In August 2000, I started a newspoetry email list called “Darwin News”. It lasted until 2001. My contributions to that list are here: Darwin News Poems. I’ll post other poems from other projects, other times, other places, other lives, later.
Early on the morning of 8th February 1986, I was going through Immigration at Sydney airport, sleepy from an overnight flight from Manila. The Immigration officer said to me something to the effect that “oh, you’re in trouble now!”, which of course alarmed me — I was indeed in trouble in Marcos’s Philippines, which was why I was in Sydney, running from that trouble. I asked, with a fake smile, “what do you mean?”, and he said, also with a smile, something like “you forgot to vote, didn’t you?”. The presidential election in the Philippines was indeed held on 7 February 1986, and I had indeed not voted. The Immigration officer was teasing me; he did not know that just two weeks before I was being tortured in a safe house somewhere near Manila, and that soon after my release, my father had arranged for me to cool off with my godfather in Sydney. Two weeks after I got to Sydney, Marcos was ousted. I didn’t want to return to Manila just yet as there may have been a change in Presidents but the system in place during Marcos’ rule was basically the same, and the men who abducted me would probably still be around, attending to their business as usual. Its been 24 years since I came to Sydney to cool off for a while. Time flies.
Today’s Mama’s birthday, the first since she died in June this year. She had two: 12th December and 31st January. The story is that her birth certificate was submitted 31st January and somehow they celebrated that as her birthday; then they checked her birth certificate sometime later and saw that her date of birth was 12 December. We celebrated both birthdays equally anyway. Happy Birthday, Mama.
Only a few days ago (probably on Saturday, 28 November) did the distinction between art and design become clearer to me, courtesy of Tom Igoe, in an interview with him in the book “Programming Interactivity” (O’Reilly, 2009). He was describing the distinction in relation to device interaction:
“Recognising that all device interaction is a conversation, it’s an iterative loop of thinking and speaking. So often, artists, more so than designers, get really good at the speaking side of the conversation and don’t develop the listening skills. This is the area where I find the great difference between people who are attempting to make interactive design. The distinction comes in that art is primarily an act of self-expression, whereas design is primarily an act of facilitating communication. Artists have to make things that do something or say something. This is one of the reasons interactive art is a kind of fallacy. I always tell students, look, it doesn’t matter which side of the divide between art and design you fall on, but be clear on the distinction, and when you make your choices, be clear on which of the two is governing your choices.”
Tom Igoe wrote “Making Things Talk”, a book on physical computing and related things.
Posted originally at: http://www.frontlinemedia.org.au/node/24
30 November 2009
Happy Birthday, Andres (Andy) Miranda Ramilo.
Happy Birthday, Maria Christina Andrea (Ling) Quisumbing Ramilo.
This originally appeared in http://www.frontlinemedia.org.au/node/5.
I was reminded of “intercreativity” twice today: first, during a talk with a multimedia artist in Darwin about how he could potentially contribute to Frontline; second, when I visited the web site of a Philippine-based artist to listen to her compositions, including excerpts from her sound installation work.
Frontline will have multimedia and sound installations. But how will we make multimedia and sound installations, and other “locative media” in the coming months and years? I believe our locative media should be guided by the principle of intercreativity.
I learned of “intercreativity” from Tim Berners-Lee’s book, Weaving the Web, where he recounts (among other things) why he invented the World Wide Web. He contrasted interactivity with intercreativity on the Web: with interactivity, a Web user is given options (buttons to push, links to click) that are predetermined by the author/producer; with intercreativity, Web users make things together as prosumers (producer-consumers). His original specification for the Web client was thus a browser that was also an editor.
I have long ago taken on intercreativity as a first principle for the work I wish to do on the Web and in my practice as a community artist. The principle of “making things together” seems such an obvious framework for a project such as Frontline.
Reminding myself of intercreativity as first principle and framework is useful in a personal context. I have looked forward to making things myself as a participant in Frontline; I wish to work on sound and multimedia installations in particular. But after listening to the sound installation excerpts (and other compositions) on the web site I visited last night, and on reflecting some more on mmy talk with the Darwin multimedia artist today, I reminded myself that it will not be enough — and possibly not even appropriate — for me to concentrate on making things myself. I should think and work intercreatively and concentrate on making things with others.
