They Speak To You By Association Art Exhibit at Galleria Duemila

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Galleria Duemila proudly presents They Speak to You by Association, a group exhibition which features the works of six contemporary artists, Felix Bacolor, Mariano Ching, Yasmin Sison, RM de Leon, Jonathan Olazo, and Trek Valdzino—together they present compositions which dislodge from traditional facets of painting and installation formats. Loaded with variation and modified styles, the artists reanimate and restructure existing edifications in art to conflicting yet visually decisive investigations on aesthetic identity and progression.

Felix Bacolor’s artistic practice combines a playful dynamic in production and investigation in art-making through a variety of thoroughly researched interests and media such as video, installation and sculpture. Over the years Bacolor mastered the production of object prototypes for his sculpture studies. All this enabled him to experiment rich possibilities in collecting and repurposing objects, and in working with digitized and tangible prototypes in manufacturing. Bacolor studied Studio Arts (Painting) at University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City. Among numerous solo and group exhibitions in the Philippines, his work has also been exhibited in the Museum of Contemporary Art and Design; Manila, Osage Gallery; Hong Kong, Equator Art Projects; and Valentine Willie Fine Art; Malaysia.

Having been trained as an illustrator and photographer, Mariano Ching’s work bellies a sophisticated spatial awareness. His references are largely attributed a surplus of his imagination and are bolsters a childlike receptivity, which comes with an underlying psychedelia pushed forward by his various paradoxical leitmotifs such as voodoo or colonial iconography. An accomplish artist he is a recipient of the Monbusho Japanese Grant and Cultural Center of the Philippines’ 13 Artists Award. His works have been exhibited in France, Malaysia, Singapore and the United States. He received his Bachelor of Fine Arts (major in Painting) at the University of the Philippines. Some of his works belong have been acquired by prestigious art collections including that of the Singapore Art Museum.

Revitalizing or making an image from found images is key to RM de Leon’s practice—from the kitsch and cartoonish, or at times the banal, he interweaves them together, deconstructing or obliterating to the effect of abstracting the recognizable. Though the accumulated process of omitting or reanimating elements to aesthetic balance is certainly not a minimal task, his outputs are painstakingly sparse and comes with a certain sensitivity. He incorporates these fragmented elements with exquisite painterly acts—the result is a hybrid of images that bestride representation and abstraction, painting and graphic design, products that seemingly embody the contemporariness and ambiguity of the insurmountable surge of images in today’s technological apocalypse. De Leon completed a bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines in 1984. He was a recipient of the Cultural Center of the Philippines Thirteen Artists Awards in 1990. An accomplished artist he has received numerous accolades and grants such as Vermont Studio Center (USA) scholarship for studio arts program for painting. He is currently an art professor at the De La Salle-College of St. Benilde.

Jonathan Olazo’s work manipulate and merge an array of materials and formats such as oil and acrylic on canvas, assembled objects in wood, aluminum, ready-made industrial materials, and photography related media. Olazo’s recent outputs pushes forward through and attempts to preserve William C. Seitz’s 1961 commentary on assemblage as, “all forms of composite art and modes of juxtaposition.” The artist situates his work to a rich possibility of dialogue between the bespoke and the readymade, painting and sculpture, and between the act of painting and the reproducibility of images. Jonathan Olazo completed a BFA Painting degree from the College of Fine Arts at University of the Philippines in Diliman, Quezon City, in 1992 and was a recipient of Cultural Center of the Philippines’ Thirteen Artists Award in 1994.

Yasmin Sison incorporates pop art and figurative elements in her oeuvre; she is also well-known for her sensitive and unwavering children portraits, which offers a panoptic view of the subjects shifting emotional, physical, and psychological transitions. An accomplished artist, Sison holds a degree in Bachelor of Fine Arts, Major in Painting in UP Diliman. She was a recipient of a 13 Artists Awards in 2006 and was shortlisted for the Ateneo Art Awards in 2007.

Trek Valdizno wields unconventional painting tools to achieve gestural abstraction, which is brought by his distinct process; mobilized with urgency; and mostly resulting in layers of quaintly overlapped biomorphic figures. Pluralistic and athletic, the works take the onlooker on a frantic gestural joyride. His work quintessentially showcase, in every sense of the word, a excess of painterly acts as it is not a secret that his acrylics can prance, skate, rollover, crochet, coil, collide, and coagulate. He completed a BFA Painting degree from the College of Fine Arts at University of the Philippines in Diliman. His work has been exhibited in Ayala Museum, Vargas Museum, and Cultral Center of the Philippines.

Exhibition Run: August 6 - 29, 2016 
Opening Reception: August 6, Saturday 4pm

They Speak To You By Association
Felix Bacolor, Mariano Ching, RM de Leon,
Jonathan Olazo, Yasmin Sison and Trek Valdzino

Hackzilla in Manila Video Interviews with Hackers at Freelancer.com

Wazzup Pilipinas!

Build the Tech, Stop the Carnage, Save the World.

Freelancer.com recently completed the largest inter-collegiate hackathon for disaster response management - Hackzilla in Manila which was held on July 22 to 23, 2016 at the Freelancer.com office, 30th floor, Ecotower, 32nd cor 9th Avenue, Bonifacio Global City, Taguig.

The first-ever Hackzilla in Manila, with a theme of "Preparing the Philippines to effectively respond to natural disasters through the use of technology," is Freelancer.com’s inter-collegiate hackathon. Within 36 hours, students were challenged to build mobile applications, websites, and various other technological solutions that will concentrate on alleviating the harmful impact of natural calamities.

