Zine-verguenza !

Zine-verguenza !
A History of No F&*$#k!!!! Profit, No F&*$#k!!!! Fear, No F&*$#k!!!! Shame, No F&*$#k!!!! Rules,
No F&*$#k!!!! Censorship Publishing, Huh?!


Napag-uusapan lang namin noon ang maglabas ng fanzine habang tumatagay ng usong-usong gin pomelo sa may harap ng Surrounded By Water sa Angono. Naglaon ay nakumbinsi din ako ng dati kong kabandang si Yasmin aka Alice, na naglaon ay partner in crime na gawin ang tinatawag na Lunar Landing. Iniisip ko pa noon na mainam na excuse to para makalibre ng pasok sa mga gig at magsipuntahan sa mga sandamukal na mga opening at mga happening. Circa 1996-97, buhay pa Café Caribana sa Malate, ang Third World Café, nagtatanungan pa kaming magkaka-eskwela kung matutuloy ba ang gimik sa Reposo o sa may World Trade kung saan may rave o dance party. Nariyan ang pakikipagsulatan sa isang ka-penpal na manunulat kung makakadalo ba ang mga katropang Pranses sa aming lingguhang video-marathon at matapos ay gumawa-gawa ng kung anumang mga verso sa pang-anim na bote ng servesa sa Penguin.

Kung anu-ano tuloy na mga kuwento’t mga kadahilanan ang aking mga pinalulusot sa aking mga magulang para lang maging ganap na zine journalist kuno. At pagkuwa’y magakapaglimbag sa aking tinatanging publishing house na Routledge.

Kuwidaw ang maging zinester ay maging isa na ding scenester. At ano-ano ba ang mga scenes na to? Merong rrriot girrrrls, punk, oi, crust, crust core, rockabilly, psychobilly, hardcore, sXe, old school, new school, rock steady, ska, ska-punk, skinheads, Trojans, hammerskins, red skins, suedes, rudeboys, anarcho-punk, anarcho-skins, anarcho-femmes, anarcho-syndicalists, anarcho-primitivists, dark cabaret, goths, death rockers, rockers, chong, bluecats, disco, electroclash, junglists, new wavers, no wavers, dark wavers, new romantics, shoe gazers, indie pop, dream pop, space rock, art rock, avant rock, kraut rock, Prog rock, math rock, ravers, metal, death metal, black metal, Blackened death metal, gloom metal, rap metal, nu metal, thrash metal, Folk metal, Hair metal, glam metal, Power metal, Tech metal, Viking metal, Vedic metal, oriental Metal, Groove metal, Neo-classic metal, Celtic metal, Stoner metal, Gothenburg metal, Funk metal, speed metal, speed core, rap core, noise core, thrasher, emo core, sad core, slow core, mosh core, math core, grindcore, skate-core, skate-thrash, fashion core, queer core, hip hop, turntabolista, mobile, chavs, cyberpunks, cybergoths, reggae, raggare, skate punk, street punk, gutter punk, steam punk, horror punk, pop punk, conservative punk, Christian punk, SLC punks, Alcopunks, vegans, youthcrew, funkore, neo- Nazis, neo-fascist, neo-futurists, future pop, retro-futurists, Aristasians, hackers, demo scene, COSplayers, furries, teddies, MODS, swing kids, Edelweiss pirates, Hillbillies, gamers, MYSTers, freaks, hippies, Jesus freaks, Christian fundamentalists, visual Kei, BDSM, queer, nudists, rockers, Hells Angels, Bandidos, the Outlaws, the Pagans MC, the Black Power, Gypsy Jokers, the Nomads, the Straight Satans, the Rebels, The Rock Machines, Outlaw Motorcycle club, vampires, Japanophiles, Trekkies/Trekkers, filks, Goth Lolis, Ninnies, rivetheads, trancers, trainspotters, bosozokus, greasers, grungers, CB radio hobbyists, custom cars, cassette culture, Valley girls, Sloane rangers, COBRA group, Dadaists, surrealists, internationalists, situationists, fauves, trad jazzers, zootsuits, hepcats, beats, existentialists, surfers, new age travelers, yuppies, swingers, conspiracy theorists, CPP-NPA, NDF, huks, ABB, CND, Black Panther, Sapeurs, pachucos, dandies, bloggers, LJers, spooky kids, rednecks, white trash, rugby boys, nadsat, Luneta debaters, Barangka boys, Tandem, SLE, groupies in general, etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. (parang entry sa slumbook – “too many to mention”)

Ang lahat nitong nabanggit at iba pa na maaring mabuo pa ay napapasailalim sa terminong “subculture”. Subalit, ang iba dito sa mga nabanggit na ito na mga subculture ay di kinakailangang taguriang “underground” tulad ng mga Mormons at mga fundamentalists o mga El Shaddai o mga nasa sa religious cults. (Although minsan kailangan ang iba dito ay maging covert dahil tinatawid na ang linya ng katanggap-tanggap at makataong mga rituales, kumbaga’y nagiging taboo na sa universal law of ethics. Maaring mataguri dito ang mga kasapi ng Church of Satan, Heaven’s Gate at iba pang kulto na nagpapalaganap ng mga ideolohiyang animoy taliwas sa Kristiyanismo.)

Ayon kay Dick Hebdige sa kaniyang seminal na aklat na “Subculture: The Meaning Of Style” (ang pangarap kong libro, baka meron kayo diyan na kopya, pahiram naman o paskor naman), ang subculture ay nabubuo bilang isang simbolikong reaksyon o diyalogo sa pangkabuuan o dominanteng kultura ng isang (kadalasan ay) industriyalisadong lipunan. Ang reaksyon na ito ay kadalasang kontra sa prevailing value system ng kulturang ito o parent culture kung tawagin. And because these subcultures are essentially reactionary, the elements or components of what makes them a subculture are actually taken from the subculture’s own environment, mores and history.[1] (Hindi ko kasi masabi to ng tama sa Filipinow, sorry.) Ngunit ang lumalabas na pinakaesensya ng mga ito ay ang pagdiskubre o paglikha ng sariling pagkakakilanlan (identity politics) at magkaroon sa mga miyembro ng mga subculture na ito ng solidaridad na nag-uugat sa pagkakakilanlan na ito. Ito marahil ang dahilan kung bakit ang karamihan sa mga subculture na ito ay napapalooban din ng mga alituntunin na sobrang detalyado, specific, elaborate upang ika nga magkaroon ng kaibahan sa karamihan : ang konseptong “us vs. them”. Ang konseptong ito ay maaring mailatag ng mga sociologist batay sa pangsosyo-ekonomiyang uri, lahi, paniniwala, sense of nationalism, uring pangsekswal.

Ang pagkakakilanlan ng mga subculture na ito ay nakikita sa kanilang pananamit, sa kanilang uri ng pagkilos o pagsayaw, kung paano nila gamitin ang kanilang leisure time, sa kanilang pananalita o jargon, sa pagbati sa kanilang kakapatiran, sa uri ng musika na kanilang pinakikinggan, mga pelikula’t lathalaing kanilang tinatangkilik, mga uri ng sasakyang pinamamadyak – lahat ng ito (atbp) ay kumakatawan sa kanilang ideolohiya bilang isang subculture at isa ang zine/fanzine na pumapaksa o nagdodokumento ng mga saloobin nito, ang pamantayan ng kanilang binuong kapatiran o pamayanan, ang manifesto ng kanilang kabuuan – bilang patunay sa kanilang pag-eexist, o maging uri ng pamamahayag ng kanilang kani-kaniyang pinaglalaban o pinagpupunyagi – be it noble or petty, man.

Ang Factsheet 5 ay mistulang bibliya ng lahat ng mga zinesters sa buong mundo na kung saan dun nila pinapadala ang kanilang mga gawang zines upang marebyu at makakuha ng mga contacts sa mga gustong umorder ng kanilang mga zines. Ito ay taunang lumalabas at mariing inaabangan sa mga booksale ang kopya nito kahit medyo luma na at noong mid 1990s pa ito nailathala. Dito madalas pinagkukunan ang kahulugan ng fanzine na : “ a small handmade amateur publication done purely out of passion, rarely making a profit or breaking even.” Ayon naman sa wikipedia (kung saan karamihan ng aking saliksik ay namgmula) ang zine o fanzine “ is a nonprofessional publication produced by fans of a particular subject for the pleasure of others who share their interest.” Ang salitang ito ay naimbento ni Russ Chauvenet noong 1940 at unang lumaganap sa mundo ng mga sci-fi fans. Sabi naman ni Greg Shaw na naglimbag ng Mojo Navigator at Bomp[2], mga naunang music/rock zines noong 1960s sa San Francisco, mas maaga pa daw ito lumabas, sa katunayan ay noong 1920s pa dahil marami na daw noon ang mga sci-fi fanzine tulad ng isang sinimulan daw ng isang nangangalang Forrest J. Ackerman. Nagmula ito sa pakikipagsulatan ng mga fans na ito sa isa’t isa na sa simula ay nailalathala pa sa sci-fi magazine na Amazing Stories. Pero dahil dumadami at dumadami ang kanilang network, ang kanilang mga liham ay naging mga fanzines nang naglaon. Isa sa mga zines na ito ay ang The Comet na gawa ng isang grupo na kung tawagin ay Science Correspondence Club.

