BedroomLab: July Edition (Artist Bios)

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 

BedroomLab: July Edition

What: BEDROOMLAB LECTURE SERIES
When: 7:00PM | July 15 Friday
Where: Clay Cafe, Makati City, Manila, Philippines, Earth, Milky Way (MAP)
How: See our Facebook Event Page
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

FULL DETAILS OF BEDROOMLAB (Special Edition): Workers of the World, RELAX!!!

 SPEAKERS:

Ginny Mata
Writer, poet, and teacher at the University of the Philippines, Diliman who has written for local newspapers, magazines, and books about food and art. She prepared the dessert (Choco ChipHitler en Café Del Castro y Leche Guevarra) for tonight.


Electrolychee
Electrolychee is Marcushiro & Bru.

They are a local design & illustration studio in the Philippines.
Their works play within the realms of slick, computer-generated vector art and organic, hand-drawn imagery. Apart from designing, they're also full time artists having exhibited in various galleries in Manila, and have participated in design painting conferences locally and internationally.
http://electrolychee.com/


Lena Cobangbang
(b. Philippines, 1976) graduated from the University of the Philippines with a degree in Fine Arts. Her work is broad-ranging, moving across video, installation, and found objects to embroidery, cookery, performance and photography, obsessive-compulsive, and at turns celebratory and macabre. Apart from making art, she writes and works as a production designer. A founder of the artist collective Surrounded By Water, her art practice extends to doing art administration and exhibit organizing, having been a fellow at the 2008 HAO Summit for emerging artists, curator and art managers in Asia in Singapore in 2008, and recently completing an artist/curator research residency exchange between Green Papaya Art Projects and Pekarna Magdalenske Mreze in Maribor, Slovenia in 2010.

In 2005, she was nominated for the 3rd Ateneo Art Awards. She received the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Award in 2006 and was one of the participating artists in the 2008 Singapore Biennale.
http://bdrmlab.blogspot.com/2011/04/bedroom-lab-lecture-by-lena-cobangbang.html

+

With performances by

Similar Objects
(http://www.similarobjects.bandcamp.com/)
and
Singleeyeperspectives
(http://singleeyeperspective.bandcamp.com/)
plus a few surprise guests: Stefan Lowenstein, etc..


THE MENU:

STARTERS:
"Damasopas" (A take-off from the Zarzuela, a staple in classic Spanish cuisine, which combines seafood, nuts, herbs, and spicy tomato soup)

ENTREE:
"Chairman TengMao ze Dong's Balls (or Dong's Balls for short)". (A deconstructed arroz caldo (rice porridge with chicken), these are deep-fried chicken-flavored arroz caldo balls with ground chicken filling, in garlic sauce.)
This will be accompanied by Marcosayote Salad (sweet & sour sayote salad with grilled corn and fresh corn, drizzled in vinaigrette.)

SECOND ENTREE:
" Leekuanoodles." (A classic Chinese noodle dish, it's stir-fried noodles poured with thick liver and oyster sauce, topped with crunchy chicken intestines)

TOTAL PRICE OF 3-Course Meal: 200PHP


DESSERT:
"Choco ChipHitler en Café Del Castro y Leche Guevarra"
(Espresso chocolate chip chili brownies served with vanilla ice cream and chocolate coated siling labuyo [red chili] ) 

PRICE: 100 PHP

ALL Prepared by our very special chefs: Chef Kreame Dans Isaac with Chesca Casauay and Ginny Mata.



Please BRING YOUR OWN BOTTLE. Some cocktails will be served. But we won't serve any booze.


http://bdrmlab.blogspot.com/
@_sabaw
RSVP: +639206045559

BEDROOMLAB (Special Edition): What's on the menu?

Workers all over the world come together at carinderias and turo-turos, rolling carts, hotdog stands, and hawker stalls. It is here that revolutions begin, where the people declare they have had enough!, over steaming bowls of porridge, grilled skewers of chicken gizzards, hot pork buns. And so we honor our comrades in this way, with simple, hearty food, to fill their stomachs and uplift their spirits.