Now, there are many ways of “making things together”. It is not enough to have the desire to make things together and to put people together somewhere then ask them to make things together (or “collaborate”); people who want to make things together should discuss and decide on how they will accomplish this; the environment and tools and resources for making things together must also be secured. In this regard, I think I can contribute to fostering intercreativity in Frontline by helping develop the dialogue about how to make things together, and also contribute to developing the environment that will make intercreativity possible.
I should be thinking not only of composing music and designing sound installations. I should think also of composing and designing the environment that will allow people to compose music and design installations together. And I should be thinking of how I compose and design environments collaboratively. I have done similar things in my previous work with the Theatre of the Oppressed and Cultural Action (in a previous life) in the 1980s and early 1990s. My challenge is to explore how to do so with locative media, how to be intercreative with Frontline.
My mother, Josefina Quisumbing Ramilo, died on Thursday, 11 June 2009, at around 9:00 PM. She was at home, surrounded by my sisters and others who cared for her; they were praying the rosary when she passed away, peacefully. She was 86. Her passing was not unexpected; she had been very unwell for more than a year. But it was so sad still, when Diding left us.
She was a teacher for most of her life. And she was a good teacher, especially to me.
When Jang, my elder sister, called me at around 12:50 AM (Darwin time), Friday, 12th June, to tell me Mama had passed away, I was typing away on the computer. I often worked late into the night. So did Mama. She was working all the time for as long as I can remember. She was always up to something somewhere: I remember Rizal Stadium where she shot arrows or did folk dancing; and Philippine Women’s University where she was a Masters student; and Meycauayan where she would get jewelry that she sold; or Pasig or Manila where she gave seminars; and Saint Joseph’s College where she worked for so many, many years and where she was known as Mommy. She taught me the importance of working hard and working well.
These past weeks, I have taken to playing a few bars of music on the keyboard a few minutes a day, everyday, mainly for my mental health. I don’t play the keyboard well; I should’ve learned to do it well when I had a chance many years ago. Mama wanted me to learn piano when I was a boy but I was too unruly and lazy for that; I learned guitar instead, but I am still trying to learn to play that properly. I did learn enough to make noises I liked, and to write some tunes; I am still learning. Mama taught me to love, to play, and to make music, and to keep learning how.
On my way home from Darwin, having a late dinner of coconut rice, dilis, and chilli paste at Changi Airport in Singapore, I realised how I liked trying all kinds of food since childhood. I remembered how Mama would tell me to eat anything placed at the table, and to eat what I put on my plate, to respect and not waste food, to savour different flavours. I remember the joy of first eating chilli con carne with curry powder, raw red onions, and patis – this is how Mama cooked it, so this is how chilli con carne should be. She taught me how to eat – but unfortunately, not how to cook.
At home, finally, with my sisters, I remember how strong they are, and how grateful I am that they have cared for Mama, and Papa, in their twilight years while I lived far away and was not very useful. I remember how well my sisters have done in their lives, because of their talent and their hard work, and because they met many challenges head on, with much optimism and as much good humour as possible. My sisters are strong women, daughters of a strong woman, who taught me that women can and do make and keep and run the world.
I was and still am, sometimes, a man only a mother could love. I always knew and I still know that she would love me no matter what. I don’t know if I can love like that. But great teacher that Mama was, in her memory and with her inspiration, maybe I will learn how to do this too.
Darwin, Singapore, Manila
14-15 June 2009
Songs from my album “May Panahon”, which I released in 1998, are available from the Songs from “May Panahon” page of this blog. It has taken me more than ten years to digitise the songs and post them on the Net, but I have done it at last. The songs are in MP3 format and can be downloaded. I digitised from the original master tape so I hope these versions are clearer than the MP3s of these I have been encountering on the Web (those versions would’ve been digitised from the casette album which I released in 1998). I hope to release the songs on a CD also, which I hope to do in less than ten years.