QIYAMAH

                The Apocalypse, the end of the world, the second coming, the judgment day, the rapture and whatever it is that we humans call it – it is basically something you either look forward to or something you fear. It is something every human shares with every other human, everyone knows that there is an end to this life we have now and even to this world we know, and it just amazes me that the thought of death or the thought of the “end” does not apply to only one sector or group or nation, but every single human being. It doesn’t matter what your religion is, or if you do not even have a religion, you just know that there is an end with or without the existence of an afterlife.

                I grew up in a Christian community and like most Filipinos, I believe in the concept of afterlife. Now, one of the things that a Filipino will worry about when informed or warned about the nearing of life and end of man as we know it, is his or her family. He will surely wonder if he will still be with his family or he will even worry more about the safety if his family. I think it is just something that is quite known all over the world – that Filipino are very family oriented. As a child, when I was taught about the Second Coming or The Judgment Day, I could not neglect the thought of worrying about my family,I could not bear the thought of not being with them, as a child I would ask questions in my mind, like “would I still be with my mother?” (I probably used the word Mommy instead of Mother though)

                Now this, I think is what it is to be human in an apocalypse – the concept of a Family. It is human to worry about your family, to first look for your child and your spouse when approached by the “end”. It is human to prioritize the safety of your family even if it means harming other people. (just a side note, this is probably what happened in Tacloban, people stealing food and other life necessities such as clothes from other people, just to keep themselves and their families alive) the whole movie, Qiyamah is centered on what a family is like when approached by “the end of the world”. We see so many manifestations of this, and one obvious and initial manifestation would be the picture on the ticket and on the movie posters – which is a family of three, the father, the mother and the son, holding each other tightly. One look at the posters and the tickets and you know that it is a movie centered on families. It starts off with a scene on the family (lead characters) and the first sign of the “end” for the Muslims.

                The movie has a lot of silent scenes as well, which I think is very normal or very true to life. During the showing of the movie in UPFI, one student asked about the many silent scenes and asked about the significance of it, and the director said, that it was to emphasize the scene, it was to let the audience feel what was happening and notice the movements of the people and how they acted or what their facial expressions were. It was all very realistic, in a sense that in reality we really do not always have something to say, and in fact we usually show more truthful emotions non-verbally than verbally. Maybe it is human to feel and to understand beyond what words can say, especially given the situation in the movie, no one could really come up with something to say quickly, it would really be more of what he would do upon knowing the nearing end.

                It also showed the lead male character, the father, worrying about his sins, about him being a soldier – him having to kill many people and him worrying whether he would be forgiven or not by the families of those he killed. It is to be human to cry. It is very human to be emotional and to have a “breakdown”. Emotions is something so precious we humans have and something that makes us humans. Conscience is all the more what we humans have that animals and plants lack. It is like a trademark of humans, and it is what the lead male character showed. Given that the end is near, people started to worry about their sins, about all the wrongs they have done, and they start to think what will become of them. The thoughts that they might have taken for granted before or thoughts that they might have known but rather chose to just hide it somewhere in their mind, starts to creep out and take over the majority of their thoughts and their mind – leading them to the breakdown.

                The movie shows that in the end whether one does or does not believe in a God, nature is the sole key in destruction, or in taking back what is to be taken. Nature may have given much, yet in the end, it will be the cause of “the end” after all. The last scene showing the lead family together with all the other families in the small community being together – I think this is what is to be human, the sense of company and of family. 

Art Studies 102 – Artist as Insect (Kevin Murray)

ARTIST AS INSECT

                Kevin Murray gave a fresh perspective to me about artists. I never really saw any association between artists and insects before yet he introduced this concept of artists as insects. His whole article could be summarized to three main points such as – first, artist make use of insects as their tools of creative entropy, second, artists act like insects such that they make use of human substances (just like how insects make use of insect substance, meaning they produce their own – like how a spider makes a web of its own without it making use of any external help or resource, rather just itself), and third, the artist returns back to himself being the lone independent individual. It turns out the insect paradigm is a journey out and back of to oneself for the artist. It may have brought the artist out of its shell or its condition, yet in the end it will bring the artist back to its human condition. Kevin Murray explains that the insect consciousness is not against or is not at all moving away from being human, rather it offers a fresh view or a model of the way artistic creativity is – the journey itself.