Comrade, Kreame Isaac (Chief Secretary of Kitchen affairs), will be handling the starter, salad, and the entrees, while Propaganda party member, Ginny Mata is in charge of desserts.

For starters, Damasopas. A take-off from the Zarzuela, a staple in classic Spanish cuisine, which combines seafood, nuts, herbs, and spicy tomato soup. ?Sabia usted?  Before the death of Rizal, Catholic parents used chili (siling labuyo) in their food as a form of punishment for their children whenever they did something naughty.

For the first entree, Chairman TengMao ze Dong's Balls (or Dong's Balls for short). A deconstructed arroz caldo (rice porridge with chicken), these are deep-fried chicken-flavored arroz caldo balls with ground chicken filling, in garlic sauce.

This will be accompanied by Marcosayote Salad, a sweet & sour sayote salad with grilled corn and fresh corn, drizzled in vinaigrette.

For the second entree, Leekuanoodles. A classic Chinese noodle dish, it's stir-fried noodles poured with thick liver and oyster sauce, topped with crunchy chicken intestines. So says comrade Kreame, "Chicken and chicken innards symbolizes pride in Chinese dream interpretation. For Pinoys, it's nothing but the awesome street food of scholars!"

And for our dessert, Choco ChipHitler en Café Del Castro y Leche Guevarra: espresso chocolate chip brownies, served with vanilla ice cream and drizzled with caramel sauce. Because of all people, it is the workers who deserve these occasional luxuries.


BedroomLab functions as an informal art + tech 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.

WAIT, WHAT A COOK-OUT AT A GARDEN FOR FREE? ARE YOU FOR REAL?!
YES. BUT YOU MUST BRING A BOTTLE OF WINE OR VODKA, COMRADE.*

RSVP at sabawmediahub@gmail.com SO WE CAN SEND YOU THE COORDINATES.
Or FOLLOW us on Twitter: @_sabaw and post with #Bedroomlab so we can DM you the coordinates and other important details.
You may choose to send a telegraph to the General Office Secretariat, Chesca: +639175191511


Disclaimer: The revolution is not available in your country.
*and pay for your dinner's ingredients and a little effort from our chefs

FB EVENT PAGE: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=188405371205282
TMBLR: http://bedroomlab.tumblr.com/

BEDROOMLAB (Special Edition) this MAY 1! UPDATES!

Hi-quality Propaganda

Comrades!!

BEHOLD our PROPAGANDA Material!
Fresh from the Publicity Department, we shall be selling these high quality posters on the location. (Yes, we are capitalist communists).


Find the facebook event page here: Bedroomlab



WHAT TO EXPECT?

Lectures!
AudioVisual Performances!

Garden Cook Out!

Artist gathering!

Discussions! 

Vodka!



BY WHOM?

General Secretary, LENA COBANGBANG
Propaganda Chief, GINNY MATA
Central Propaganda Commissioners, ELECTROLYCHEE
Discipline Inspection Secretary, TBA
Central School Party Members, SIMILAR OBJECTS and SINGLEEYEPERSPECTIVE
Foreign Relations Commissioner, STEFAN LÖWENSTEIN
Minister of National Defense, TO BE ANNOUNCED!

(note: Central Party members may change without prior notice)


WHEN???

MAY 1. 17H.

"ALL WORKERS, THE PROLETARIAT, AND THE STARVING AND NOT SO STARTVING ARTISTS... WE MUST UNITE THIS MAY 1, AT 1700H SHARP... AND RELAX!!!"
-Chairman Tengal
 
WAIT, WHAT A COOK-OUT AT A GARDEN? ARE YOU FOR REAL?!
YES. BUT YOU MUST BRING A BOTTLE OF WINE OR VODKA, COMRADE.