Ngunit ang self-publishing ay di namang bagong gawain na naimbento ng mga naturang subculture. Dahil natural lang sa isang indibidwal ang outlet na ito simula pa nang maimbento ang printing press. Sa gayong bagay, maaaring i-presume na ang mga malalaking polyeta’t mga pahayagan ay nagsimula din dito. Kaya?

Well, ayon sa Do or Die zine issue no. 10, ang mga posibleng naunang zines ay makikita sa mga nailathala ng Amateur Press Associations (APA) na umusbong noong 19th century sa US bilang reaksyon sa penny press. Ang mga amateur writers daw na ito ay nagbuo ng mga networks upang maipamahagi ang kanilang mga salaysayin na “walang pretension”. Ang mga manunulat na ito ay kinabubuoan din ng mga black and women writers. Pero parang natatandaan ko ang pinaka-forerunner ay ang isang farmer’s almanac na nailimbag ilang daang taon pang mahigit kesa dito sa nabanggit. (Pwede pakicheck, kasi nakikipirata lang ako ng signal pag nagi-internet ako. Salamat.)

Naging instrumental din ang teknolohiya sa development ng zines. Kumbaga ang produksyon nito ay sumasabay sa panahon kung kelan ito nagawa, maging ang interes o nilalaman nito. Ang zine kumbaga ay kumakatawan din sa zeitgeist ng isang naturang panahon. Hmm kaya lohikal din na ang mga naunang naglabasan na mga zine ay ukol sa sci-fi nang panahong nabanggit dahil kasagsagan ito ng mga scientific discoveries at una nang nararanasan ang epekto ng industrialisasyon – benepisyal man ito o pagulong sa dystopia.

Mula sa pagsulat kamay hanggang sa pag-gamit ng manual typewriter at carbon paper, spirit duplicator o hectographs, sa mga mimeograph machines at ngayon ang Xerox machine na pinupuslit ang pag-gamit pag wala ang boss o nagpapaalam pa na mag-overtime para makalibre sa paggamit nito, nagdaan din sa maraming anyo ang zine. Ang kadalasang nakikita sa kasalukuyan ay yaong binubuo ng mga 10 – 20 pahina ng short coupon bond na itinupi at naka-staple sa gitna. Although may mga iba naman na buong papel ang pinagsasama-sama at sa kaliwang gilid naman ito naka-staple. Karaniwang tinatawag ito na full-size, ang unang nabanggit ay half-size.

Anupaman ang nilalaman ng mga zines, ang nanatiling operative term is DIY na hango naman sa ideolohiya ng Punk. Kaya siguro marami ang nag-aakala na ang fanzine ay galing sa subculture na ito. Ang mga punks nga ayaw matawag na fanzine ang kanilang zines dahil ang salitang fan ay may nosyon ng pagpapasailalim sa exploitation ng capitalist commercial media na tahasan nilang nilalabanan. Kaya mas preferred nila ang term na punkzine.

DIY o Do-It-Yourself ay naging mahalagang motibasyon sa mga punks dahil sa sila nga ay taliwas sa conformity, sa mainstream, sa gobyerno, halos lahat, actually. Pero sinasabi naman ng mga cultural theorists, tulad ni Hebdige, ay naimpluwensiyahan lang daw sila ng mga Situationists, ng kosepto ng Society of the Spectacle. Understandably, punks then were at it, at first, for the bloody shock of Brittania, being anti-aesthetics, as an assemblage of ready-mades of cultural disposables (as were the Dadaists with their reams of pamphlets courtesy of Picabia, Tzara, i.e. Cannibale[3], among others ) and cultivating on salvaging/appropriating styles, slogans, eras, for their own search for meaning.[4] Hence, their zines which are all cut and paste affairs and which zine purists still adhere to on what constitutes a zine. Kaya tuloy minsan ang hirap basahin. Parang tingnan mo na lang siya, okay?

But I believe DIY is not wholly Punk as DIY is in essence the method of a dissenter. Or any dissenter for that matter. Hence, ang paggawa ng zine ay isang craft, a labor of love, a Molotov cocktail for the targeted offended party.

As a medium of dissenters maybe we can consider that the first zines (though not in that sense obviously as they were just conversing in spangol and tegalowg, and were using quills and inks or maybe even their own blood, hokay?) made here in Pinas were made by our own revolutionaries – Plaridel, Rizal, Jacinto, Bonifacio, and others who were within their circles at that time. These as evidenced by La Solidaridad, numerous pamphlets attacking the fat friars, the Kartilla which structured the Katipunan. Then there was also during the 30s Sakdal, isang lingguhang pahayagan na nasa tabloid format na nagsimbuyo sa pagkabuo ng mga Sakdalista. At noong panahon naman ng Hapon ay lumabas din ang nakamimeograph na Matang Lawin na ukol sa mga pagkilos noon ng mga guerilla.

And siyempre sa Tate nung naglabasan ang mga hippies and the counter-cultural movement (around late 50s – 60s), yung mga beat poets heroes nyo diyan, of course, naglabas din sila and they called these “chapbooks”, git? And these contained their poetry, heady stuff, git? Well, but Kerouac admitted that he, in particular was just influenced by Sartre, git? And drunk cups and cups and cups of coffee while listening to the most happenin’ hepcats, git? With burroughs, ginsberg, cassady, genet, and those other cool cats, git? In Haight- Ashburry, git? Which is nea’ Berkeley, git? So, there was also the comix thing, git? With Crumb, Robert Williams, S. Clay Wilson, Rick Griffin, Gilbert Shelton, Art Spiegelman, Kim Deitch, Jay Lynch, Spain Rodriguez, Bill Griffith, Justin Green, Trinna Robbins, git? Y’know Zap, Furry Freaky bros, Funny Animals, them all comix that were put an x on it coz it’s not allowed by the comics code, git? ‘Cos these comix don’t give a F@#&*k about spandex heroes and we have cats f@#kn, and big boobies, and coke snorters, the like, git?

Freedom, git? Becoming your own media is the thing with the zine. Doubly deadly it attracts flies to honey, or dopes to glue, like Sniffin Glue, ang pinakasikat na UK punkzine na gawa ni Mark Perry at lumabas noong 1976 – 1977 for 12 issues. Sa Pinas naman, ay ang Herald X, kaya lang medyo huli na, bandang 1987 siya lumabas, sa 2nd revival na ng Punk movement.[5] Eto, ang hawak kong kopya naka-ziplock pa pero nahiram ko lang din sa isang kaibigan, di ko na naibalik. Maalala pa kaya niya? Hiniram ko kasi ito noong mag-organize ako ng zinecon sa SBW noong 2000. Me exhibit baga ng mga zines alinsabay sa mga illustrations nina Vic Balanon, Ferdz Valencia, LAkay Ranjo and Argie BAndoy mula sa sarili nilang comics na Quatro. Saling pusa lang daw noon si Fletch.