This event is in partnership with the Philippine Disaster Response Foundation (PDRF), The Department of Science and Technology’s (DOST) Project NOAH, the Department of Information and Communications Technology (DICT), Developers Connect Philippines (DevCon), and the Philippine Society of IT Educators (PSITE).

Below are some photos and videos from the hackathon venue - Freelancer.com's office at BGC:

Below are the video interviews we conducted with the 11 teams who participated at Hackzilla in Manila:

Road or Online Rage: Which Should You Fear More?

Wazzup Pilipinas!

"Today, the Philippines is gaining a reputation for a rampant and nationwide campaign of extrajudicial killings. 

Voters knowingly endorsed this when they elected the incumbent president and his anti-crime platform that tacitly included extrajudicial killings. 

Citizens knowingly endorse extrajudicial killings when they post and comment death threats online against an erroneously identified road rage murderer or a college student critical of the incumbent president. 

Filipinos knowingly endorse the deaths of innocent fellow Filipinos as acceptable collateral damage with their silence and lack of outrage." - Romano Cortes Jorge

Now that the real killer of the cyclist from a recent road rage incident has been caught by the authorities, people now rant against him instead of the previously mistaken killer who was tagged by a popular online site and thus has gone viral due to a frenzy of shares on social media.

The suspect in the Quiapo road rage slay, Vhon Martin Tanto, apologized for the death of bicycle rider Mark Vincent Garalde. But sadly, any amount of apology won't bring back the victim to life. He could rot in jail but that won't return the lives of people from both the victim and accused side back to normal.

The ex-Army reservist who was caught by intelligence operatives in Masbate was seen on surveillance footage shooting a cyclist to death after a road altercation. He now faces murder charges after this arrest. PNP Chief Bato Dela Rosa says a "villain's welcome" awaits Vhon Tanto in Manila. The Manila police already has taken custody of the suspect.

A second victim, a scholar of the Manila City government, remains in an intensive care unit when a stray bullet from Tanto's gun pierced the left side of her back and grazed her kidney.

Cyclists held a memorial in honor of fellow cyclist Garalde. Please remember that cyclist have the same rights and responsibilities as motorists, and are subject to same rules and regulations. Motorists must look carefully for bicyclists before turning left or right, merging into bicycle lanes, and opening doors next to moving traffic. Respect the right-of-way of bicyclists because they are entitled to share the road with you.

What bothers me the most is not just the road rage incident but also how social media contributed to the smearing of reputation of the innocent causing possible harm and stress to both the wrongly accused and his loved ones. Please cut Top Gear Philippines some slack. They have done more good than bad for this country. It's also the gullible people that are responsible for many of them have shared without verifying facts.

People who accepted and shared the wrong information are as guilty as the first who shared the news. No matter how good are intentions are, we are liable if we did not validate our information as accurate and correct. A slight variation from the truth will always be nowhere near our search for fairness and justice.

The online bullies ranted and cursed like they know what really happened even though we only see a blurred video footage with no audio. The surveillance video showed no clarity of what really transpired before the incident. We don't hear any of the verbal exchange of assaults between the two individuals involved. Yet, many netizens quickly harassed the suspected car owner wrongly accused due to a wrong plate number.

I fear that we have gone more violent online where no one can prevent us from going wild and crazy.

We can also see from the CCTV footage that both personalities involved in the road rage were both violent in nature. I am just wondering that if the cyclist also had a gun with him, he could have done the same as what the car owner did.

Road rage is never cool and causes more harm than good. We should keep our cool when driving eventhough other motorists, or commuters, act irrational and abusive. It's probably the horrible traffic congestion we encounter everyday. It's probably the stressful realities happening all around us that has been so overwhelmingly turned us into savage beasts ready to strike anybody who crosses us.

However, with the rise of a new President with a reputation that is nowhere near decent, Filipinos today are more encouraged to openly curse and wish other Filipinos dead - following the example of the new leader of the country with a history of violence. 

Everyone is worried to be accused or mistaken for criminals, especially the drug users and pushers. Even Filipinos who might threaten the power of the idolized leader, including those who disagree with the leader's supporters, are not safe to roam the streets now.

Nowadays, people get killed and authorities will dismiss it as normal and reason out that the fatalities resorted to fighting back. However, it has always baffled us why they would kill and not incapacitate instead. The many bullet holes would say otherwise as just a means to protect themselves because that will be too much as defense to their safety. One bullet can already stop anybody who intends to hurt you, so why multiple shots are often seen at crime scenes.

Disturbing to know also that only the small time and lowly suspects gets busted and eventually killed. Seldom do we see big time criminals get caught, or even killed.

The road rage incidents happening is an indication that people are getting so confident in abusing their rights. Knowing the President endorses vigilantism and immediate killings of even the accused, more and more people are finding the nerve to kill when opportunity allows.

Are we blaming the President for the several occurrence of road rage, irrational killings by policemen, cardboard justice for drug pushers, snatchers and the likes? Maybe, maybe not. 

Remember that we should not be attacking the person but the behavior that he or she indulges. We are persecuting how gullible Filipinos are for patronizing Duterte justice and order, and not Filipinos in general.

Please take note that no matter how impressive it seems that "Change is Coming," we cannot welcome a change that puts us into violent times. We would never support a nation filled with raging hearts, may it be on the road or at the comfort of our homes behind our computers, smartphones or tablets. 

"This is not the Philippines I can be proud of. This is no longer the Philippines I can call my own.  

I want my country back. I will stand my ground."