RSVP at sabawmediahub@gmail.com SO WE CAN SEND YOU THE COORDINATES.
Or FOLLOW us on Twitter: @_sabaw and post with #Bedroomlab so we can DM you the coordinates and other important details.
You may choose to send a telegraph to the General Office Secretariat, Chesca: +639175191511


Disclaimer: The revolution is not available in your country.

Atmospheric Cookery or How To Make Photos of Disasters

Atmospheric Cookery or How To Make Photos of Disasters

Bedroomlab lecture notes by Lena Cobangbang

I first started using food and other food items for art when I taught myself how to bake bread for a culminating art project for my residency in Big Sky Mind in (year). It was 12 loaves of bread inserted with receipts of all the expenses I have incurred during the residency.

As more cookbooks and food magazines have replaced my art reading materials, I became engrossed with how food/dishes are being presented. This led me to my first photo series Terrible Landcapes. The impetus for which was also from a frustrated and belated realization that I should’ve enrolled myself instead to a food styling course if ever an art career doesn’t flourish to my assumed expectation of a successful art career, whatever that is.

In looking at photos of food, I tend to see them as landscapes instead and cookery as another authorial expressive medium akin to painting, and as how the painterly effects also give off a palpability that belies the supposed transcendent quality of a painting by being carnal and voluptuous in their viscosity.

Gradually, I began to eliminate the components with which I’ve been making my dioramas, and limiting them to basics which are limitless in their possibilities in producing various effects such as flour, vinegar, baking soda, gelatin, egg and food coloring. These ingredients were mainly used for the subsequent series Overland (mostly gelatin, and a lot of parsley and garbanzos), and Crater Valley Plateau (mostly using an edible play do mixture and bicarbonated mixture to produce explosions.)

The Weather Bureau is the most recent series of photos which I’m doing as a collaborative project with Mike Crisostomo, another artist whom I also partner with for production design work and prop styling gigs. This series will be shown this coming September at Manila Contemporary and at Blanc Space.

The process by which we make the dioramas for our photos incorporate cookery and some photoshop magic. It is a natural recourse I guess since we both have a background in production design work, while Mike had some formal cookery training and I was doing rudimentary food styling or food props prepping for some films and TVCs.

We have mostly stuck to the basics such as eggs, flour and gelatin in producing or recreating some of the effects that we would want to achieve in simulating certain weather conditions, i.e. beaten eggs for foam, gelatin for a wave, flour for pavement, shaved ice for snow, etc.

We’re still in the process of experimenting the effects of certain ingredients and how they can contribute to our idea of a perfect weather disaster.

 About The Weather Bureau :

The initial idea for this was an interest in ruins and Albert Speer’s theory of ruin value and how that theory has greatly influenced Hitler’s vision of monumentality. By picturing disasters/ weather conditions in their active state, we are attempting to envision a monumentality in the process of ravishing a landscape or a city. In recreating them, in whatever means we choose to simulate these various weathering, we somehow wanted to control the seemingly uncontrollable, striving for perfection, via shortcuts and cheats, and the calculated accidents produced by the materials we use.

In such inordinate ordering therein lies an inherent fascism, in a very ordered interior, and in the very ordered picture for the frame dictates it so, it seizes and serves only what is within its limits. The next frame is not a continuum of the previous picture. But past and future can co-exist in this suspended denoument of the moment, for the present is rather a passing and a foreboding, eternity in stasis, potential imagined for its potentiality, Diderot walking between two eternities, two constants – time enduring and world remaining.

The Weather Bureau seeks to pictorialize all such exigencies wrought by the incongruence of order and the limitless, and the inevitable ruination incurred in such process.

The Weather Bureau is in one in the era of possibility in the empire of fictions.