Ang Herald X ay naglalaman din ng mga gig, album reviews, reprints galing sa ibang magazine(New Musical Epress or Maximum Rock n Roll marahil) o zines. Kaya siguro siya naging landmark punkzine ng Pinas dahil sa comics article na Great Moments In The History of Punk plus The Evolution of Pinoi Punk. No other known publication published such and so Herald X was it. Otherwise, they were already printing articles about similar stuff sa Jingle magazine pa. And Jingle started some 10 years before Herald X. Moreover, they had the same staff, almost. The staff of Herald X was composed of Tommy Tanchanco as the editor and as the producer of those Twisted Red Cross albums and who now goes by the name of Jughead at The Phil. Mac Users forum/ site where he narrates his experience in Herald X as : “ pretty much a one-man show, well two, if you count the artist; the publisher who financed the project but who wasn’t really the hands-on type; and except for 1 or 2 contributions. I wrote just about everything. To create the illusion that the ‘zine was well-staffed and had many writers. I used different by-lines for most of the articles. . . .” He picked up the Jughead name daw kasi he’s a big fan of the Clash (the band that really matters, according to one music critic) and its guitarist Mick Jones “who is fondly called by music critics” as such. [6]

The others in the staff were : Edwin P. Sallan, Dodong A. Viray (who later in the 90s formed The Youth), Dominic Gamboa, Arnold Morales, Bong Arquiza, George Imbecile, Col. Popop, Ikang, Je Bautista, Al Dimalanta (of The Dead Ends), Bong Llamanzares, Mary Anne Gonzalez, Didits Gonzalez, Nigel Strange (sounds fictitious), Kathy Rosmer, Camille Ortanez; and the comix/ illustrations were provided by : Gari Santillan, Romeo Lee (of course, The Wild Thing), Gemo Tapales, (Emong) Borlongan (he became a very famous painter na), Roxlee (of course si Idol), Dengcoy Miel, Boyet Miguel, Casie Villarosa, Roehl Santillan. And a dozen or so letters from so called : BJ the Punk of Kanlaon Sta. Mesa Heights (who I also suspect as the same BJ of Rock n Rhythm, kaya?), the president of the punk tribe of Pasig – The Dead Rebels which was founded by Eric Amarante, Rey Payumo from LA who was a vocalist of a band BROADAX that’s based there, one who called himself Noodles and is a Fil-am punk from Livermore CA, Ronnie Leeches Romero of Punks For Peace of San Simon Pampanga who was then about to leave for Canada and was asking the editor if he can be a correspondent, a “confused” Arnel of Malabon who wanted to join War Resisters League an organization being set-up by Dominic then, Ronald Forfieda of Pateros who wrote about his bro/katribo being beaten up by an outsider at a gig at Ortanez and was quite pissed when he wasn’t seen on the screen when Probe did a coverage of that gig, he sent another letter, George Allan Poe of Las Piñas ranting against Satanists and the UG being mixed up with it, etc. etc.

Ilan sa mga nabanggit dito tulad ng mga illustrators na sina Romeo Lee, Roxlee at Dengcoy Miel, kasama ni Ladigohon, ay matagal nang nagco-contribute sa Jingle mag lalo na nung ¼ pa ang sukat nito, madaling ibulsa lalo na’t papasok ka sa kubeta. (kaya ba siya Jingle? At kaya ba ang logo nito isang kerubin na jumijingel?) Although, noong una itong lumabas, sumusunod ito sa karaniwang format ng mga music magazines – kasing-size nito na para ngang magazine at may mga reprints ng mga lyrics ng mga usong kanta, complete with chords pa. Mayroon kaming unang kopya nito na may larawan ng mushroom cloud bilang pabalat at ang laman nito ay pawang mga kanta ng Beatles at iba na may tamang peace, man. Kahit di man ikonsidera ang Jingle na isang zine, malaki din ang naging impluwensiya sa mga sumunod na lathalain na ukol sa musika, di man sa format o nilalaman (na may band/singer profiles, posters, comics, letters, record reviews/ratings, ads, guitar techniques, music history,) naipakilala din nito ang mga sulatin nina Ninotchka Rosca, Juaniyo Arcellana, Joey Ayala noong siya’y estudyante pa at iba pa na di ko na matandaan kasi naitapon na ng tatay ko ang mga kopya namin, ngunit nagbunsod at nagtanim ng mapupusok na kamalayan sa ilalim ng Bagong Lipunan ni Marcos. Noong kalauna’y nawala na din ang jingle dahil nagdagsaan ang maraming imprenta na naglilimbag na din ng mga music magazines, mas maliliit ang mga ito at kasing-laki ng mga komiks (i.e. Solid Gold) at mas tinangkilik ng masa dahil mas marami itong nafi-feature na mga kanta at artikulo tungkol sa Menudo, Raymond Lauchengco, and the like.

So, siguro, yung two-issue na Herald X ay mini project din kaya ng Jingle mag?

May isa pa akong nahiram na zine. Actually, nakaipit ito sa loob ng Herald X – ang The Shop, 16 na pahina na offset-printed sa newsprint, pero siyempre matagal na kaya madilaw na ito. Ipinagbibili ng 10 piso, nakabase sa proj. 2 kung saan din nakabase ang A2Z records. Ang may pakana nito ay sina : Leslie David, Manny Espinola at Ces Rodiguez. May lyrics din ditong nakapaloob (Blister In The Sun ng Violent Femmes at Damaged Goods ng Gang of Four). Halos kaalinsabay nito ang paglabas ng isa ding music magazine, ang Score magazine. Ngunit ang The Shop ay mukhang mas low-budget at mas “iba” ang nilalaman : Pussy Galore, Camper Van Beethoven, Sugar Cubes, Felt, Tupelo Chain Sex, Swans, Velvet Underground, kesa sa karamihan ng punkzines. At dahil nababaduyan sila sa commercialization ng New Wave at predicting another thing coming in the underground scene, or trying to get away from it all – the punk and the chong and to go back to listening good old rock so that’s why they called themselves a rock n roll fanzine. This is probably the precursor to Toti Dalmacion’s Groove Nation records (because they were also selling records) and/or the Scenester zine which came about in the early to mid 90s who were mostly writing about the same bands and/or the newer bands that were influenced by those mentioned and were trying to mesh the dance scene with it or be esoteric with such fandom of those genres. Or did I misconstrue them for their distribution venues such as dance parties?

Di ko alam kung naka-ilang issues tong The Shop.

Anyways, ang Score Magazine ay naka 10 issues at least, dahil di naman talaga ito zine. Mukha lang siyang zine pero glossy ang cover niya, take note. Maraming ads from Eurorock shirt, Top 40, Shambhu, Arte Linea, High Adventure at Khumbmela. Nakakuha ako ng 1 kopya nito sa isang booksale. Ang cover pa noon ay ang bandang Mere Mercy na nagko-cover ng mga kanta ng The Cult. And the usual, may profiles, reviews and lyrics, pero walang chords. Para siguro ito sa mga aattend ng gigs na manonood ng covers ng kanilang fave chong song so they can sing along.

Mga bandang early 90s, eksenang “alternative” music, lumabas naman ang Rock n’ Rhythm. Nasa isang boring na kolehiyo ako nang panahon na ito at pilit na umiiwas sa eksena ng Rhythm n Blues at Boom d’ Bass na nagkalat sa harapan ng San Beda sa katanghaliang tapat. Kaya nahalina ako noon na bumili ng mga issue ng RnR sa me bangketa sa harap ng aking Holy Mamaw skultoPhinish. Baduy ba? E wala e. Kasi 7 years old pa lang naman ako noong unang umusbong punk movement kaya no?

Ang Rock n’ Rhythm ay isa ding music magazine na mas nakapattern sa dating Jingle mag. Kasing sukat ito ng Solid Gold and the like pero ang kinaibahan nito ay ang pokus nito sa “alternative” music, foreign man o local. Well, kaya din siguro ito tumagal na napondohan dahil naging big business din kasi ang so-called “alternative scene”. Alam ‘nyo na yan, no. Ang punong patnugot nito ay si BJ Cabaluna na miyembro ng bandang Bad Days For Mary at may-ari ng Just Say Rock, isang puwesto sa Cartimar Recto na naging bagsakan ng mga zines, at iba pang DIY stuff, like shirts, posters, bootlegged cassette tapes, accessories, etc. Sayang.. . . sayang.. . . .di na maibabalik pa. . . . . . . ang .. . . . . Anyway, editor din siya ng isang sex zine na Wendy Says.

Ang iba pa sa staff ng RnR ay naglabas din ng kani-kanilang zines. Dahil masyado ding diverse ang kanilang interes sa music, viz ang “alternative music”[7] kasi ay pawang revival ng lahat ng mga nagdaang music genre, particular sa rock music, kaya nagsilang ito sa mas marami pang music genre na actually ay cross-over lang naman ng mga naunang genre, git? So, mula sa ilang mga staff ng RnR, may nabuo ding eksena ng mga zinesters, dahil ang karaniwang nilalaman ng kanilang mga zines ay di nakasentro sa musika o politika lamang. Pinakasinasaalang-alang nila ang kanilang mga personal na karanasan, insights sa pinagdadaanan nilang eksesang ito. Kumbaga, dahil sa pagbibigay pokus sa indibidwalismo ng 1990s kaya naging motto ng mga perzines or personal zines ay “ the personal is political.” Aside from the perzines, the staff also released a one-issue zine called Rolling Paper. It was in the same style as Herald X but only because they have seemingly convinced management to have one teeny-weeny hand at publishing. While the 80s had these punks against chongs or wavers, the feuds of the 90s were about hiphoppers against punks (again !) and rockers or rockistas and that’s were most zines were about – defending one’s own turf.

