BEDROOMLAB + FUTURE SHORTS

For the fifth BEDROOMLAB session, we had two special film screenings of two very rare experimental short films by Regiben Romana and Miguel Alcazaren with Ricky Orellana which was curated by Merv Espina. They were old 16mm prints that haven't been screened since the early 90s. BEDROOMLAB in conjunction with Future Shorts, rescreened these two underground classics with a new live score by Caviteno sound artist and organizer, Erick Calilan aka UGONG. Erick used home-made synthesizers and a no-input mixer to compliment the striking images from these two films.

Here are screenshots with descriptions:

PILIPINAS: WHAT DO YOU THINK OF THE PHILIPPINES MR JANETZKO? by Regiben O. Romana 1989 / 16mm / 05:42min / experimental collage

 An optically printed abstract film taken from the outtakes of an action flick mixed with visual noise and news broadcasts resulting into a raw collage powerfully evoking Filipino politics and culture.
Best Student Experimental, 8th FAP Awards for Distinguished Achievement During 1989 (1990)

SA MAYNILA by Mike Alcazaren, Josephine Atienza & Ricky Orellana 1989 / 16mm / 06:20min / experimental documentary

An impressionistic portrait of the Philippine metropolis.

Honorable Mention, The Asean Young Cinema Festival - Tokyo, Japan (1992) Best Student Documentary, 8th FAP Awards for Distinguished Achievement During 1989 (1990) Special Jury Prize, Documentary Film Category, 3rd Gawad CCP Para sa Alternatibong Pelikula at Video (1989)

UGONG performing a live score

The other lecturers were video artist and VJ, Pierre Sigmoon from France, who presented his Future Ethnic Lab project: whose aim was to transfer the ancestral ethnic sources and traditional knowledges in our time and technological evolution.

From their site: 

"Ethnocomputing is the study of the interactions between computing and culture. It is carried out through theoretical analysis, empirical investigation, and design implementation. It includes research on the impact of computing on society, as well as the reverse: how cultural, historical, personal, and societal origins and surroundings cause and affect the innovation, development, diffusion, maintenance, and appropriation of computational artifacts or ideas. From the ethnocomputing perspective, no computational technology is culturally "neutral," and no cultural practice is a computational void. Instead of considering culture to be a hindrance for software engineering, culture should be seen as a resource for innovation and design."

Other projects were from Tengal, artistic director of Fete dela WSK! he showed his recent collaborations with The Museum of Transitory Art (MoTA), and made a quick preview of network projects by SABAW media art kitchen with MoTA. He subsequently showed a quick video excerpt of this live cinema project called CLIMAX he did with Slovenian media artist, Martin Bricelj, a visual research project that evolves through time and has many permutations, which he defined as a "collaborative cinematic experience | live cinema | coded + networked performance | AV concert | video object | theatre mirror | neverending movie". 

Caliph8, a "beat smith, graffiti purveyor, and soothsayer" talked about his work in the local art scene. For more than a decade now, he has been active in the music scene, the local hip-hop culture in particular. He's probably one of the hottest producers / beat professors, and an important lynchpin to many ensembles.

Tengal presenting collaborative projects with MoTA (Museum of Transitory Art)

Caliph8

 Eclectic madman selector, Mark Zero (also known as Minister Zero, Joseph Insect) spent the rest of the night spinning odd collections of strange sounds, unpopular & underated music from across the globe. He got into record collecting 15 years ago while he discovered an abandoned pile of old maps, childrens books & a bunch of old african latin & Filipino Library broadcast records; (one of them is from the late great national artist Dr. Jose Maceda) on a basement of his grandfathers ancestral house were he once use to smoke & read poems. He constantly blogs about the uncharted sonic terrain of the Philippines' ethnic and ecletic in his blog, EXPANSIONS.

He played while people danced and got drunk until we were forced to go out. Just check out the pictures!

Mark Zero

(L-R) Merv Espina, Bianka Bernabe, Kam Del Rosario, Chesca Casauay -- the dedicated people behind this night!

