Multi-sensory art within reach

Nikka Santos

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This is art that you may experience — just don't let it mess with your head

KALOY OLIVADES IS 'HERE and Not Here.' All photos by Nikka Santos

MANILA, Philippines – A man stands in the cross-section of 3 video monitors.

Cameras capture him standing still for who knows how long, transmitting images of his front, side and back onto the video screens around him.

The man is artist Kaloy Olivades who is, evidently, “Here and Not Here.” 

That’s the title of his live performance and art installation that I saw — or rather, experienced — at the opening of Modes of Impact: The Inaugural Collection of Video Art mounted by the Ateneo Art Gallery.

I was tempted to tickle the artist. I threatened to, actually.

Others stood beside or behind him — some pondering his work, others making funny faces and awkward poses.

If you read the exhibition catalogue, you’ll realize these disruptions do not defame his art. Olivades knows human nature and anticipated such reactions.

So our antics form part of his piece, that also examines “presence in relation to the self and image.” That’s what it says in the official museum description.

THE ARTIST CANNOT BE disrupted

Images on a screen. Light and sound. Audience as active viewers. A multi-sensory experience.

These are some of what make video art different form paintings hung on a wall or traditional sculptures that stand statically inside a space. 

Most of us think video art was borne out of film and photography. Some may think it is art produced for YouTube.

Is it even experimental movies?

Closer relatives seem to be sculpture and installation art. In this sense, you can see Olivades’s Here and Not Here as some sort of sculpture that alters space and time using cameras and video screens. It is indeed art.

What makes it Video Art is the use of electronic media to create unique imagery — even using time and space to make a statement.

YASON BANAL CORRELATES CELEBRITY, theatrics, history and myth-making

Speaking of statements, Yason Banal’s contribution to this collection makes a strong, tongue-in-cheek poke at our own culture and recent history: Chop-chopped First Lady and Chop-chopped First Daughter is patently Filipino in humor and flavor.

The First Lady is none other than Imelda Marcos, the First Daughter none other than Kris Aquino.

Both women’s lives and antics juxtaposed with gory evocations of the highly-publicized chop-chop lady murders that were exploited by those 90s slasher films Aquino herself starred in. (If you’re Pinoy and were around during the time, you’ll get the drift.)

Banal teaches experimental film in the UP College of Mass Communication and he’s clearly adept at affecting you with moving images.

What he depicts on screen made me wince. But after seeing the complete series of scenes, I realized what was happening and I ended up laughing at the whole thing — perhaps laughing with the artist himself.

That may just be me, of course. Better to perceive with your own eyes.

TAD ERMITANO CREATES A 'Twinning Machine' 

Tad Ermitaño, another filmmaker, ups the cool factor as he invites you to think about the concepts of time and illusion with the sight and sound experience that is his Twinning Machine.

Dancer Tolo Marivillas moves to rhythmic electronic music by Caliph8. Behind him there is a screen showing real-time video sampling of his dance.

Yes, live video sampling. I wasn’t even aware this existed. 

Ermitaño himself coded the computer program that collects moving images that are then projected on screen — making it appear as if there were two, 3, sometimes 4 “twins” mimicking or opposing the dancer’s moves.

Not knowing this was live video sampling at first, I was bobbing my head to the beat watching the dance and wondering… “How did he make those body doubles? Is this live? But how? Looped? Pre-taped layers of video or what?”

I felt like the artist was messing with my head.

I suppose messing with your head thinking of processes and effects is another mark of this new century art form. 

KIRI DALENA, 'ERASED SLOGANS'

Established in the 1960s as the first museum of Philippine modern art, The Ateneo Art Gallery stays true to its legacy by conceiving the country’s first museum collection of video art.

This groundbreaking effort was made by Clarissa Chikiamco, co-founder of the non-profit Visual Pond in collaboration with the Ateneo Art Gallery’s Managing Curator Yael A. Buencamino.  

Chikiamco describes this effort as “…a significant step forward, not just for local video art, but in the collection of Philippine contemporary art itself.”  

She adds, “It reinforces the growing presence of this art form used by contemporary artists in different ways, who, it should be noted, also engage in other media as well.”

Aside from Ermitaño, Banal and Olivades, other multimedia artists contributing to this pioneer collection are Martha Atienza, Kiri Dalena, Manny Montelibano, Mark Salvatus, Gerardo Tan and Maria Taniguchi.

MARK SALVATUS, 'MODEL CITY'

Modes of Impact runs until November 10.

The museum is located at the Rizal Library, Special Collections Building, Ateneo de Manila University, Katipunan Avenue, Loyola Heights, Quezon City.

For schedules of November performances, contact the Ateneo Art Gallery at 426-6001 local 4160 or 426-6488. – Rappler.com

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