Ilan sa mga ito ay ang : w.r.i..n.g ni wendi, catatonia ni donna, La Puztiso, Tattle Tale nina Reji and Blessela among the throng. These were also the ones I first got acquainted with when I was introduced to the zine scene. Then I found out later that Yasmin has done something like it way back in Silang and has interviewed the band Abrasive Relations for it. It was actually her who made me do it, y’know, the zine.

Naririnig ko din ng mga panahon na yun ang grupo ng sining ekis na pinamumunuan ni Elvert Bañares.Gumagawa-gawa din sila ng mga comix trough their publishing arm Zenith Graphix. Isa rito ang Fever Fungus. Pero mas kapuna-puna ata sila sa eksena ng performance sa dating Club Dredd at iba pang mga events sa Malate. The only contact I had with him though is when I had to interview him for a term paper, then for our own zine, then sometimes during the openings ‘coz he also exhibits.

Then came Rey “Peace” Bravo’s employment as purchaser of reading materials at Tower Records in Makati which helped proliferate and marketed the zine to a broader audience – there were issues of Slug and Lettuce, Maximum Rock n Roll, books on homemade bombs, and such that were only available by mail-order or through trade. Also with the generous and unwavering efforts of the duo Claire Villacorta and Paolo Cruz. who with their created distro network and publishing company, Dumpling Press, was able to sell zines at Tower and through a lot more venues beyond gigs and conventions. This consequently produced such unprecedented fervor to produce and distribute a lot more zines, making zineing a scene in itself. The only con about this phenomenon is you’ll have to fish through the filth to find the gold because it’s that many and not all of them are what it’s worth for the trade. As Forrest Gump would eloquently address it : “Life is like a box of chocolates, you’ll never know what u gonna get.”

However Perzines weren’t that novel as today as this has been realized before in the 60s by Greg Shaw of Mojo Navigator and Bomp and terms this instead as “personal journalism”. His zines were actually proses for the stuff which he liked, including his “comments on world politics, gossip, anything. It was self-expression trying to be entertaining and possibly humorous.. . . . and the people who had a good personality and could express it became the stars of that world. . . .. . . the culture of publishing these magazines, and meeting at conventions, and having parties. . . . .” So perzines, have increasingly become the path to a zinester’s 15 minutes of fame or until that ink holds on to that paper – the creation of a subculture of one’s self. So does that mean, if you don’t like his/her zine you won’t like him/her at all as a person? Hmmmmmmm……well that’s one way of choosing your fiends or friends, ain’t it?

Jump cut to 2001, Surrounded By Water, EDSA, 2nd Zine Con na tinulungan kong i-organize with Claire and Paolo. Wow, jampacked! Kung ganoon kadami ang scene, mas madami din ang zinesters, kasi ang iba dito ay dalawa-tatlo title ang ginagawa. And may workshops pa na kung saan doon ko na natutunan ang iba pang zinester tricks of the trade na pag-recycle ng postage stamp, pag-recycle ng envelope, pag-siksik sa lay-out ng contents, paano makabarat sa suking photocopier, atbp. Dito din ako nakakalap ng iba pang zines na bumubuo ngayon sa aking collecciones.

Dahil sa influx na din ng napakadaming impluwensiya sa media na dagling pinadali pa ng teknolohiya nitong pagdaan ng millennia – cable TV, ang internet, DTP, advanced computer softwares – at pagbaba ng presyo ng mga ito kaya mas naging madali na talaga ang maglabas ng zine. Ngayon ay di ka na makukulong sa estetikong cut and paste, although may iba pa ding gumagawa niyan at pinaninindigan ang purong dungis ng di-pulidong pag gugupit at pagdidikit, dahil maaari mo na itong i-lay-out sa PC gamit ang Adobe photoshop, pagemaker, at para sa mga di masyado techie nariyan ang mala-bobocam na MS Publisher. Karamihan nga sa mga una kong nakalap na zines ay ganito na ang pamamaraan ng kanilang paglalatag ng kanilang mga artikulo at larawan. Ngunit ang repro nito ay dumadaan pa din sa Xerox. Iilan lang ang lumalabas na offset-printed tulad ng Halo-Halo, ang unang zine na nilabas ng Dumpling Press, at ang mga Scenester, (yung mga glossy pocket versions ha, hindi yung mga Mario Alipio edited issues). May ibang newsletter/zines naman tulad ng Make Your Own na naka-Riso pero medyo mahal pa din ang method na ito kasi ang bayad dito per ream. Kung di mo balak magpamigay nga ng ganoong kadami (500 copies), aanhin mo nga yun?

Ngayon, nag-aaccelerate na naman ang presyo ng printing at papel, at dumami ang nagkaroon ng internet access sa promo ng PLDT DSL at instant phone line connection ng BAYANTEL. Ay sus, dati, abutin ka talaga ng taon bago makabitan ng telepono. Pero ngayon nga parang letsong manok at shawarmahan ding nagsulputan ang mga internet cafes. Kaya karamihan sa dating nagpi-print ay naging bloggers or LJers na lang, or Friendsters or Hi-5ers. Or gumagawa na lang ng kani-kaniyang website. MAs madali nga naman ito, menos gastos, at mas marami pa talagang maabot na network dahil dito, lalo na kung naka-WiFi pa ang Powerbook mo. Oi ang Lunar Landing di naman din nagpahuli at naglabas ng CDrom issue kasi can’t afford kami na magprint tsaka puro photos ang laman ng issue na to. Pero kailangangan pa naming mag-aral ng HTML para makagawa ng website. Iba na talaga ang kabataan ngayon, grabe!

Kung nasa liblib ka naman na probinsiya o di kaya ay di mo talaga matunton yang tech stuff na yan, mas pipilliin mo na lang din mag-print, kahit matagal, mabagal ang paglabas mo nito dahil at least walang mag-kacrash na system pag ginawa mo to this way. Ang pwede lang sigurong mag-crash ay ang utak mo sa kaka-isip o ang bank account mo sa pag-produce ng zine mo. It’s your choice, ma men.
“The Medium is the message.”
“Be your own media.”
“If you can’t lick ‘em, do ‘em in by self-publishin’.”
“Pirates all for the good of all.”
Yeah and world peace may be a selfish thing to wish for in this very diverse fractured world where everyday there’s a revolution going on. And what better way to be prepared for it than to be non-complacent. Look what happened to the town of Springfield when Lisa Simpson wished for it, they were gradually ravished by human-eating aliens. And you know what that metaphor means.

Mga pinagmulan ng sanaysay na ito :
ang aking alaala ng mga nagdaang taon kaya kung medyo may duda kayo sa mga pinagsusulat ko dito, check out the others, k?
Wikipedia.org – search for subculture
w.r.i.n.g the zine and the web site that’s linked to it
www.jawbreaker.ph
“Written Rebellions:Legitimizing Urban Subcultures of The Philippines Through Zines” by Lilledeshan Bose. 1st presented during an NCCA conference on New Filipino Writing. January 1999. Reprinted in Chopsuey. Published by Dumpling Press. 2002.
“Greg Shaw Remembers. . . .The Sixties Scene” from Scram issue 11, interview by Kim Cooper. Wikipedia linked to fanzines.
Zine Scene Revolution: Xerox Crazy Kids Sniffing Toner In The Office After Closing Time. Do or Die zine issue 10. pp. 299-309. googled through key word – fanzine history and/or the underground movement.
The Paper Trail : A Thriving Global Network Is A Boon To Local Zinesters by Jill Genio. Googled through key word – Zine convention and/or Dumpling Press
The Anthropophagic Dimensions Of Dada and Surrealism by Dawn Ades. Googled through key word – cannibale, Picabia, Dadaism.
Factsheet 5 : The Definitive Guide To The Zine Revolution. Issue 55. April 1995. USA.
Herald X: Alternative Music Read. Issue # 2. 4th quarter 1987. Manila.
The Shop: rock & roll Fanzine. A2Z Records. Anonas, QC.
The Function of Subculture. From The Cultural Reader. Edited by Simon During. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1999. pp 441-450. Googled through key words – Dick Hebdige, subculture.
Houghton Miffling Company Dictionary for the definition of subculture. Googled thorugh key word – subculture.


