Thursday, April 12, 2007

S.A.B.A.W. "Conductors of the Pit: Sound Artists versus Video Artists"

Start:     Apr 20, '07 9:00p
Location:     Mag:net Café Katipunan AGCOR Building (In front of Mirriam College) 335 Katipunan Avenue Quezon City
http://www.magnet.com.ph/



S.A.B.A.W. presents
"Conductors of the Pit: Sound Artists versus Video Artists"

WHEN: April 20 2007, 9pm
WHERE: Mag:net Café Katipunan AGCOR Building (In front of Mirriam College)
335 Katipunan Avenue Quezon City

ADMISSION: 100 PHP

The pit, the abyss, the penetralia, the recesses of the mind, the darkness of political domination, the gulf between worlds. To conduct the pit, then, versus
the orchestra of the living, is to initiate and order materials from the subbconscious. On April 20 at Mag-net Café Katipunan, local video artists and sound artists will take up the role as the "Conductors of the Pit" and partake in a freely improvised environment where their only obvious limitations are the limits of their equipment, venue space and time.

Video artists and video performance artists (VJs) are going to be paired up and pitted against sound artists and musicians, into a mock-battle/game of dominance, cooperation, and everything in between. The pairs can compliment each other, challenge each other, or totally hinder each others performance. There are absolutely no rules. No predetermined obstructions or directions as to how each performance should be. Anything goes. Each pair will only be given 30 minutes (including set-up time) per performance. Each performer will have to rely on improvising on the spot with their selected partners. While some of these
performers have performed together in the past, most of them are going to be collaborating for the first time. The performers have not seen or heard what their
chosen partners will do for the show. Everybody will meet with their material for the first time at the show on April 20.

I have chosen these artists and paired them up with artists whom I thought would not only compliment each other but also bring about interesting performances by pairing up exact opposites. What I aimed for was to foster an environment where improvisation in chance meetings and performances can lead to very interesting results, or the exact opposite. These artists come from very different backgrounds, with each having their own distinct styles and aesthetics. By removing all rules and boundaries, they can do whatever they
want. There is a tension that is built within this environment, where the aim is to freely improvise without preconceived ideas of what each artist would do. Mistakes are bound to happen, but will mistakes even exist at this environment? What will happen on the 20th of April, will be entirely up to the
performers.
Tengal

PERSONNEL: [left – video artist | right – sound artist]
Tad Ermitano vs Blums Borres
Poklong Anading vs Inconnu ictu
Blums Borres vs Elemento
110 vs Caliph 8 (with special guest Tengal)
Mervin Espina vs Arvie Bartolome

The Video Artists:

Tad Ermitano
Tad studied Biology in the University of Hiroshima, Philosophy in the University of the Philippines, but trained in film and video at the Mowelfund Film Institute. He has collaborated with choreographers of Ballet Philippines in the creation of several video dance pieces. His own unaccompanied single-channel videos are distinguished by an audiovisual sensuousness underpinned by a rigorous sequential logic that reflects his training in philosophy and the sciences.
His facility with broad range technologies has caused the focus of his work to expand to include the use of computers in performance and installation contexts. He was the lone Filipino media artist at the 2006 Ogaki Biennale in Japan, which featured Hulikotekan v. 2.1 and his computer video installation Shift Register. Alone and in collaboration, he exploits the malleability that sound and video acquire when transformed into digital data, exploring new ways of using sound and image, both in the studio and in real time. Aside from creating computer-video installations, he performs audiovisual pieces, both solo and as part of the experimental media group The Children of Cathode Ray.

Blums Borres
Blums Borres is a time-based media artist who experiements with sound, video, and animation. He has a BA in Multimedia Arts from the Royal Melbourne
Institute of Technology. He took major subjects in 3D animation and minor subjects in sound composition. Currently, he is the technical director of the
computer graphics department of Toei Animation Philippines and is addicted to the online MMORPG game, Rappelz.

Poklong Anading
Anading is the recipient of the 2006 Ateneo Art Awards and the Ateneo Art Gallery Sydney Studio Residency Grant. He has exhibited widely throughout Manila and Asia, including in the Gwangju Biennale (2002), and has won many prizes for his experimental video projects. He garnered the Gawad Cultural Center of the Philippines Award for Best Experimental Video in 1999 and was a recipient of the CCP Thirteen Artists Award for 2006.

