以下內容只提供英文版。
For 15 Invitations, the Hong Kong-based curator Inti Guerrero presents his research on the work of Filipino experimental musician and composer José Maceda (1917–2004). The exhibition at AAA Library includes archival and audiovisual materials on Maceda, as well as works, short films, and artefacts by Pio Abad, Anand Patwardhan, Jan Švankmajer, and Koki Tanaka to contextualise the concepts behind two major Maceda compositions, including Udlot-udlot (a 1972 large-scale sound performance documented in AAA's The Chabet Archive).
14 December 2015
Here are some descriptions of the artworks featured in the exhibition:
1. Pio Abad, Untitled, 1986
Reproduction of a photograph from Malacañang Palace
From the project 1986–2012, Manila, 25 Feb 1986
Courtesy of the artist
2. José Maceda, Udlot-udlot, 1975
Images on a computer desktop
Performance at University of the Philippines, Manila, 1975
3. José Maceda, Udlot-udlot, 1975
Musical instruments, musical score, and video documentation of reenactment at Yerba Buena Gardens, San Francisco, 2003
Courtesy of UP Centre for Ethnomusicology, Manila
4. José Maceda, Ugnayan, 1974
Video excerpt, 1', from José Maceda, Kuwardo
Documentary series CCP, 2005
Enlarged cartoon, Philippines Daily Express, 2 Jan 1974
Soundtrack from the album Ugnayan by Maceda, 2009
Radio and archival documents
5. Koki Tanaka, A Piano Played by Five Pianists at Once (First Attempt), 2012
HD video, 57'
Courtesy of the artist
Five pianists enter and sit at a table while a film crew records the event on three cameras. The following instruction is written on a white board: "Rule: to play one piano with all the pianists playing together." The specific theme—a soundtrack for collective engagement—will be given to the pianists when they return the next day to compose the piece live before the cameras.
6. Pio Abad
Ferdinand as Malakas (The Strong One), 2015
Imelda as Maganda (The Beautiful One), 2015
Digital print on canvas in gilt faux bamboo frame
Courtesy of the artist
Reproductions of oil paintings found in the Marcos’ private chambers. In local creationist folklore, Malakas (The Strong One) and Maganda (The Beautiful One) were the primordial couple from which the entire Filipino race is said to originate. According to the most popular form of the story, they enter the world fully formed when a magical bird splits a single stalk of bamboo open, revealing them cradled inside.
7. José Maceda, Ugnayan, 1974
Press clippings from various journals in the Philippines
Courtesy of UP Centre for Ethnomusicology, Manila
8. Jan Švankmajer, The Garden, 1968
B/W film, 15'
Courtesy of the filmmaker and Athanor Film Production Company, Prague
Frank visits his friend Josef, who introduces him to his pedigree rabbits and his wife Mary. Frank is more interested in the slightly unsettling fact that Josef and Mary’s garden fence is made up entirely of living people holding hands. Finally, Frank asks Josef how he manages to keep the fence together.
9. Anand Patwardhan, We Are Not Your Monkeys, 1996
Video, 5'
Courtesy of the filmmaker
This music video reworks the epic Ramayana story to critique the caste oppression implicit in it. Sung by Sambhaji Bhagat and composed by Sambhaji, Anand, and the late Dava Pawar, the work opposes the systematic oppression and negation of basic human rights in the name of mythology.
1 December 2015
For AAA's 15 Invitations, I have been researching the work of Filipino experimental musician José Maceda. Documentation of Maceda's compositions performed by hundreds and sometimes thousands of people throughout the 1970s can be found in AAA's The Chabet Archive. Here are some images and descriptions of my research:
A Visit to the Centre For Ethnomusicology, University of the Philippines, Manila
These files hold an archive of José Maceda's oeuvre. It includes documentation and media clippings on his avant-garde pieces, and research material from his ethnomusicology studies.
Finding the Udlot-udlot Archive
The starting point of my project is Maceda's 1975 masterpiece Udlot-udlot, which I first got know while researching The Chabet Archive. These are images from the archive.
One of the most intriguing findings was a record of the piece. A musical structure invented by Maceda to segmentise the sounds and rhythms made by hundreds of UP high school students over an entire afternoon who clapped, buzzed, pounded, and blew indigenous Filipino instruments made of bamboo. The structure does not follow any folk melody. It is rather more of a "concrete" sound piece, which back in the day would be described as "new music." All of Maceda's "new music" involved interpreting and experimenting with the sound of instruments coming from different people across the archipelago.
When reading Maceda's musical sequence of "Sing, Silence, Sing, Silence, Sing, Silence . . ." it's hard not to think of the silence forced upon civil society during those years of Marcos' martial law. For my project at AAA, I'm particularly interested in how to translate the ways Maceda, like Chabet, navigated their experimental practices between repression and freedom, authoritarianism and avant-garde.
The Instruments
Some of the instruments played in the Udlot-udlot piece: kalutang or sonorous sticks, balingbing or buzzers, tongatong or stampers, and ongiyong or flutes.