----

"I’m  a frustrated architect. All my projects, especially of late, are fueled by this frustration or I’m just inherently fascist, manipulative and obsessive. I like to control things. I like things to be in control, organized in their proper places.  I like to make-up worlds, scenarios to be these stages for all my other frustrations – aviator, city planner, chef, gourmand, actor, dictator – a molder of worlds that is palpable only as the surface of the picture.  But then again, I’m more of a philosopher of the senses. I would love to think that so."  - Lena Cobangbang
[Quote taken from Galerie Zimmermann Kratochwill]

1976 born in Manila (Philippines)
lives and works in Manila (Philippines)

1995-2002      University of the Philippines, Quezon City (RP)


Exhibitions, projects (selection, 2000-2010)

2010
The Care for Dead Horses, Finale Art File, Makati City (RP) (solo)
Minimum Yields Maximum, Montevista Projects, Los Ageles/California (USA)

2009
Bayanihan: works from Manila, Okay Mountain, Austin/Texas (USA)
Crater Valley Plateau, Finale Art File, Makati City (RP) (solo)
Beyond Frame, Philippine Photomedia, Ateneo Art Gallery, Quezon   City (RP)
Here Be Dragons: Topology of Allegory, Manila Contemporary, Makati  City (RP)
Serial Killers (2), Green Papaya Art Projects, Quezon City (RP)
Counter Intelligence, Luckman  Gallery, California State University, Los Angeles/California (USA)

2008
Singapore Bienniale08: Wonder, Singapore (SGP)
Room 307: Inkling, Gutfeel and Hunch, National Art Gallery, National Museum, Manila (RP)
Cut, New Photography From Southeast Asia, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Malaysia (MAL)
The Nomenclature Project, commissioned published work for  Yason Banals’ special column series Utopia: Sleepwalking Project, Young  Star section of The Philippine Star, Feb. 29, 2008 edition
Serial Killers, Green Papaya Artists Projects, Quezon City (RP)
Beyond frame: Philippine Photomedia, Ateneo Art  Gallery, Quezon City (RP), La Trobe Visual Arts Centre, Bendigo (AUS), UTS Gallery, Sydney (AUS)
Passage 3, Kyoto Art Center, Kyoto (J)

2007
Land, Galleria Duemila, Pasay City (RP)
3YC, Valentine Wille Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur (MAL)
Shoot Me, Mo_art Space, Makati City (RP)

2006
Metropolitan Mapping, Exhibition Gallery, Hong Kong Cultural Center, Hongkong (HK)
Conflict Resolutions, Future Prospects Art Space, Quezon City (RP)
Missing Vocabularies, Green Papaya, Quezon City (RP)
CCP 13 Artist Show, Main Gallery, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Manila (RP)
Postmodernism is So Last Season, Green Papaya, Quezon City (RP)
Collaborations (with Manuel Ocampo), Finale Art File, Mandaluyong  City (RP)
Manila Envelope, Worth Ryder Gallery, Berkeley, CA (USA)

2005
All That Heaven Allows, Finale Art File, Mandaluyong City (RP) (solo)
You Are Here, Valentine Willie Fine Art, Kuala Lumpur (MAL)
Picturing Painting, Jorge Vargas Museum, Quezon City (RP)

2004
Closed for Inventory, The Cubicle, Pasig City (RP)
SENI/Homefronts, Singapore Art   Museum, Singapore (SGP)
Building Bridges, Big Sky Mind, Quezon City (RP)

2003
Projections, Lopez Memorial Museum, Pasig City (RP)

2002
Portable Multiples, Plastique Kinetic Worms, Singapore (SGP)
Lighting Show, Photography Art Center, Makati City (RP)
A Feast of Conversations, Atelier Frank and Lee, Singapore (SGP)
Fixation: Notions of Obsession, Lopez Memorial Museum, Pasig City (RP)

2001
Space Meeting Place, Gallery 2, Ayala Museum, Makati City (RP)
Surrounded, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Pasay City (RP)
WOWB (Who Owns Women's Bodies), Cultural Center of the Philippines, Pasay City (RP)
Stockroom, Surrounded By Water, Mandaluyong City (RP)

2000
Video – Take, Openbare Bibliotheek van  Leuven, Brussels (B)
Search and Destroy Missions, Kitchen, Mandaluyong City (RP), Surrounded By Water, Mandaluyong City (RP)
Paper Over, Ayala Museum, Makati City (RP)

WORKERS OF THE WORLD, RELAX!!!

