Word Bridges: Complementing Art Exhibitions Pucker and Bloat by Mona Alcudia and Veneered Desires by Jay Nathan Jore
Authors
Shane Carreon
College of Communication, Art, and Design, University of the Philippines Cebu
Mona Alcudia
College of Communication, Art, and Design, University of the Philippines Cebu
Jay Nathan Jore
College of Communication, Art, and Design, University of the Philippines Cebu
Pucker and Bloat
In “Pucker and Bloat”—a title referring to well-known specific tools for distortion across Adobe toolkits—forms and digital fabrication technology are explored through digital alternation of physical objects and physical manipulation of digital materials. Phygital, a portmanteau of the words ‘physical’ and ‘digital’, best describes the exhibit’s work/ phenomenon as it is situated at the intersection of these two terms while also visually exploring creative relationships between human and machine. Juxtaposing curated objects from Casa Gorordo Museum and images of weavers and weaving techniques from the public domain book, “Philippine Mats” by Hugo H. Miller et al. are their 3d-scanned fabrications and plexiglass mirror finishes. The exhibition asks what it means to take pieces of a body of history (such as antique chairs, vessels, and photographs), capture their details and forms, treat their physical rigidity as malleable pieces of data, and reshape them with intentions and definitions of truth. Also, in this current socio-political zeitgeist of misinformation and disinformation, how can one’s perception of reality be remade through multi-layered lens of technology.
Using 3D scanner, CNC pen plotter, laser cutter and 3D printer, select pieces from history, that is, bodies from the physical plane, both of notable narratives and/or anonymous origins, were translated and manipulated into 2d/3d data; and then, from the digital plane, returned to the physical realm through digital fabrication. Observably, the predominant color in the exhibition is blue, the color most used on the internet, signaling translations of material bodies from physical to digital, and from digital to physical. In these translations, digital
manipulation, open-source design, data loss, and fabrication errors show themselves as natural byproducts, as (un)expected (re)formations of bodies traveling space and time through generative technologies of digital fabrication.
Veneered Desires
In “Veneered Desires,” interpellations are juxtaposed across the fields of Cebuano art history, popular visual cultures, expressions of Bisaya queer aesthetics, and social and economic spaces that frame queerness as subject and object of art. In particular, the exhibit looks into the trope of the valorized masculine body via homoerotic agency as a site of contestation and fabrication of identities and selfhood.
The exhibit has fabric installations attempting to perform the untangling of messy ropes and thick sheets meant to signify the concealment of the rich and intricate lives of queer creatives; and plaster cast body parts to show unmasked veneered skins and polychromed shells to retell stories of struggles for inclusivity. Screen printed wood veneer sheets evoke Balbino, a queer man during the American colonial period in Cebu who incessantly claimed to be pregnant and was thus reported as “bayot, buang” (gay, insane) in a local newspaper; conversely, a neon light installation highlights the popular motto and a popular interjection of Chikita, a social-media-favorite transwoman whose sense of comic wonder brings one to confront life’s difficulties with optimism and hope. Chikita’s motto “Tungod may kinabuhi, bakit hindi Lumalaban” (Because there’s life, why not Fight) offers a philosophy that fuels dreams and aspirations to come alive. Chikita’s random interjection “Nadayon diay?” (It panned out?) in any conversation abruptly interrupts coherence and flow of reason, immediately arresting one to reflect on life’s ambiguity. The motto and interjection are claimed by the exhibit to profoundly signal questions asked by people who are othered from the social order, by people who have no agency to decide for themselves, and by people whose limited knowledge leads them to take lesser-valued paths with pride and determination.
As the exhibit attempts to show the fabrication of masculine identities based on how human bodies are utilized towards market gains, the exhibit also suggests the liberating aspiration of queer art-making. Queer art-making is implied to be figuratively apprehended through transformations of downtown Cebu City, presented as a decaying urban space needing resuscitation that can also be queerly read in relation to conditions such as desirability and exclusion, obscurity and recognition that many queer people have to contend with.