(Eto additional notes lang)

Read All About It (some accumulated zines, magazines all sorts )
The Bible (sham 69)
Sassy
Dirt
Down and Out In Berkeley
Cometbus
Halo-Halo 1 and 2
Dysfunxion 1 and 2
Martial Law Babies
Chopsuey
Monochrome Fiesta
Jawbreaker
Barangay Sesame
Newskaster
No More War
Oi Standard
Quatro
Ratroach
Rebel Tribe
Resist
Respire
Scrawlshop
State of The Scene
Get In Touch
Tattle Tale
Nerdcore
Thought Market
Unseen Assazine
Get In Touch
Dissent
Manila Oi
w.r.i.n.g.
maArte
cinemaregla
crest hut butt shop
book of frames
Illiterati
Monkey Milk
San’to
Tic Tiger
Johnny Longhand
Voice Out
And of course Lunar Landing 1 -10


[1] Di ko pa din masasabi na ito ang pinaka-accurate na definition ng subculture dahil patuloy naman kasi ito nage-evolve. Ang tuon ng pag-aaral ni Hebdige kasi nung gawin niya ang libro ay ang mga nag-emerge na mga subcultures sa Britain noong late 60s to 70s at ito ay ang mga teddies, mods, punks, etc – mga disenfranchised working class youths during Thatcher’s regime or earlier pa dahil nagsara ang maraming pabrika sa Inglatera.

[2] Mojo Navigator and Bomp were music writers like Lester Bangs, Greil Marcus, Danny Sugarman, Dave Marsh, Mike Saunders,etc debuted before selling out and writing for Rolling Stones, biographies of superstar bands such as the Doors and/or publishing analytical papers on specific musical genres, e.g. metal and the like.

[3] Interestingly, collage, pastiche and appropriation are forms of cultural cannibalism itself, “an iconic fruit of civilization according to Alfred Jarry. So Dada ate itself, and punk ate itself or rather devoured by the “other”. Inevitably, that’s the way all cultures will go.

[4] Of course, you can contest this. I haven’t read Guy De Bord’s Societe du Spectacle. Can I borrow your copy if you have one? Or better yet can I photocopy your book, huh dear reader?

[5] Di kaya ang Herald X ay lumabas lang ng 1987 dahil si Cory na ang presidente? Me zine ba na lumabas during martial law? Palagay ko wala kasi hulihan di ba? Kung meron man na galing sa UG, sinisira na nila agad ito para walang ebidensiya. Pero buhay ang Katrina’s noon. Hmmmmm.

[6] This may just be a wild guess as I just put two and two together. If you know some people I’ve mentioned here maybe you can ask them which is which. Thanks again.

[7] More of the “alternative scene” swindle – Levi’s appropriated the format of zines through “Fly”as a marketing tool during that time and these were given for free at dance parties. What made it worse was it so imitated Wired magazine that there’s nothing left to read, each graphic overlapped each other, like a photoshop lay-out gone haywire – sayang Lourd de Veyra used to contribute to that paper, and Chati Coronel of the comix collective Bedbugs did the graphics. Maybe they wouldn’t want to hear all about it now. Would you if you were them?

Another was an EMI mini-magazine which good ol’ Ernest Concepcion gave me as one of his pasalubongs from Tate. It was the size of a zine, and cut and pasted but through DTP but was all glossy and was just about their stable of artists. Man, what a rip-off that was!

High life-loafer

High!buhay Artist

Itong panulat/kolum na ito ay halaw sa isang regular na kolum sa Remate. Ngunit dito sa Xsena, ito ay isang melodramatikong paglalahad ng pakikibaka sa buhay ng mga alagad ng sining na kapupulutan ng aral ng ating mga suking buyers, gallery goers, groupies, curators, atbp. Bagama’t ’di tiyak na makakapaggantimpala ang mga patnugot ng Xsena sa mga tatanghaling Best Stories na inyong isusumite, ito nawa’y magsilbing gabay o kahit man lang panandaliang aliw para sa inyo, inspirasyon man kung sakali. Kaya’t simulan na ang pagtangkilik ng pahayagan na ito at mapabasakali na ang inyong buhay ay matuunan ng pansin (lalo na kung ramdam nyo na kulang kayo sa pansin). Maaring magpadala ang artist/pintor/skultor/ performance artist/photographer/ film maker/ writer/ art dept/ production designer/ set man/ gaffer/ foley/ soundman/ art teacher/ illustrator/ musician at sino pa man ng kanyang kasaysayan sa pamamagitan ng pagsagot sa mga katanungang makikita sa High!buhay Artist. Lakipan ito ng larawan na nasa aktong gumagawa ng obra at kasama ng pamilya o katropa saka ipadala sa High!buhay Artist c/o Xsena blah blah blah blah.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Jordan Leyva Orriocerio : Di Masaya Ang Opening Kung Walang Toma

Si Jordan Leyva Orricerio o minsan ay JLo sa kanyang mga malalapit na kaibigan ay isang pintor na nakabase sa Murphy, Cubao tabi ng isang overpriced na carinderia at isang shawarmahan na ang may-ari ay mga Ilokanong Muslim. Kasama niya ditong nananahan ay ang kanyang kasintahan na si Nelia Estuwardo na isa ding artist. Sa una’y mukhang mabangis na hayop ang anyo ni JLo dahil sa kanyang makapal na buhok at pasuray-suray na paglakad, ngunit sa malalapit na kaibigan siya ay matataguriang walang katapat – mabait, mahusay makisama, masayahin at mapagparaya. Marami ding mga kritiko at patron ang sa simula’y natatakot sa kanya ngunit naglaon ay nadiskubre din nila ang kaniyang pambihirang galing at kakaibang mga imahe kanyang naipipinta. Patunay nito ang pagkapanalo niya sa isang patimpalak para sa sining at pagdagsa ng mga alok sa pag-eeksibit sa ibang bansa. Ang iba dito’y kanyang tinalikuran dahil naniniwala siya na ang tunay na pakikibaka ng isang artist ay nanatiling sa kanyang sarili pa din at sa kanyang pinagmulan.

Xsena : Ano ang iyong pinipinta at estilo ng iyong pagpipinta?
JLo : Shit man. Ewan ko kahit ano. Style ? Wala!

Xsena : Bakit pagpipinta ang iyong napiling hanapbuhay ?

JLo : I’m a painter kasi.

Xsena : Gaano ka na katagal sa hanapbuhay na ito ?
JLo : This is forever, man.

Xsena : Ano ang dati mong trabaho ?
JLo : Tambay.

Xsena : Paano ang iyong kita bilang pintor: Sapat ba, kulang, katamtaman o sobra?
JLo : Kulang at sobra.

Xsena : Ano ang iyong kakayahan o talento bukod sa pagpipinta ?
JLo : Wala – matulog, kumain, tumoma. Tsaka pala mahusay akong kumanta ng “My Way”.

Xsena : Paano nakatutulong ang mga ito sa iyong paghahanapbuhay bilang pintor?
JLo : Wala. Walang epekto. Masaya lang kasi tumoma at kumanta, di ba?

Xsena : Ano ang paborito mo sa kwentuhan at bakit?
JLo : Kalokohan lang para masaya lang pero yung may sense naman, men.

Xsena : Sinong ibang artist o gallery ang paborito mo at bakit?
JLo : Wala ako lang. Gallery wala din, pare-pareho lang sila.

Xsena : Sinong ibang artist o gallery ang pinakaayaw mo at bakit?
JLo : Marami, halos lahat. Ewan ko kasi nagbabago naman ginagawa nila habang tumatagal. Siguro yung mga taga. . . . . ay huwag na lang. Baka bugbugin nila ako.

Xsena : Sa pagdating ng panahon, para kanino ka – kay Lord o kay Satanas?
JLo : Ay no comment ako diyan.

Xsena : Ano ang hindi mo makakalimutang karanasan sa iyong hanapbuhay?
JLo : Wala e, lagi ako knock-out o me hang-over.

Xsena : Ano ang mensahe mo sa iba kaugnay sa iyong karanasan ?
JLo : Huh? A. . . e.. . . .Pag beer, beer lang, hard, hard lang. O tapos na tayo?