ALL WORKERS, THE PROLETARIAT, AND THE STARVING AND NOT SO STARVING ARTISTS AND SCIENTISTS...
WE MUST UNITE THIS MAY 1, 1700H SHARP FOR A SPECIAL BEDROOMLAB SESSION.
RSVP at sabawmediahub@gmail.com SO WE CAN SEND YOU THE COORDINATE OF OUR "MEETING DE ADVANCE"
Or FOLLOW us on Twitter: @_sabaw and post with #Bedroomlab so we can DM you the coordinates and other important details.
You may also choose to send a telegraph to Chairman Tengal: +639206045559

BEDROOMLAB: Electric Church

Room nr9000.psd by son:da [http://sonda.kibla.org/]

Electricity, primarily through amplification, signifies.

Electricity threatened music (let alone trad. art) as purity of human expression, and also of innate 'talent', as it first distanced the musician from the sound, and second, masked the inadequacies of technique. Amplification takes over from the human voice, or music as expression of human feeling, emotion or subjectivity (often through approximation of voice). What you hear is revealed as electrically driven movements of air; sound is materialized, and becomes other to the expressing body. Music is now evidently prosthetic, mediated through machinery, and this shakes the belief in the centeredness, intention and authenticity of musical creation.

Surplus sound is a key characteristic of electrified music, and as the 1960s go on, distortion and feedback, pushing the machinery beyond limits, offers another layer of noise that is both literal and noise in the sense of being unwanted, excess, waste. These noises are quickly used, and become techniques, but along the way, they operate as a way of maintaining a community. Sociologist Paul Gilroy, citing Hendrix refers to an "electric church" ("Soundscapes of the Black Atlantic", Gilroy). Hendrix insisted on the necessity of loudness to convey the possibility of revolutionary change through both shock and the use of "the correct frequency" (ibid.), the later allowing a more direct connection, facilitated by the noisiness. We can take "church" as meant in the most general sense, as a way of capturing an elective community that somehow bonds together, in this case in excessive performance.

[REF: Taken from the concert notes of WE HATE WHEN PEOPLE MAKE TRACKS LIKE THIS]

Fresh from the concert, we hosted BEDROOMLAB again at Carlos Celdran's LIVING ROOM.

The lecturers were: 

Magdalena Peseva [Prague]
Peševová Magdalena, born 1979 in Prague, lives and works there. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts, has undergone a classic painting studios and new media. She completed scholarship at Ecole des Beaux Artes in France, currently in residence at Yogyakarta in Indonesia.
Magdalena is primarily devoted to monumental painting, drawing, interior and exterior painting, hanging paintings and illustrations, as well as painting conceptual, such as combination with performance. Formally, her work is inspired by street art, graffiti, comics, symbolism,surrealism. Conceptually, she pays attention at current Anglo-Sax and Hispanic music, feminism, postmodern inheritance and gender, political and religious issues.

Ondrej Skala [Prague]
Czech breakcore king, Ježíš táhne na Berlín (roughly translated as “JESUS MARCHES TO BERLIN”) is the music project of young Czech artist Ondřej Skala. He studied at Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. His music can be best described as “Breakcore-Ambient”, where pre-recorded distorted digital instruments meet live-processed human beatboxing. Acting and creating music, Ondřej also participated in the digital puppet show Pollygone appeare in 2007. At WASTED OVER PRAGUE in 2008 hed with his new band alongside live bassist and drummer BJ Tzarr. He has performed all over the world, from Berlin’s Club Transmediale, to Indonesia’s Breakcore_Labs.

David Kousemaker [Holland]
David Kousemaker (1971) is an artist/designer who works on the crossroads of art and technology.
Since 2005 he has collaborated with Tim Olden under the name Blendid (www.blendid.nl) to create playful and accessible works.
Interactivity is an important element in their oeuvre which ranges from physical sculptures to projects which center around a non-conventional use of audio or video. Work was presented at a number of international festivals including Digifest (Canada), STRP (Netherlands), Biënnale Venetia (Italy), Synthetic Times (China), File (Brazil) and Utopia Now (Australia).

