StreetKonect #1 by street konect

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JULY 2014 ISSUE NO. 1

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JULY 2014 ISSUE NO. 1

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JULY 2014 ISSUE NO. 1

Artwork by by Bbrother for the Manila Galleon Project

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THE WORD

TEAM ANGELY CHI

Where are we going?

THE CLEAR VISION

What is the purpose of StreetKonect?. Where it is heading? But before that it is necessary to recall our brief history and why we’re here. In our blog, it is written there that StreetKonect is a non-profit organization, based in the Philippines, dedicated to research, documentation and development of Art, Design, and Street Culture. One of the reasons why Streetkonect was put up was through our lack of understanding of what art and design culture is. Integrating ourselves to the culture we weren’t familiar with was our first step to understand it. It was August 31, 2008 that we launched the streetkonect blog, it was never meant to be serious, it was only meant to document some of our friend’s street art works and their small happenings, like the first Caps Fest. The blog was necessary to document the ephemeral nature of street art and graffiti before facebook became a hit. Wooster Collective is famous for that task. The audience grew and we also grew from a simple blog publication to curating art shows and events. We organized !ha?,The Little Secrets, Venus and Box of Little Secrets, and caps fest 1-5, we supported art shows in Manila, Tacloban, Cebu and Davao. We launched ASAP Artist Support and Alliance Program as a means to support our growing activities and to help other artists in terms of financial support. All the profit that we generate from the art shows, are all going to the ASAP fund. Along the way we realized that our main aim is create a coherent publication outside the blog world. 2 years ago we collated artworks from different artists to put together into a zine. Over the 2 years there was many distractions from publishing it. We scheduled it to be released somewhere last quarter 2013 but a lot of natural distractions like earthquakes and typhoons prevented us from releasing it, bringing our attention to much pressing matters at the time. Last January, we realized that there are many organizations that curate and organize art shows and events, although I might say that ours is unique, but we needed something beyond that. If our main task is to contribute to the growth of the avant garde arts, design we needed a publication that does not document only the scene but of course intervening in it putting our views in a critical manner. So we came to realized that the main effort would focus on publication first but also to curate and organize projects and shows. As of the moment we agreed to come up with an online magazine with no regular frequency just yet. We are also in the process of continuing the zine that we started. It would come a month after the release of this magazine but unlike the magazine it would be printed and photocopied just like the traditional zine. We are also in the process of writing books which tackle contemporary art movements and cultures but we are still not sure if it will be released via online or printed. So on this first issue of the StreetKonect Magazine, we give you Kdlat, one of the pioneers of Cebu street art scene, Big Brother a taiwanese street artist who also marked the streets of Europe. Folk Fiction and various outdoor art festivals. Enjoy

MICKO SUAREZ THE LEVEL

KARL AGURO THE DREAMWEAVER

LESLEY DELOS SANTOS THE THESAURUS

CHRISTIE LEE THE IRON BANK

STEPH JARINA THE ZEN MASTER

MARC ABUAN MAGNIFYING LENS

MONA ALCUDIA THE MIC

LULU AMORADO DAVAO CORRESPONDENT

BANAWE CORVERA CEBU CORRESPONDENT

HANS CHRISTIAN GREGORIO CEBU CORRESPONDENT

DANIELE SEA CEBU CORRESPONDENT

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CONTENTS

6 When Lightning Strikes

10 Good Stories: Folk Fiction

14 Manila Galleon

18 MVGNA

20 Sinulog

22 SOAK

24 CAPS Fest

26 Meeting of Style

28 DesignUbec 2014

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WHEN LIGHTENING STRIKES by Christie Lee

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Kdlt was an art student studying in one of Cebu’s biggest universities in the 90s, being an art student then meant less of experimenting and more with the basics. When questioned, Kdlt answered with a flat “Landscapes” when asked about his works during college. He did not seem too fond of that memory. Simply put, he got tired of all the landscape paintings. By the time Kdlt got into his third year on college, he started exploring other mediums and styles of art,. He recalls starting on graffiti around the time he dropped out of school, a thesis away from graduating.

