our group show last month

Day to Day Prime Time Ecstasy is a group show we did last month at Mag;net Katipunan. Here are some pics from the show:

Bea Alcala's Director Predator Series

Frank Magalona's Life in Technicolor: Information Overload

Veronica Pee's Eat Me

Mity dela Pena's Over Lowed

Jed Nacabuan's The Squash Head Projectile

Dean Africa's These Selfish People

Carlo de Guzman

Jed's Supahstah with Dean's Variations on Kuya Germs

Buen Abrigo's Ang Araw-araw na Aparisyon ng Diyos na Puta sa Bawat Kahon na may Cablewire at Antenna

Carlo de Guzman's My Bigoh Ti

Jed Nacabuan's Supahstah

Installation view of Life in Technicolor

"The television is a part of Filipinos' everyday life. Local channels like ABS-CBN and GMA, among the rest, offer cartoons and anime's, commercials, noon time shows, reports on current events, showbiz news, talent shows, telenovelas, koreanovelas, teleseryes and many more. With everyday viewing of these shows, its influence is inevitable to Filipino culture. These shows established popular culture trends and were able to hypnotize its viewers to agree and operate accordingly with the culture they are silently imposing. The influence they enforce on Filipinos is manifested through the prevailing characteristics of our society's culture such as being elitist, westernized, escapist, fetishist, and dog-eat-dog mentality which are the most general. 

With all these nonsense and fetishes on television and with the culture as described above that these nonsense and fetish television shows communicate to its viewers every hour of everyday, it was able to show the "ecstasy of the real". And more than just showing, the viewers began living this ecstasy, that's actually ironic and problematic since the reality in tv and the immediate reality we are actually living is supposed to be different but now is not. This caused disjointedness, popularity is more important than content and quality, the romanticism and exoticism of reality. For example, shirts with Che Guevara's portrait as a design are popular. One time a friend asked a person wearing the kind of shirt, "Who is Che Guevara?" The person answered, "Isn't he Bob Marley's guitarist?"

The television being a tool for advertisers, for show business and their biases, for entertainers who suck blood and life from the viewers is an ideological state apparatus that's almost or actually as strong as the church and the academe. Its power of communication over its viewers most of the time is one-sided and when there are chances given to viewers to participate in their homes, the viewers are of course guided and boxed to the limits of how the television show goes on.

Now for the local channels to be acknowledged, their shows should be "sellable", and for that to happen, they romanticize and exoticize the reality. They wanted to show that there is hope but mistaken about how and why they show it because they distort the reality they're capturing in order to be recognized, in order for them to sell. And lastly, they are able to show people what they want people to see, and that doesn't necessarily equate with showing true life, is it?

The exhibit focuses on the ecstasy of the real inculcated on us by television shows, to depict and question the culture these variety shows infuse on each individual who watches television and challenge the present ideology accepted and often times overlooked. The subliminal messages of television shows and how it hypnotizes its viewers' minds that led to our decadent trying-hard to be Hollywood/celebrities/rockstars and artstars, hipster culture will be represented in different approaches according to each artist and hopefully be of contribution in displaying and documenting this kind of culture that's very common today. After all, the most common of everyday life are the ones that say many things about a society's thinking.

The works range from 2-dimensional paintings to 3-dimensional sculptural pieces and installations. In 2-dimensional works, mixed media and paintings are exhibited while in 3-dimensional works, both molded sculptural pieces and assemblages of ready-mades."