Mark Salvatus
Mark Salvatus a multi disciplinary artist based in Manila. His work deals with the dystopian rammification of urbanization often times making work in the street disrupting the established codes of social communication. Language and signs play an integral part in his aesthetic projects as he inserts a reconstituted design into the fabric of existing space and common gesture. Salvatus recently finished residencies at ACAR Asia Cultural Artist Residency, Gwangju, KR, Daedong Culture Foundation, Shatana International Residency, Shatana, Irbid, JO, Triangle Arts Trust, Can Serrat International Art Centre in Barcelona, Spain, and exhibitions at Annexe Gallery, Central Market Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Nospace Gallery, Bangkok, Thailand.

(L-R) Tengal, Mark

 Mark Salvatus

Among the audience, Canadian artist KristinaGuison from artist initiative KAPISANAN, wrote this about her experiences:  

"One of the most inspiring artists was Mark Salvatus. Coming from an advertising and fine arts background, he infused to two fields and came up with something really exciting. He puts it as, part-participatory, part-sight specific and part-live installation. I love how he’s really focused on engaging the environment and the audience no matter which part of the world he is launching his works. The idea of of combining immersion in the community and art is so exciting and admirable.  His projects are always on-going, always ephemeral and always organic. There’s something very down-to-earth, approachable, playful and fresh about his projects. It’s not the type of art that aims to show off and intimidate."

David Kousemaker

David Kousemaker develops interesting interactive projects that evoke powerful emotional and social engagement from viewers. One such project, TouchMe, is "an interactive installation that allows its users to create and contribute a personal image to the otherwise impersonal public space."

"Members of the public can interact with this piece by simply pressing a part of their body or objects against a frosted glass surface, leaving a kind of imprint for them and others to see. The interaction itself is entertaining, and an extra dimension is added as the results are kept as a permanent part of the installation.

TouchMe is intended for one of those typical modern public spaces that seem predominantly designed to withstand large flows of people without any impact. It is as if the users of these spaces are viewed only as pawns, which are to be efficiently routed through this domain on their way from point A to point B. All traces of these visitors will be erased when the next scheduled cleaning crew has removed the footprints from the granite wear-free floor."

[Taken from their site: blendid.nl]

TouchMe - China 2008 from Blendid on Vimeo.

 Kristina goes on: 

"Another artist who is also interested in engaging the audience is David Kousemaker. He was the current artist staying in The Living Room when we arrived. His projects, although just as interactive, has a more technological approach. He came up with these mind-blowing projects that are too complicated, intense and intricate to describe here. I’m not well-versed in technical terms anyway, so you have to look him up (or simply click on his name above) and watch his projects in motion."

Check out her full blog post here: 

http://kapisanancentre.com/2011/03/03/karp-bedroomlab-inside-the-living-room/

Photos by Kam del Rosario and Tina Guison
Thanks again to Carlos Celdran and Ria Limjap of The Living Room.

BEDROOMLAB: Baguio City

Poster design by Kreame Dans Isaac

Baguio City - the mountain city. The city the Americans built during WWII, and set up base there, simply because it was colder than Manila. More info here: Baguio wiki
This was the first BEDROOMLAB session that was outside Manila. With the help of AX(is) art project and Mark Zero of Expansions, we were able to set up a most interesting BEDROOMLAB session in the summer capital of the Philippines.

Here's the sunset view from the apartment we stayed in.




The venue called CLOCKWORK was a small pub that was inspired by Kubrick's The Clockwork Orange. Posters of the movie as well as other 60s Brit pop memorabilia adorned the walls of this bar. Baguio is known for the bohemian lifestyles of the artists who live there, and a mashup of cultural values both American, "Filipino", and inspirations from Cordillera ethnic culture.