Unpublished notes number 4

Paint it Black
Group Show – Argee Bandoy, Louie Cordero, Bembol dela Cruz, Jayson Oliveria, Gary
Ross Pastrana, Wire Tuazon, Chris Villanueva, MM Yu
10 February 2006
West Gallery, West Avenue, QC
Curated by Nilo Ilarde

The square is presupposed to be the sign post of modernism. Malevich has laid down such keystone with his painting of a black square on a white ground. It was to be the absolute statement of objectivity. Though, his primary audience was hapless to see a desert, bereft of comforting and familiar sights, lost in such vacuity, its blackness, “like a hole sucking up light absorbing the capacity for description”. They are however unaware that they’re being lead to the plastic space where art is purely experienced. Embodying this total experience is a form of perfect conditions. For a square is symmetry, balance, favoring no side a circle can circumscribe its four corners; it preserves its dimensions however diminished, yet it encompasses plenitude in its divisibility. By this measure, it was now possible for painting to be seen as surface, a thing in itself, beyond mere device to window pictorialism, to see painting go forth from subject to object and back, moreover, a material of space which it occupies.

The exhibit Paint It Black verily exemplifies this presupposition in placing the paintings in actual space as they’re made to stand on the floor instead of being hung on the wall. Uniformly sized as 6’ x 6’, these paintings by Argee Bandoy, Louie Cordero, Bembol dela Cruz, Jayson Oliveria, Gary Ross Pastrana, Wire Tuazon, Chris Villanueva and MM Yu are so arranged as to re-construct Tony Smith’s seminal piece Die, an ominously hollow black steel cube whose carefully considered proportions were based on Da Vinci’s Vitruvian man. This oft referred diagram aimed for a universal ideal that is very anthropocentric and with which architecture similarly drafts its plans. However, in being specific in its dimension (likewise sized as 6 cu ft), Die defies the usual apportioned scales of monuments and pedestal objects, but instead invites direct confrontation. The paintings in the show likewise operate in being neither easel paintings nor murals, more like structures even, seemingly drawing parallels with the space of exhibition.

For whatever meaning Smith may allude to for Die, these meanings however cut through three levels : as to refer to the process of its making (die cast), to the systematic but random operation of natural models commonly associated with most minimalist works (die/dice), and to the subjective signification of its being black (die/ death). Black may come to mean then as the inevitable end, a consummation, the summation, the loss of visible light, a vacuum, the color of eclipse, hollow and full, whole and deep, space and surface.

But as the exhibit title seems to invoke, Paint It Black demands these paintings on exhibit to succumb to gravity, to be matter itself, to be paint itself, to be the very means of its own course, to be the very negation of its own command. For as Paul Klee have said : “We do not have to understand black, it is the primeval ground.” Thus, it is indeed the absolute which painting continually attempts to set asunder.

Unpublished notes number 3

A Ballad Of Arbitrary Methods
Maria Taniguchi
Theo Gallery, Café Saguijo, 7612 Guijo St. San Antonio Village Makati
24 January – 22 February 2006

What does history teach us? It seems an imperative that we learn a progressive narration of what we’ve become or what we may become. Or we just feel the pressure of time being compacted into a moment. In art, we do as we’re told and try to get something out of it, eventually originality becomes a bonus for all such effort. Even rather it becomes a long debacle to a sought after understanding which is as elusive as air or the last strains of a song looped into our psyche. And Maria Taniguchi bears that epic toil in her latest exhibit entitled A Ballad Of Arbitrary Methods.

Arbitrary is used as it were with the different ways certain forms were drawn, reconfigured, executed on a variety of surface – canvas, board, paper – following the precepts of her methods producing at once messy, layered, thick paintings and finely drafted constructions of structures. But these are all casually hung, tacked directly on the wall as though you’re given a preview of her studio.

Though formally trained as a sculptor, Taniguchi finds in painting a special tactility that has become lost in actual ‘objects’. Further she says that they (paintings and drawings) are more dynamic and open to a lot of possibilities, aside from possessing a certain smoothness or rather fluidity as opposed to the very determinate form of a ‘sculpted’ or made object. Her series of ‘ Drawings from The Anthology of Future Projects’ attests to their ‘deadness’ as they are matted and framed in a hexagonal shape reminiscent of a coffin. A lot of them were once installed in Vargas Museum in a past show The Sedimentation of the Mind Is A Jumbled Museum like grave markers littering the marbled floor. But who knows if they will ever be fleshed out, yet here they are as drawings, taking actual space and being viewed in real time. Their execution in 3D might even render them as redundant. Same here with the tacked canvases, all brazenly showing their unraveling seams and rough edges. Their very immediacy belie as well the subconscious ruminations of Taniguchi’s mind - missives of dejection, back-of-notebooks doodles of decapitated parts and still life vignettes are graffittoed all over as seen in the works ‘Oh Samson’ and ‘Futur Skunk’. Recurrent forms build-up as she paints along the way, something akin to a stream-of-consciousness note taking where the brain, the knotted ropes, the volcanoes, the mountain ranges, the cut-off hands, the isosceles peak appear repeatedly as though symptomatizing an inexplicable obsession for such. Or they may even be emblematic insignias to a formula she is trying to devise in weighing out much inured art history, moreso when that history and all its specific movements are prone to much stylization. But Taniguchi is quite conflicted with such generalization that she either accepts them and paints in ‘these art historic styles’ or conflates them all by producing one of her own.


This may be summed up in one of her works Prolonging The Exit where on a deadened green field a prism-like elongation is diagonally placed, one end is that of a complete brick house while the other end is an unfinished brick wall. The middle part of this form doesn’t give much clue as to where the completion of the house begins or where the unfinished wall has taken off its first layer of bricks. It’s also very much like so as that of Doppelganger where a modestly-sized pair of oil paintings of a Mabini-esque bay scenery of palm trees, nipa hut, and mountain ranges painted in thick black, gray and white are placed side by side, she somehow evokes this swing shifts in principle . Though she tries to be faithful in creating two very similar works, they don’t come out as exact copies. Both these works propositions a neither here nor there position

Unpublished notes number 2

Trek Valdizno – Divining The Spills of Thought

Recent Works
Arte’s Café, Quezon City
3 December 2005

How does one really approach abstract painting ? Is it almost always an act of instinct or is this rather learnt through incessant practice, as one learns it’s own vespers?

In seeming insouciance teemed with earnestness, malleable as its own material, it almost always prefigure the essence of the process itself, its own way of being and becoming in a given moment, greatly bespeaking of the wielder’s motives and thrust.

In Trek Valdizno’s works on paper exhibited at newly-opened Arte’s café located at South Triangle in Quezon City, these all flood through in globules with its last trace of sheen. Here are lines twisting, spiraling all over the paper, its viscosity weighing the plethora of patterns into relentless directions as the direct impressions of Valdizno’s pouring of multicolored acrylics thence zoning in on a specific part where he would create more swirls and strokes, at times with the tip of his brush. This produces crocheted networks of colored lines or fleeting echoes of familiar forms he would soon after doodle or spill over with another layer of paint, its marbling effect flowing to an image meltdown, particularities of recognizable forms maddeningly dissipated out of the whole picture. Funneling from the vantage of its discordant wholeness to the sum of its parts and back, he carries out this act of creation in seeming hermetic religiosity.

Accordingly, aspects of faith and the spiritual has tinctured his works since - from his allegorical installations, his sculptures of crosses made of metal discs and later to his paintings. Digressing from their edified connotations of sanctity, he rather conjures them as personal and conceptual iconographies – from his very practice to its produced form, distilling them to its most basic in grasping the essence of perfection as embodied in the spheres and spirals in most of his works. Moreover, in most mystic theosophies, it is the spiral which indeed exemplifies this as it’s correlated to the Source and to life’s unfolding mysteries in the cycle of evolution. While the sense of roundness as illustrated in concentric circles found in most mandalas portend to a centered grasping of the essence and alternately with the search for the ideal world model. This is further emphasized by recurrent motifs and symbols specially ordained by its maker. But as this struggle is unending, the cycle of this searching is infinite, its representation as ephemeral as its colored sand construct.

Quite similarly, how Valdizno titles each works reflects this mapping and navigating of his personal space-states seemingly divined in the celestial (‘Betelgeuse’); the elemental (‘Orinoco’); the organic (‘Laburnum’); the mingling state itself of paint (‘Amalgam’); or even to personifications of the id (‘Fountainhead’); moreover still to an invocation of his chosen solitariness (‘Anchorite’, ‘Medusa’); albeit their titular designations thriving mostly on their seeming likeness which remains illusory.

Though these paper works are randomly and spontaneously conceived, they’re nonetheless structured on the clock-work regularity of its making, belying hence the discipline involved in accomplishing these fleshed-out mental exercises which doesn’t seek the attendant magnificence of a labored composition but the inherent essence of the act of painting itself at the outburst of its own ideation. Its pure creation is it’s own vacillating perfection.

