20090101

New years, new friends!

I've made a new friend:
Tengal is a Manila-based interdisciplinary media artist, composer-musician, and filmmaker working with various mediums. He curates and organizes, as well as participates in various media art shows in the Philippines and abroad. His work puts the focus on direct experience, risk-taking and personal interaction between artists and audience, and emphasizes the situational potential of live performance, the interplay of various media – sound and image, in particular – and candid exchange between sub-cultural and academic initiatives. He founded SABAW Media Art Kitchen – a not-for-profit, artist-run initiative and network platform for all kinds of information and communication carried via modern electronic media focused specially in the region of South East Asia.

More info about the event:

After the WASAK year-ender, Fete de la Wasaque, (the festival that brought us 2-nights of wall shaking acoustic-meets-digital assault stirring acts), SABAW Media Art Kitchen opens this year with a very unique 1-hour "digital fireworks" display of live video art, live electronic music and live radio transmissions!

SABAW is pleased to welcome California-based composer, pianist, electronic musician, instrument-builder, CHRIS BROWN, who creates music for acoustic instruments with interactive electronics, for computer networks, and for improvising ensembles. He will be performing his Transmissions series in collaboration with media artist Tengal and the electronic sound-video performance collective, The Gangan Ensemble.

The "Transmissions" series is an audience interactive, live electronic music performance series about the transmission of culture through the information media of sound and radio. It redefines the relationship of performers and audience to the radio medium, opening audio spaces to unheard voices in diverse communities by emphasizing the ability of both to create both the content and the means of production of radio communication. For this performance, radios in automobiles are primarily going to be used since it provides a more familiar experience and is easily accessible today.

Using the outdoor parking space of Cubao X, Chris Brown and The Gangan Ensemble produce live electronic music, while video artist Tad Ermitano performs live video manipulation alongside the electro-magnetic sound tapestry. We are also pleased to feature the video works of California-based visual artist, Johanna Poethig. The live music is mixed into a stereo channel, which is sent to a low-power FM radio transmitter, assigned to a unique frequency where people in the performance space can tune in.

The audience is encouraged to bring their own cars and park them along the parking strip of Cubao X and turn up their radios to create an expansive sound tapestry. Apart from car radios, they are also encouraged to bring portable radio receivers, especially battery powered boom-boxes, mobile phone radios, and to tune in to the transmission channels while moving around the performance space. The audience is thus made a creative partner in the performance of the music, and the event becomes an interaction between the musicians, audience, and the sounds presented in the transmissions.

Think: Drive-in cinema. The audience can watch the live video projection and performers by either sitting inside or staying outside their cars while listening to the music coming from their car stereos.

According to Brown, "personal radios are electronic musical instruments that we all know how to play: we adjust their loudness and tone-quality to our taste and we move them around in our environments to accompany us in our lives."


And this is work (poster, web flyer, and logo) I've done for SABAW Media Art Kitchen & THE GANGAN SERIES
Check out their upcoming events with Chris Brown (not this guy) at Green Papaya Art Projects and Cubao Expo.