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Back then, street art wasn’t considered much of a fine art by the Cebuanos. The thought of “art” not being in a canvas up a wall didn’t really appeal to the local art scene. But that thought appealed to Kdlt. Since then, Kdlt has become one of Cebu’s prominent street artists and has founded the ever infamous Ubec Crew in 2008 and since then has been breaking the traditional mold of art in Cebu City. Kdlt’s works has always been considered odd by many. It did not really follow a certain style and look, “Sauna paman ko magusab-usab gyud, kay di ko ganahan nga ma label nga artist nga specific ra ang style, ang mga subject ug thema ramay nagpabilin” (“My style has always been changing, because I don’t want to be labeled as an artist with a specific style, the subjects and themes are the only things that

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don’t change.”). His works range from black and white, to colorful characters on the streets, to wood on charcoal artworks; you could never really expect the same thing. “Mga naagian nako sauna sa pamilya, mga issues sa kasingkasing, ug mga naa sa ko palibot nga naka tarug nako” (“Things I’ve been through before about my family, issues of the heart, and other things around me that moves me.”) As for the subjects and themes his artworks convey, “Mo ingon gani si Payter nga emotional kuno ako tirada, pero di man sad ko ganahan mo paint nga murag robot.” (“Payter tells me that my approach is emotional, but I don’t really want to paint like a robot.”), he goes on explaining. Kdlt has always made it a point to make artworks that give a part of him. Not in a

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literal sense but in a sense of experiences and feelings that would stir up his audience’s emotions. With works that have this much soul he’s bound to go places. “Di ko ka buhat ug trabaho nga wala nako ma experience in some way, kay paminaw nako detach ra kayo, walay unod, mahulog ra nga nagpacoolcool ko ana. Pero ako ra sad na views.” (“I can’t create work that I’ve never experienced in some way, because to me it feels too detached, there’s no meat, it’s like I’m just trying to be cool. But that’s just my view.”) As for what’s behind Kldt? Well, Kldt is short for “Kidlat,” the Tagalog word for “lightning.” And like lightning, Kldt has paved way for so much more. And as they say, when lightning strikes, it doesn’t strike twice. Thank god for introducing a wider scope in the local art scene.

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R E T R O S P E C T

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GOOD STORIES: FOLK FICTION

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A generation straddled between long afternoon naps and sleepless nights in front the computer screen most probably grew up with a piercing nostalgia for the clicketyclack of plastic pieces against a cardboard foldout. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s a world filled with stories.

by Marc Abuan

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In the digital age, the personification of the board game has also shifted to the screen in the form of strategy games – flashier graphics and instant computations; some have even submerged into depths of complexity. It had just got a chicken leg turnout with strategy games looking like masturbation in the sense you can have fun alone and not give a hell about it. You don’t need profound psychosocial analysis to understand how a generation could appreciate so much of board games or an afternoon spent clickety-clacking pieces against cardboard foldouts of snakes and ladders and monopoly. And it’s exactly how Folk Fiction was put together but with more than just snakes and ladders and monopoly. Folk Fiction brings to the table your not-

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so-ordinary board games that evoke casual laughs to wrinkled foreheads. It requires a considerable amount of geek disposition, or at least a lance of interest to poke around the multitude of what Folk Fiction has to offer. Familiar titles like Catan, Risk, and the like grace its mobile shelves. Deeper and more complex games, like Dominion for one, reminiscent of 4X games in the PC, more closely to the PC Civilization franchise, are available if you’ve got a window of time to spare. The only challenge is to face that learning curve. On a lighter note, titles like Dixit and Once Upon a Time might not be technically board games, but are nonetheless enjoyable as the same. Some of the games are positioned for social gaming which in turn goes back to why these things were invented in the first place. A play in the mind and the

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itch in the hand, good company, and a sunny afternoon might be all you need to waste The moving tent city of attractions does not only hold amusements through games. Folk Fiction also brings interesting whatnots into the spotlight- Resin-mold horses, postcards, trinkets and oddities by designer couple Happy Garaje, and other things you find punny, like Whimsyskulls. Shirts, tote bags, books can be found in the mix if you have the ears and the eyes to know where the next Folk Fiction would pop up. For a generation straddling between two times, a little bit of mystery and intrigue plus a whiff of clumsy is a good recipe for a story. Geeks chase it, casuals crave it. This is Folk Fiction.