Unpublished notes number 1

Bea Camacho
Blind Transmission
Small Gallery, CCP
16 March 16 April 2006

Blind Transmission hints at an act propelled by compulsion, done out of habit, without much control and whose recipient of such act may or may not be made aware of it happening, like echoing out one’s voice through desolate mountain ranges, its reverb may be the only thing that can be heard until the last of it fades. Space conscripts the distance between sender and receiver, but it is of a mutable dimension dependent upon language and form.

In art, space is relational, ascertained by the distance between artist and audience which may either be collapsed through a work’s participatory structure or further reinforced instead by its overt determinism. Speaking in a conceptual language Bea Camacho complicates further these polemics as she constantly redefines its concurrent dichotomies – between presence and absence, perception and cognition, divulgement and concealment, the public and the private, the mobile and the static. These are presented in formats whose factuality is essentially conceded to – photographs, videos, title cards. But the site of dislocation the works may pose is intermittently centered on her body, and where an amorphous space is constantly being reconfigured. The process by which she attends to her works bore the rituals of settlement and departure : packing, unpacking, crocheting, unraveling, homecoming. Moreover, the very memorialization of each of these acts which undermines how these are perceived are mostly done by proxy – for the actual objects now boxed, for the performances that are framed in stilled permanence. Their re-staging here at CCP is their reverberation.




“The fact that the work does not remain creates an urgency to see it.” (Christo) Camacho’s Packing Project deftly exemplifies this as towards the end of the show she will be gradually packing up all the artworks, leaving “empty spaces where they used to be.” Their being kept away, stored, ready for shipping somewhere else, perhaps to another gallery reflects her state of constant mobility, a “resistance to attachment” and thriving on a “provisional existence”, a mode of survival and/or adaptation to one’s isolation as continually being in a different environment.

Enclose, a video documentation of an 11-hour performance where she crocheted herself into a cocoon with thick red yarn continuously with no breaks for water or food, invokes Christo’s wrappings in her use of a soft material for a temporary refuge. Towards the end, she disappears into a red biomorphic form, signaling the end of the task, which is repeated again once the play button is pushed. Her crocheting thus becomes an infinite ritual, becoming permanently encased in her spun cocoon thence emerging to begin the task anew, her video image “. . . simultaneously coming into being and vanishing. . . and having no precise point of her being fully present.” But the extent of her being fully present in this performance is also predicated on the technological condition/limitation of the recording device used. Repeated playing may contribute to a gradual generation loss, or as with the case of CDs, DVDs the pixilation and further compression of digital data, thereby losing their materiality by repeated showing yet buttressed further into memory. The performance as it’s screened, the term itself, implies its duplicity – to broadcast and to filter, to cloak, aside from being a surface for image projection.

Prior to Enclose, Camacho has also employed crochet in her other works such as Red Hats, Extensions, and her untitled sound objects. It is a craft invoking intimacy yet its execution is based on a pattern of knots that are quite precise, the produced network reminiscent of Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome.

If Enclose is utter retreat to one’s self, Extensions are protrusions of personal space, her attempts to encroach another space by touch. But these Extensions, fleshlike in color and woven like anomalous pairs of gloves, slacken to the ground, limp and heavy; they’re sack-like in one, the other pair curving back to her own hand, as though gravity grounds her to stay. As she is posed in her photograph wherein she wears them, this is where she will remain, as an image.

In Red Hats, her remembrance of family members co-relates to her physical distance from them. The red pompoms hanging down from each hat is a projection of her presence, evidenced by photographs of her family wearing them. In one show, these hats were hung in correspondence to each family member’s height, inversely projecting their presence in the gallery. But the sizes of the hats are mere estimates, not exact equivalents.

Although not included in this show, Twelve Hours Ahead similarly embodies her distance from her parents through a phone tapped into the gallery’s lines. Their presence is only indicated by a light on the answering machine for the messages they have left for her. But she may not have been there all the time to receive their calls hence it is a misplaced transaction, a failed correspondence.

In Secret, Camacho’s disembodied voice is dispersed in a wider field, broadcast on air or to someone who may chance upon their radio waves within a 10m radius from the gallery a recording of her own secrets. But the gallery bares only the physical evidence of its making or the source of its transmission - a CD player and a radio transmitter. No radio receiver is provided. The probability of hearing the recording may just as well be a probability for the player may not have anything playing on it, that these may all have been props to the very idea of having one’s secrets being let out in the open. Just as in Twelve Hours Ahead, her parents may not have called her at all in the gallery. Both these works completion is anchored on merely being aware of what it is all about, imagined for their possible outcome. In the case of Homecoming, it is the trace of the marching band’s sole performance on the show’s opening, represented by a music sheet on a conductor’s music stand. Sound is thence invoked mentally through the notes of the piece they played, rather imparted, to be embodied by another voice.


Blind Transmission is Bea Camacho’s first exhibit here in Manila. She recently graduated with honors from her course in Visual and Environmental Studies at Harvard University and where she was also conferred an Albert Alcalay award and the David McCord Prize for Achievement in the Arts.

Blind Transmission will open on March 16 Thursday at 6PM and will be on view until the 16th of April of 2006.

This exhibit was made possible by the generous support of BPI, First Metro, and Salcon Power Corporation.

Randomness

Artists who became commercial models or product endorsers (better with actual ads posted too) :
1. Jonathan Olazo for Company B. jeans – year
2. Geraldine Javier for Bayo, celebrating women achievers – year
3. Malang and family for National Bookstore – year
4. Malang and family for Bear Brand milk – year
5. Patty Eustaquio for Powerbooks – year


What we might see in the future (for editing pa, is this better with illustrations or sample lay-out?) :
1. All artists for San Miguel Beer
2. Jayson Oliveria for Emperador Brandy, Gran Matador
3. Alvin Villaruel for Salonpas
4. Bembol dela Cruz and Alvin Zafra for Fedseal
5. Artists with babies for Pampers or Huggies or EQ diapers
6. Jet Melencio for Virgin Coconut oil
7. Artists with grown up kids for CAP, Legacy,
8. Argee Bandoy for Philhealth
9. Roberto Chabet for Majestic Chinese Ham
10. Romeo Lee for BenQ CDRs or Imation
11. Louie Cordero for Spicy dilis (his dad makes them)

The Good The Bad The Utter Ugly

The Good, The Bad, The Ugly

- Constantino Tejero for concocting the term “abstract social realism” on Lindslee’s show SR – whooahh!!!!

- New musical siblings ‘Outer Hope’ launching their album at Mag:net Katips amidst the chatter of hot babes overly-protected by their dates – sigh, if only they’d listen to the performance

- The Brockas – so good at being bad to think it has the gathered the finer ones in the indie scene like Lav Diaz and Roxlee constantly strumming an improvised 1-string guitar and headed by Aslan-haired Khavn who had solid background as a pop ballad tunesmith, further ignited by their guitarist who seem to have Barako boys aspiration playing shirtless in most of their gigs and a drummer playing The Champ mascot in boxer shorts and silk robes. Can Cueshe or Blow even top that?

- The Sisig at Mag:net Katips – of kiddie meal proportions to the price of a Big Brother’s Burger – what’s the beef with this or rather the pork with this?

- The last Fete de la Musique – too hyped, too pricey drinkies, too cramped venue, too many black-clad kids screaming blood and ‘pangks not dead’ for nothing but there’s always too many drunk babes willing to be moshed.

- Art_forum egroup discussions – overly dramatic, prematurely critical – but seriously, guys it’s just all banter – we want action, man! Or is this another friendster?


- Simultaneous exhibit openings especially for venues at extreme ends of metropolitan Manila e.g.
Makati and Quezon City, and especially if you’ve been personally invited by both exhibiting artist – the solution actually is to attend neither to avoid any hurt feelings.

- Art contests, art awards – show ‘em the money first, yo’ bastards!

- Year-ender shows that resemble tiangges but nonetheless overflowing with food and booze and all the holiday cheer and which makes it more difficult to have anything done at those times. It seems the tradition, live with it.

- Applying for grants – like shooting coins in a pocket full of holes. The same as showing your portfolio to visiting curators fishing for certain biennales, triennales – like a model walking through a go-see or like an OFW applying for a job in Saudi or HK.

Belated review of 2005

The Shows of 2005
Jayson Oliveria – Killafoto, Green Papaya, QC- too old to be mentioned, too jologs for the starbucks crowd of Katipunan or the Max Brenner denizens of Makati Avenue, too fun to install for Sir Chabet, too much like his own studio – an utterly evolving collage of stuff and scraps from previous works.

