fifty years.” -Tzadik

Curator Lisa Chikiamco will be giving an introduction to her ongoing 2011-2012 curatorial project, End Frame Video Art Project 3: Present, a series of solo exhibitions of Philippine-based artists presenting new video work. The next End Frame 3 exhibition, featuring Manny Montelibano, opens on 13 August at Gallery Nova.

Photo-journalist Jes Aznar will discuss his documentary photography projects that deal with the issues of the Hacienda Luisita uprising and the Maguindanao conflict.

Musician-philanthropist Taylor Chase will talk about his band South of Market’s current project to aid abandoned and orphaned Filipino children through music and performance -- as well as the band’s dream of bringing high-profile rock bands to the Philippines to perform in the ultimate benefit concert.

And earlier during the evening, we’ll have a special film program at 7.30PM. In cooperation with .MOV, filmmaker Khavn de la Cruz presents “CINEMALAYO” a screening/lecture/performance centered around the extraordinary film “IDOL: Bida/Kontrabida”. A film that Jonathan L. Beller (a professor of Critical and Visual Studies at The Pratt Institute) calls “a brilliant farce.” “A film so unusual, provocative and at times shattering... that perhaps a new aesthetic category might be required here: ‘stuplime’ (a term Sianne Ngai defined as “ a syncretism of boredom and astonishment, of what "dulls" with what "irritates" or agitates, of excessive excitation with extreme desensitization or fatigue.)” A film with 5 and a half endings, and constantly riddled by the protagonist’s “falling down and getting up again, countering tragic failure with an accumulation of comic fatigues precisely characterizes the unsteady movement of the films’ protagonist Bayani Makapili, whose name in English means ‘Hero Traitor’... embodies the contradictions of the nation, has a form of heroism thrust upon him purely through circumstance, and his inadequacy to the task is so absurd that he betrays the role at every narrative turn, pointing out, as it were the farcical aspects of the conceit of the national hero, to the extent that the film itself can not move forward except as an over the top farce.” (J.L. Beller: Our Poverty Will Be Our Greatest Export” : Philippine Realism and the Poverty of Farce)

The night will conclude with musical performances from Thailand’s Neuter Lover, our very own Turbo Goth, Kate Torralba, with live drawing projections by Dex Fernandez plus more surprises!

FREE ADMISSION -- DONATIONS ACCEPTED

Lecturers:


SAMUEL ANDRE, a French sound artist
A sound artist & video artist trained in Mathematics, Physical Sciences, and Cognitive sciences, his research on musical interfaces led him to develop a sound project under the name of ieva which composed a music similar to imaginary journeys or aural short stories. For the past 2 years ago he started to practice improvisation multicast using multi layered field recordings that create an intense and emotionally universe that you pass through as a waking dream, like a cinema for the ear. He also directed several experimental films: abstraction and sensitivity, playing on the body of the digital image (pixelization, compression... He developed his approach in films more figuratively combining diary and man's relationship to nature.
He has worked with various artists in collaborative improvisation: dancers, composers, videographers and instrumentalists.
http://www.ieva-li.net/




KHAVN DE LA CRUZ, a filmmaker and musician
Khavn Dela Cruz (born 1973) is a Filipino poet, musician, and experimental filmmaker known for his no-budget films. He is considered as the father of Philippine digital filmmaking and has made more than twenty features and seventy short films that received acclaim internationally. He is the president of independent film company Filmless Films and the executive director of .MOV International Digital Film Festival.
http://khavndelacruz.org/


LISA CHIKIAMCO, a curator
Clarissa Chikiamco is a Manila-based independent art curator and writer. A magna cum laude graduate from Ateneo de Manila University, she took her master’s degree in Art Curatorship at the University of Melbourne through the merit-based Australian Endeavour Award. She received The Philippine Star’s Lifestyle Journalism Awards in arts and culture, was part of the Emerging Writers Program of Melbourne’s Gertrude Contemporary Art Spaces and was recently the researcher in residence at the Fukuoka Asian Art Museum.
http://writelisawrite.blogspot.com
http://www.visualpond.org


MARK LACCAY, audio archivist
Mark Laccay is an award winning audio engineer who is the CEO of Sonic Logo Multimedia Inc. and a former managing partner of Sweetspot Studios. He has worked as a sound designer for various films and is currently the main audio consultant for the "Dr. Jose Maceda Collection Digitization" Project. He has worked as an educator -- teaching audio production classes at DLSU-CSB. He recently returned from the Austrian Academy of Sciences where he acquired a certificate of Audio Tape Restoration and Digital Audio Archiving.