Baguio city's bohemian characters

A month before the much awaited AX(is) art project festival also known as the Philippine international arts festival, BEDROOMLAB acted as a precursor, a preview of sorts of what's to come for the Baguio local art scene.
The lecturers were Baguio's local art heros: visual artists Kawayan De Guia, Chris Yniguez, and sound artist, composer and "shaman" Shant Verdun; with music producer Mark Zero and artist-curator Tengal Drilon from Manila. We also had a special guest, Indonesian film curator and visual artist, Elida Tamalagi who was visiting Baguio city who loved the city so much, she decided to stay indefinitely.

Chris Yniguez, who grew up in Los Angeles, presented an overview of his body of work in a slideshow with music from his drone rock band without talking. He subsequently talked during the Q and A from the audience about working a lot on themes of dislocation and displacement -- a factor that contributes to his divided identity, given Baguio city's strong American history.

Chris Yniguez

Introductions to Chris Yniguez

Elida showed her quirky yet thought-provoking work-in-progress that involved Snooky Serna (a former actress) and it's correlation to Snoopy (from The Peanuts), to herself as a traveler, to Indonesian politics as well as Philippines' mashup culture.
 

Elida trying to answer really difficult questions

 

 Shant Verdun's presentation involved was more like a deep listening session as his avant garde sonic creations were like made up sonic environments, a nod towards how we organize memory and how sound ecology is often an overlooked (or under-heard) field in contemporary life. As a contrast to life in the city, much of Shant's compositions were field recordings taken from discreet places inbetween city and nature.

On the left: Shant Verdun

Tengal introduced an installation currently under development called Situations of the Flesh, which "explored the body as a construction of forms of discourse, obligations and mechanisms of control. Presented there are methods, trends, acts of rebellion, mutations and images of humanity undergoing transformation." [Ref: interview on Business World]

One of the interesting discussions that were brought up was theorizing the difficulties on introducing a new vernacular such as new media art in developing countries, esp. in an art scene like Baguio who is deeply rooted in traditional arts. Tengal subsequently performed a Live Cinema project, "Treatment for Film in 9 Scenes" -- which was like fragmented cinema, an interactive audio-visual journey that breaks up narrative into small pieces, accompanied by precomposed sound that forced the audience to make sense of the work by creating their individualized narratives. Chris Yniguez took on the drumset and jammed with Tengal -- the result was better than anyone expected.

The driving force behind the upcoming festival, Mark Zero and Kawayan de Guia discussed their plans for AX(is) art project, (a highly awaited art festival in Baguio city celebrating it's 20th year after many years in haitus) which kept everyone eager.  The night ended with people dancing to music by Mark Zero, people getting continually drunk, but all good as the ending always was but a beginning. At least for those who managed to drive home safely.

Tengal

From Tengal's "Never mind the Politics, Here are the Curators" presentation

Kawayan De Guia interacting with the copious text on screen

Elida posed the question: "what shouldn't we care about art with French postmodernist tendencies?"

The cool Kawayan De Guia always wears his sunglasses at night

Mark Zero and Kawayan De Guia discussing AX(is) festival plans

Armi Millare of UP DHARMA DOWN feeding vodka to a politically incorrect stuffed toy, a black native plush doll.

The rest of the activities were creating music at TRANSIT SPACE in Camp John Hay, an abandoned library turned artist studio of Chris Yniguez.

 We also managed to find hotsprings in this cold mountain range, a one hour jeepney ride from Baguio city to the small baranggay of Asin could be quite promising.

Mark Zero looking for a spot

(L-R) Mark Zero and Tengal on a bridge made out of copper wires

Left side: hot spring water comes out from the cracks on the rocks, right side: cold cold stream water

 Photo credits by: Kreame Dans Isaac, Sai Bautista, and Kawayan De Guia
Special thanks to Kawayan De Guia, CLOCKWORK cafe, Chris Ynigues, Mark Zero, Expansions and Caliph8 for designing this post-Bedroomlab poster (which was our tribute event to Trish Keenan who died the week before):