Jayson Oliveria – Attack Painter, The Drawing Room, Makati- the little heard show as it opened the year 2005. To quote Tejero on this :” ….Their combinations of khaki, yellow, umber, black, white, orange, pink, turquoise, ultramarine, ochre, red, yellow-green, slate-green, plus the crisscrossing lines and curves and jumbles of circles, squares, rectangles, triangles, stripes, polka dots – look sickly, if not downright ugly.” But as the title suggests, which do you think is being attacked?

Jet Melencio & Kreskin Sugay – Double Bluff, Future Prospects, Cubao & Mag:net, The Loop, QCThe come-back show of the scene’s most under-rated artists proving for the umpteenth time the mettle of their being first and foremost painters. Though Sugay’s having quite a slow re-start, his images remain uncompromising as with the canvas covered all over with lacquered cotton balls, tending to be blunt and corny at the same time – wit in a bottle of gin-bulag and reminiscent of the badness of the so-called Dusseldorf school. While Melencio’s is one for that dandy esotericism quite typical of most abstract works.

Poklong Anading – Anonymity, Finale Art File, Megamall- Shining example of a good work in a ‘bad venue’. Not really bad, bad but it felt quite constrained as it’s in a narrow, corridor-type room and the supposed illumination of the back-lit poster dims its aspired for brilliance.

Jed Escueta – Trace A Stasis, September. Theo Gallery, Saguijo café, Makati - Photography is starting to out painting as the décor of the boudoir, groomed to be this shore’s Pecker he is not but man what eye for such images – be it the druggy culture or the real drama confined in his home of a dad wishing him to be a titled lawyer.

Mystery Meat – group show – East coast west coast – Future Prospects
- nothing new, esp when you’re a subscriber to Juxtapoz where most of these artists are featured. Hello???!!!! we have our own homies here, yo er rather Emo kids holed up in dead end call center jobs. But I guess, those Kanos are still lucky getting paid for doing designs and all for the youth market there is very broad, diverse, you’d wonder if their subcultures are created for such purpose, y’ reckon it?

Picturing Painting. Group show. Vargas Museum. QC- one word, reworked.

Romeo Lee – Pope Lee I – Mag:net ABS CBN- he’s orginal most certainly. And fuck theory!

David Griggs - The Buko Police, Green Papaya-Like being transported to a resort, a vacation in hell, rather a purgatory, a hide-out of tourist kidnappers as there’s a hammock at the middle, coconuts transformed to jack o lanterns, a Christ figure tattooed with euphemisms in front of a camouflage drapery obscuring the way to the toilet, framed postcard size photos of “Pinoyness hoi-polloi jologs kewlness, hippie wanna-bees strumming a guitar on the Persian rug and yuppy intellectuals trying to fit in into this mess, while the artist just probably wants to head to the beach to surf or to the streets to skate. It was probably a way for Griggs to figure out why he was here in the Philippines for his artist-residency and everything just puzzles him – some are quite pissy, some are quite okay and not so different from where he’s been or probably a transfiguration betwixt a rock and a hard place ( being food poisoned in Bangkok and/or being muddled in theory by his curator here. ) I found the show genuine though, less of the SOP us-vs-them in conceptualizing art shows within a residency program.

Fragile Youth with Artificial Legs .Mariano Ching and Yasmin Sison . Theo Gallery, Saguijo café
- masked portraits of young girls vying for Lolita unwittingly
- book transformed into a landscape

Innocent When You Dream.Mariano Ching and YAsmin Sison Finale, Megamall-Hirst as a tiangge keychain, a garden set on Michael Jackson’s Thriller album
-murky landscapes where kids fly kites

(title) Group show (Nona Garcia, Geraldine Javier, Alfred Esquillo, Patricia Eustaquio, artist, Wire Tuazon). Curated by Roberto Chabet. The Art Center, Megamall- The difference between the so-called UP FA school and UST CAFA in this arena is so marked like there’ll be breakdancing any minute. One notices this most in the color scheme where the UST guys showed their penchance for sepia, ochre, burnt sienna, thus being more attuned with the “local color”, while the UP posse were being black tie, two toned, gothic Lolita in copying from photos both found and personally contrived. But Nona’s paintings of her own room being ransacked was one of the more memorable images though, as if she herself has let go much of the dogma of technique and pretty much allowed some violation of it. It was a box-office success anyway, just look at the names, there’s one for every type of collector.


Failure of Modern Man – group show ( Argee Bandoy, Vic Balanon, Ferdz Valencia), Future Prospects- The 3rd installment in the saga of the three stooges – an autistic/ savant, an agro Kafka, a peace-loving skater –man how can these three be the best of buddies? But I saw them through the years and they pretty much held up the same dynamic. Only this time, Balanon and Valencia seemed to play mere support to Bandoy who had more works in this show. There’s a nagging wonder that this may just be an excuse to bond and keep up with what’s happening. I’m being biased - I liked everything in it, well except for the altar of Jesus-Buddha-Krishna, I still don’t know how to handle religious stuff in a show. Maybe a search for a high not found in the extreme stunts ever imagined on a skateboard?

Argee Bandoy – title, Finale. Megamall- Though his works still bear traces of the bare-colored constructivists, minimalist abstractionists, the charm lay in the uncomplicatedness of it all and yet it tries to be a bit erudite but just so – concrete poetry amongst the steel high-rise of Ortigas. But what of the small cut-out shirt with a red button hanging on a framed-wire? The punchline to all such facetious

Attachment – group show (Bembol, Rain, etc), Galerie Joaquin, San Juan
Another case of a show coinciding with another opening (Yason’s at Silver Lens) as a mere few trickled in, partly to blame the location or the unfamiliarity of the place – somewhere tucked within rows of family-owned restaurants that are built for swooning couples, a date place. But the buzz around the works lasted for more than its duration – esp. those by _________ which at first glance can be gleamed as another clone of Louie Cordero when he was starting out, but man, the finish is impeccable – poster-like, a web-page jumping out for your cornea.


Lamierda . Amy Aragon . Mag:net ABS CBN- Compares painting to either cake or shit for all its gooeyness. But being too literal about painting and caging objects with faint traces of said inspiration kinda flushes the idea all the way down to the gutter. The point, however, is her manic lust for paint – revealing much her primalness, wanting to spread all over. Can you handle it ?

Jay Ticar – Pressure Points, Mag:net ABS CBN- A bouquet of flowers encased in ice, slowly melting down the gallery floor – an unforgettable image as much as for the gallery staff who might have continually mopped-off its leakings as ordered by the building management.


Jevijoe Vitug – title, small gallery, CCP- the self is the medium – where have I heard this before? Spaghetti poring over a lipsynching mouth ? Duh? The history of art, of painting as a Spaghetti western? World giving birth to spaghetti? I didn’t know if my experience of this show would have been complete if I have viewed the video that was also set-up. But it was probably just props since it wasn’t working when I visited it or unnecessary even if it would show the same images as the painted ones, gradually accomplished per piece. I laughed it off entirely soon after exiting. But hey, that’s kinda rare isn’t it when walking through some show?

Yason Banal – title, Silver Lens Gallery, Makati- Jet should review this.
- Make connection between Morrissey and Yason since both are quite hung-up on fandom/stardom and Yason is so a fan of Morrissey and Nora Aunor.
- Just saw the fotos from Pox and noticed that it was all images of local showbiz stars amateurishly manipulated by photoshop and so framed as if to recall a gothic appeal after being thronged through feasts of the Black Nazarene – okay in another way – it’s regal films gothic recto camp, not! Not! Not!

Group Show. Cinema Purgatorio. NCCA. Intramuros. Manila Held as one of such projects the committee can vouch for having done something for the year, like providing merienda for its employees for the day it opened. What was worse was that they didn’t even know that there was a show going on or where the works mere lobby décor? Of course they’ve missed the serenade being played for them by Pok’s blind musicians, plucking at their improvised guitars tunes beyond their repertoire of Pamulinawen in the darkened screening hall. And what would this NCCA show be without the prescriptive ethnic/intuitive sound thing/performance?

Poklong Anading. Disappearance Resonates. Theo Gallery, Saguijo Café, Makati.
Concrete painting replacing line drawings. Hmmm where have I seen this before ?

Soundlab/ sound art happenings at Future Prospects with Sabaw collective (Pow Martinez, Ria, Tengal, Jet Melencio, Elemento, the Brockas, Inconnoictu) plus Fascist Nights at FP - a whole new way of boozing with the heightened sense perception of drones and samplings.