JES AZNAR, a photo-journalist
Jes Aznar is a documentary photographer whose works have tackled humanitarian issues such as land reform, poverty, civil conflicts, and disasters, and topics such as the Hacienda Luisita uprising, human conditions in urban dwellings, the war against diseases in Cambodia, humanitarian issues and the war in Mindanao, and the human trafficking issue in the Philippines and other parts of the world -- which recently won him the National Media Award for his photo essay on the lives of trafficked Filipinas in Sabah, Malaysia. His works has been published on the pages of The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, Time Magazine, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, Stern, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and Asia Geo magazine, among others.
http://folio.jesaznar.com/




TAYLOR CHASE, a musician and philanthropist
Taylor Herbert Chase is a musician and producer who is part of South of Market (SOMA), an alternative rock band originating from San Francisco, but composed of Filipino-Americans. The band is currently in the country to raise attention to the plight of the street children in the Philippines -- through music. This year, SOMA is launching its flagship project called THE MISSION POSSIBLE, a series of gigs for a cause benefiting Childsville, a child caring institution structured to educate orphans and offer them the hope of a better future. SOMA is also working on its future project -- a local benefit concert that will feature Grammy-awarded acts from the U.S.
http://childsville.com/




Performances:


NEUTER LOVER, a musician from Thailand
Neuter Lover is the name of a young female musician from Thailand who plays a blend of trip hop and guitar rock using a computer and an electric guitar. She released an EP of original music entitled 'I am Neuter Lover' in April 27, 2010, and this year, she launched her first music video ("Cry") on youtube. Her song, "Ha (Find)," which was nominated for AVIMA 2010 (Asia Pacific VOICE Independent Music Awards), won the 3rd prize as a "moody melancholic masterpiece."
http://www.neuterlover.com/


KATE TORRALBA, a fashion designer and musician
Kate Torralba is a multi-talented designer, musician, concert producer, and occasional painter. Trained as a classical pianist, Kate gravitated to playing alternative and punk music in her teens, drawing inspiration from artists such as Kate Bush, Tori Amos, and Morrissey. She is currently producing and performing original songs written for an upcoming first album.
http://blogs.stylebible.ph/katetorralba/




TURBO GOTH, musicians
Turbo Goth is a two-piece electronic rock band composed of Paolo Peralta (on guitars, drum beats, and electronic sampler) and tattoo artist/illustrator Sarah Gaugler (on lead vocals). They play semi-experimental electronic music with distorted bass synths backed by aggressive heavy beats, and punk-jazz noise guitars, stitched together by light icy vocals. Turbo Goth launched their debut album "Destroy Us All" in January of 2011, alongside their first single -- "Venus Flytrap."
http://turbogoth.com




Dex Fernandez, visual artist
http://dexfernandez.blogspot.com/




Special thanks to:


Go Go Carabao + ICX Parties
R.A.M.P. Artist Circle
and Splintr.com


ADDITIONAL INFO! WORKSHOP BY SAMUEL ANDRE! OPEN CALL!

“LISTEN” Soundwalk and Audio Workshop by Samuel André OPEN CALL:
https://docs.google.com/document/pub?id=1bOvUzYtwXeJzkCBhFX58arZuuzzoxztrd_f2m8C0_XM

Update

For the past several weeks since coming home in early May from the Asia Young Artist Festival, I've been spending a lot of time reflecting on my projects and my curatorial direction. Looking at it in the long-term, I still have great flexibility and definitely there is quite a range of things I want to look at and explore. The advantages of being a young and independent include that greater flexibility to be experimental (of course, it depends how you define experimental as well) vs. the expectation in being older to have already narrowed to a field of specialization. If some artists are known for focusing on certain themes in their work, some curators are known for that as well. Although just like some artists and maybe even more so, curators can be site or situation-specific, thinking of exhibitions or projects based on the opportunity or commission or a certain context that they wish to respond to.

Actually, much of these thoughts have led me to do a lot of self-contemplating on curatorial identity (vs. artistic identity). And this probably got thrown into greater relief when I joined a performance art workshop by Mella Jaarsma in Manila Contemporary the other month. I was a non-artist among artists... but thrilled though to respond and think of my own hypothetical artworks (since for the workshop I was hypothetically an artist like them). As a curator and writer, I found it interesting, inspiring and especially insightful.

Related to that, I think around this time of the year is the time I need to start making decisions for projects next year - at least for those which need exhibition space in a gallery or a museum. I understand slots are filling up fast so I need to act quickly and get some proposals in too.

In other news, I have been devoting a lot of my time in the past month and a half to Japanese language classes. I have no plans to move to Japan but took the lessons because I simply wanted to continue from having learned Japanese during my 6-week trip there earlier this year. In some strange way, I felt some kind of ease with learning and speaking it and thought it was worth furthering it rather than letting it go. But because of the schedule, the minimum number of students required and the timing, I wound up being in a very intensive class. The hours in and outside of class spent studying, doing homework and writing clocks in to a minimum of 10 hours a week. On average I'd say it's more like 12. We also have midterms and finals which we need to pass to get to the next level. So it's been incredibly intense but also incredibly rewarding. My teacher who reads the journals she has us keep says I write well. But of course, to put it in context, I still have an elementary vocabulary and what I'm writing in my diary are things I did during the day and plans I have for the next week or next month. It's really limited but hey, I do try with what I know!

___________________

Tomorrow at the latest edition of Bedroomlab on Friday, 15 July, I will be presenting briefly on the End Frame 3 project. The event starts at 7 pm in Cafe Clay in Makati. This notice comes a bit late but do come if you can. The next End Frame 3 show, Sorry for the Inconvenience, a solo exhibition of Manny Montelibano, opens on 13 August, Saturday, 7 pm, at Gallery Nova.

For more information on Bedroomlab, go to http://bdrmlab.blogspot.com/.

On Monday evening at 6.30 pm, I will be at the Langgeng Art Foundation, Yogyakarta, Indonesia to present some videos and a short talk on Philippine video art. This is under the Video Voyage program of Video Vortex. For more details, click http://networkcultures.org/wpmu/videovortex/7-yogyakarta-2/workshops.