Frenchmen in Malate: Sebastien aka 1escV? with Pierre Sigmoon

Performance artist, Ian Madrigal also known as Juan dela WSK! doing a crazy stunt which involves passing out and waking up and cleaning up.

Obviously, people are getting drunk here.

Beautiful poster shot by Cherry Madriaga

Photo credits to Bianka Bernabe

Big thanks to BIGTOP media, Future Shorts Manila, and Carlos Celdran and all the artists who participated!

BEDROOMLAB: Why numbers make sound?

We had our bedroomlab session at the Carlos Celdran's living room. Celdran who is Manila's most famous tour guide was kind enough to host our geek out sessions at his pad. The apartment, North Syquia is a pre-WWII apartment (hence the wooden floor bed) and we've had a couple of sessions here before. Carlos hosts foreign artists and professionals in one of the rooms and the place has been hosting parties, meetings, and such for years. The Living Room has also hosted five of our artists during SABAW's new media art symposium, ASEUM last year, July 2009.

Initial discussions

Beckett shaking the hands of the incoming visitors

For the first presentation, we had Tad Ermitano and Jing Garcia, original members of the seminal sound art band, The Children of Cathode Ray, talk about their experiences throughout the years since their early formation back in the late 1980s. It was quite interesting to see and hear so much untold history in the media art scene in Manila during the 90s. 
Un Escargot Vide? is a multifaceted project of Sebastien Szczyrk, a sound and visual artist, and traveler. He showed his stop animation video and played music on top of it. His music, very much drawn from field recordings evoke a kind of experimental performance that vaguely resemble a fragmented audio narrative. Sounds are absorbed by our earlaps as image-like frames to audience’s cerbral cortex -- truly worthy of the term "Cinema for the Ear.

(L-R) Jing Garcia and Tad Ermitano

Un Escargot Vide? [FR] stop animation

Electronic musicians Kijjaz and Benz (Space360) are both from Thailand. Their complex yet informative presentation puredata for electronic music was inviting enough for some of the audience who weren't exposed to realtime audio processing, let alone software programming. Kijjaz at times acted and spoke as if having qualities of a Buddhist monk instructing the complex secrets of life: very Zen. Benz, an active electronic music organizer and producer talked about the condition of the electronic music scene in Bangkok and Changmai, which was as fertile as the electronic music scene here in Manila. 

Kijjasak Triyanond talks about the PureData (Pd) practice in Bangkok

Game designers and media artists, Luis Hernandez Galvan from Mexico and Anne Marie Schleiner talked about their quirky yet complex video games they made out of boredom. After showing us various projects, Anne Marie let the audience try out her game which was a quirky take on hiphop and rap, was a bit reminiscent of Masaya Matsuura's Parappa The Rapper (PS1) but more hilarious and actually fun to play with. The point of the game was to cue in the right words on beat and as you go on, lsd-inducing graphic cubes and shapes would swirl all over the screen, making it a bit challenging. (The game is not recommended for people with drug addiction). http://www.opensorcery.net/

Luis' crazy take on the 3D Tron game was also mind-boggling. You can download the games and check out his other work here: http://ungravity.org/ 

Luis Galvan from Mexico showing his computer games and interactive motion graphics projects

Anne Marie Schleiner

AV OPEN JAM! 

Electrojam between Malek Lopez (PH), Luis Galvan (MX) / 1escV? (FR), Space360 (TH), Kijjaz (TH)

Kijjaz and Luis having their favorite beer always close to them

BEDROOMLAB family shot. Back Row: (Tengal, Malek, Beckett the dog, Kijjaz, Luis, Tad, Jing, Benz, Terence) Front Row: Sebastien (1escV?), Carlos Celdran, Chesca, and Bianca -- the two angels of WSK!

Video post will be up soon!

Photo credits by Advocacy Photographers (Cherry Madriaga and Shale Albao)

We'd like to thank BIGTOP Media for the video documentation and Carlos and Tesa Celdran for their kind hospitality!

TWO BEDROOMLAB SESSIONS AT FETE DELA WSK!

 More details at WSK! website: http://www.wskfete.com/

Poster art by Caliph8

Poster and Photo by Jerneja Rebernak

Poster and Photo by Jerneja Rebernak