                The project I made for this section of the quiz, is the a collage of two pictures of which I think was relevant to the Artist as Insect topic yet was not shown or explained in the article. The first picture is the picture of the man-made spider. As to what type of spider it is, I do not know, yet it appears to the typical spider represented in cartoons and logos (the most prominent one being the Spiderman logo). It is man-made such that it is obviously not a real living spider, rather it is evident that it is a piece of art made by metals and other ordinary materials made to look like one shiny metallic spider. Of the key points expressed by Murray – which I have posted in the paragraph before this, I do not think it fits or belongs to any one of all three points. This picture has captured my interest such that, it has raised a question on my mind as to what could be the idea or view of Kevin Murray about literally insect art. In any way could it be possible that he missed this point or this obvious side of insect art or the theory of which the article is found on or does it already belong to one of the three major points?

                The second picture is the picture of the iconic Spiderman. Now this like the first picture I have explained above also seems to missing in Murray’s article or the three major points of his article. Now here is a man, an icon of a man dressing up as an insect – specifically a spider. As what we all know, Spiderman is a fictional superhero who appears to have the “skills” or “characteristics” of a spider which made him “super”. Again, I wonder if this belongs to any of the major three points of Murray or is it possible that he has missed this one. Now one may think that this iconic Spiderman has nothing to do with art or insect art, yet I for one, think it has much to do with art and people. It shows what people think is “super” what people suppose is “more than human” not less than human – so as to explain the consideration of him (spiderman) being a superhero. It also says much that this is a famous character known worldwide. Now what does this have to say about art? What does this have to say about insect art? About artist as an insect? 

 

Art Studies 102 – Deco-Jamming is Eco-glam (Neil MacInnis)

Deco-Jamming is Eco-glam (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymwFBhdugPs)

                I had absolutely no idea what Deco-Jamming is Eco-glam is at first, although I am familiar with the concept of queer. The movies used as examples for Neil MacInnis’ article weren’t at all familiar to me, I haven’t watched nor heard of these movies before so I relied solely on what MacInnis had to say about them.

                Upon reading the article, I think MacInnis made a sufficient write-up about the movies, in fact a very detailed wrote-ups for each movie, such that one who has not seen nor heard of the three movies mentioned (speaking for myself) could have a pretty good grasp of what the movies are about or what they could have looked like on the movie itself. Obviously it was about the queer, and even the incestuous in one of the three movies used. Having read the plot of the three movies I have constructed a concept of what the article is all about and what I could do with my project or the creative selfie output. MacInnis gave key points as to how a reader may have a stronger grip on what he is trying to say, such as the following:

–          Deco-Jamming emphasizes that it is not appearance in any absolute sense that is most important, but rather the potential power of manipulating appearance in relation to environment…the labour of attention and imagination in crafting the bridges one needs to realize oneself is at the core of sexy-work.

–          Textiles playing social roles

–          Textiles being particular and dependence on them

Now the first thing that popped in my head about queer labour or sexy-work is the worldwide hit television series – Glee. Millions of people are glued in to this TV show and even more people are at the very least aware of this show. A little background on this show is that it is about a group of high-school misfits or “losers” as how it is portrayed by the TV show – the huge “L” sign on the forehead, get together joining the Glee Club – which is known to be the “loser” club. It is joined by a huge variety of students, from jocks to nerds and basically from every stereotypical American high school cliques. Now the predictable yet amazing thing about this TV show is that these very different kids turn out to be not-so different after all, they all share this very special passion for music, for singing and dancing and performing. Now this thing that they share is what binds them together, although there are many times when they go back to fighting , these TV series although cliché is actually just a reflection of the never-ending high-school drama evident to every American high school community.

The project output I made is a video or more like a slideshow of pictures of the many queer characters in Glee. I would say that the LGBT community is actually very strongly and equally represented in this TV series. It shows the reality of these people being bullied and judged and outcasted at first yet somehow they eventually find their own ways of “making it” and basically showing the world that they are talented and smart and loved. At the end of the video is a meme I saw in the internet showing the late Cory Monteith (used to be lead character in Glee who passed away) saying that Glee is like the Gay Braveheart.

Glee I suppose is the best example of queer labour and sexy-work present today, and it is something widely accepted worldwide – given the fact that there are many children watching this show and having their parents support these children.