110
AJ Dimarucot aka 110 is a 30 year old graphic and web designer based in Manila. Bursting into the web scene in 2000 with his satirical "LabskosiErap!" (I Love Erap!) website--poking fun at now deposed Philippine President Joseph "Erap" Estrada, Aj quickly became one of the most sought after figures in the local web design community. After a two-year stint with top local web shop 25by8, he now works as an award-winning art director for OgilvyOne Worldwide and has been invited to judge in the Philippine Web Awards for the
last several years. Actively involved in the local independent music scene, Aj has created posters and shirts for electronica group DRIP. In his free time,
Aj dabbles in photography and VJing, being 1/2 of electronica group Morse--providing visuals during their live sets.

Mervin Espina
Merv Espina is convinced he was an Indian bovine in another life.

The Sound Artists:

Elemento
Elemento is the brainchild of experimental multi-media artist Lirio Salvador. Lirio Salvador, a native of the Philippines has created a number of experimental
instruments based on his own concept of ethno-industrial art/music. Lirio says "It's all about the merging of my native oriental culture and the present industrial environment that is slowly corrupting my native land". He creates his assemblage of musical instruments using day to day materials that are found in his present environment, including bicycle gears, drain cleaning springs and stainless steel tubes. "It's an attempt to integrate music, performance art, sculpture, and audio art, all into one". His band Elemento produces oriental industrial noises and experimental music using his own instruments that include strings, electronics, winds and percussion.

Blums Borres
[See above]

Inconnu ictu
Inconnu is Latin for "unknown person", while ictu means "a stroke or a blow" and when combined the meaning can be described to the person behind Inconnu
ictu. His fixation with using a lot of analog electronic equipment and being infamous for playing "too loud" has earned him the title as "The Philippine
Merzbow".

Caliph 8
Arvin Nogueras aka Caliph8 is a hip hop enthusiast, DJ/beatsmith, and graffiti artist. Having been involved in the local hip hop and graffiti scene since 1995, he continues to celebrate the traditions of hip hop culture by merging his influences with other art forms. He has had musical collaborations with local artists such as Mastaplann, Rubber Inc., DJ Arbie Won, Eraserheads, Francis Magalona, Bad Burn, Brownbeat All Stars, and Radio Active Sago Project. He now regularly
DJs/produces/MCs for electronica group Drip and is a resident DJ for Soundsgood's Chillax, Lounge-o-Rama and Moodfood Tour. Caliph8 has rendered commissioned art works for Alliance Fracais, Goethe Institut, Nike, Jag, Levi's, Globe, Nokia, Studio 23, Lee Pipes and has held two art/graffiti exhibits at BigskyMind.

Arvie Bartolome
Arvie Bartolome is better than Seroquel and hangman's blood.

******

ALSO during the event, S.A.B.A.W. will be releasing Arvie Bartolome's debut album, HEAD EGO, a four-part anthology album of Arvie's work from 1998 until 2007. Arvie is one of the country's unrecognized upcoming geniuses in the music scene, a silent outsider, and clinically schizophrenic.

HEAD EGO is comprised of his old cassette music dating back from 1998, where its alienating sounds, forlorn melodies, and demented disco beats, drove him mad, that he destroyed all existing copies of the music, smashed his computer and his head on the wall. Only after seven years, a cassette copy was unearthed from a friend whom he had given a copy. The rest of the
album draws influences (to the point of imitation) from NIN, Aphex Twin, John Zorn, Slint, and My Bloody Valentine among others. HEAD EGO is presented like a broken puzzle where the pieces do not fit. Although the songs are arranged chronologically, they can also be played at random, making each listen a new discovery.

HEAD EGO is a physical manifestation of his mental breakdown and his attempts to redeem his sanity. It is his most personal album yet.

Limited to 20 copies and packaged in a soft cardboard case. Produced by Tengal.

For album orders and reservations, questions and feedback please contact:
Tengal: Call 0920.6045559 or Email tengald@gmail.com
for more details.

S.A.B.A.W. is a sound art collective and record label that represents a cross-section of sound artists, performance artists, contemporary musician-composers
and is dedicated to promoting and releasing the best in avant-garde, experimental and noise music in the Philippines.

www.sabaw.tk
www.groups.yahoo.com/groups/sabaw

--
TENGAL D
Composer/Crazed Artist
tengald@gmail.com
id_of_the_superego@yahoo.com
www.myspace.com/tengal
www.groups.yahoo.com/groups/sabaw
+639206045559
+63 02 7182300
566 Shaw Blvd. Mandaluyong 1550
Metro Manila
Philippines

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