 

 

Art Studies 102 – Masculinity and Advertising (Reuben Canete)

Masculinity and Advertising (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EMGyebRyIY)

                What is it about masculinity and advertising? For years I’ve always been biased in thinking that women have been over-used by the media and by advertising companies to catch people’s attention and to call out to consumers to have a look of their “product” – although we know in most cases it is not clearly the product alone that invites people to look at their products, rather the models’ “product”. I’ve been somehow displeased at the thought that women are used as “tools” for men to drool-over while driving or watching the television or while they read their sexually-oriented magazines. I have always had this thought of women also letting themselves be the product or the mediator product to the real product these rich bastards wish to sell to people.

                After reading Reuben Canete’s article – Masculinity and Advertising, I have had this not-so-fresh realization that men as well, in fact perhaps even more so the men have been and still are being used as tools for tools. This beautiful image we have of men being big and strong and the all-out-macho seems to be the target of all people from the other gender besides the only one that seems to matter here – masculinity. The other two genders Canete refers to are those of the female gender and the queer gender.

                Canete, focused on one of the top selling clothing lines in the Philippines (if not the top-selling clothing line) – Bench. If you type Bench models on google images, the first set of pictures you will see are Bench underwear models. Now what does this simple act prove? What does it say? I suppose it says muchabout the image of Bench or at least how Bench is portrayed by people. Now who are this people to whom Bench adheres to? Who is the target market of bench? One look at their bulletin boards and you’ll know it is the group of young adults and adults.

                Bench also according to Canete says much about the sex-culture of the youth. Why? Again a look of their bulletin boards, their posters and basically just most of their publicity materials, we see nude pictures of both male and female (yet more so male) wearing underwears and their bodies being the focus of the pictures. We see flawless fit bodies of men and women displayed on highways all-over the metro making these images accessible to everyone, making these images part of the everyday lives of people living within the vicinity of the metro.

                The short video clip I made is a simple slideshow of some of the “I think” obviously sexy-male publicity materials of Bench over the past few years. Some pictures being simple and steady and some being stretched and almost sport or movement-like so as to emphasize the muscles and the wholeness of the body. Even the poses of the models are ciphers of the sex culture of the young adults and adults of the Philippines. We see these pictures to be very inviting and seductive, and their choice of models as well is a manifestation of their advertising “style”. 

Modern Manifestation

I remember making two sketches of two little boys in my church. These two boys are both nice and honest – maybe a little frank, as how we expect kids to say the truth even if what they say may not be quite pleasing. They are about six and three, the older one being closer to me looked at my two sketches and said with a smile (an innocent one I should say), “Bakit ganyan, ang pangit?” and then followed it with a laugh. I couldn’t really say anything as that was a little embarrassing, considering the effort I put into making those sketches. After that, I showed my sketches to a group of older people, somewhere between late twenties to thirties, they all were quite impressed and said that I did a pretty good job – with that I felt quite relieved, at least the “wiser” people appreciated my art. I looked at my sketches and asked myself, what could have made the kid say it was ugly and the adults to say it was beautiful and that it was art? 

the following week after my embarrassing consultation with this six-year old, I made another sketch, a sketch of him – one I tried to “copy” from a photograph I took of him a few months ago. He looked at it and to my surprise, he was pleased and he even asked me if he could have my sketch of him. I asked him what the difference was with the first sketch I did, he aid the first one did not quite look like his brother, he said that I did not “copy” everything – by everything I suppose it was everything that mattered for it to look like the original (his younger brother). 

Hearing this from a six year old, a critique of an art made by someone more than thrice his age, I had a grip of what art is or at least what a “beautiful” piece of art is for kids. I remember, I too was like that before. I picture art or at least a good drawing to be a good imitation of reality or of the original. Now, what has been the cause of this, I do not know. But I do know that being exposed to people who mattered or to people who somehow “set the standards” and witnessing them consider random splashes of paint on a canvass say that that is art, made me reconsider and made me see the beauty in them. 

The traditional and conservative art has been given much praise over the past hundred years and the rise of the modern art I believe is a sign for man’s progress. It shows how wide and limitless and rigid less the human mind is. It shows how sacred art is conceived by man as we see it beyond a “format”. Art is making and seeing something beyond what is given in front of you. It is inviting the artist and the viewer of art in one course – that is to both understand and appreciate art. The modern artists manifest a higher sense of art appreciation and understanding – going beyond rules, setting art free and really practicing art as it should be and as it truly is. Modern artists invite this spirit of accepting and even being able to marvel upon the flaws and awkwardness of things and of people and brushing off remains of endless setting of standards of what beauty is and giving a fresh taste and view of the reality that these flaws and awkwardness and all these wrongs – is actually beauty and art itself. Now, this I think is what art is.