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R E T R O S P E C T

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F O C U S

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MANILA GALLEON

The Manila Galleons were the Spanish trading ships that sail once or twice per year between Seville in Europe, Acapulco in New Spain (Mexico), the Spanish East Indies (Philippines), Taiwan and Canton in China. The trading route was inaugurated in 1565 with the establishment of the ocean passage with China, and continued until Mexico War of independence in 1815. The 250 years of galleon trade constructed a world map of early globalization, where Europe, America and Asia were linked with American Silver, slavery, Chinese silk, tea and luxury goods. Taking the Manila Galleons as a point of departure, Bbrother will elaborate how (graffiti) artists respond to issues such as (inter-) national politics, immigration, colonization and economical depression in contemporary Europe.

We are hoping that Bbrotherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Manilla Galleon will dock on the ports of Manila soon.

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F O C U S

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F O C U S

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S P A C E

MVGNA: POSTSCRIPT OF A SPACE

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Angely Chi is one of the core members of MVGNA (pronounced mug.nâ), a five-man team that founded a creative co-working space for artists, technoclasts, and other creatives in Davao City. Here she tells the story of the hits and misses of establishing a shared space. On March 2014, we opened MVGNA Espasyo Alternatibo (Alternative Space) in a 30 square foot, high-ceilinged rented building in Davao City. The building, which highlighted as an architecture showroom, was a modern construction of concrete with a glass front, and a billboard to use. It was conveniently located along a well-trafficked road in the downtown area. Rent was cheap. Three months after, we decided to pack up and leave. It wasn’t a hard decision to make. Tell-tale signs of a bad real estate investment cropped up days after we moved in. The comfort room water wouldn’t run. On hard rainy days, rainwater seeped into the cracks under the glass door and the glass panes on one side of the building. Our requests for repairs to the lessor were panned. Choosing to leave it was putting pressure on a wound to stop its bleeding. In the first place, we could have avoided creating the wound. We could not have rented the space without the water properly installed. We could have checked more for cracks in the building in view of forthcoming rains. There are several other

things we now think we shouldn’t have done, but it is hardly in regret but in fair admission of mistakes made and lessons learned. That’s where we gain more. Indeed, there were more gains than losses. One, is seeing the interest in the local community for a shared space where ideas can incubate, and collaborations can happen. This is not to say that ideas are not incubating and collaborations are not happening elsewhere in the city. In fact, they have been happening in homes, in cafes, in bars, in parks, in the streets, in schools, and online. There is hardly anything “formal”, which makes a lot of space for improvisation. After all, we create our spaces to think, to create, and to collaborate.

Why keep dreaming of having an actual space for creative work? Physical spaces can transform how ideas are thought of and actions are made. As said before, we do have many physical spaces where ideas have come to fruition and where meetings among various creative minds have transpired. But a third place specifically designed to optimize creative and technical ideation and work needs to be actualized to address the needs of the present. An alternative venue such as a shared space can help propel local culture and economy by bridging various communities through programs and activities not catered in other venues; it can break the isolation of these communities, and encourage a multifaceted, and a vibrant network.

Is a culture of ideas better than a culture of physical spaces? A physical space can crumble, and suffer leaks, or busted pipes. The idea of a physical space can float and metamorphose without the cost of rent and incidental expenses in our neurological galaxies, until it can be transmuted into an actual space of doors, rooms, and a roof.

Now, we are looking into spaces that have been right under our noses, such as our homes and our hang-outs, as well as commercial spaces in our communities. As our Visayan name “MVGNA” or mugna means “to imagine” and “to create” in English, thinking and acting lies on intersecting planes. An alternative space becomes what we make it and how.

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C R O S S R O A D

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C R O S S R O A D

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Photo by Phoebe Kate Espejo

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C R O S S R O A D

Photos by Banawe Corvera & Ernest Di単o

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C R O S S R O A D

CAPS FEST 2014

Photos by Bek (Photo #1) & StreetKonnect

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C R O S S R O A D

MEETING OF STYLE 2014

Photos by 単 Graver

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piss, bulb, chill, ekis

gers, urk

apok, destroy

27 restor

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E P I S O D E

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DESIGNUBEC 2014 VAMPIRE TEDDIES Michele Liza Kaizer-Pelayre

THE LIST

DARK OF THE MOON

MOCKINGBIRD

MISS MAY I

Jude Crisostomo

Erick Mark Obispo

Geraldine Sy

Nicolo Nimor

FOUND

HAIL ZILLA

SOUTHERN LIFE

HYPNODELLIC

Ed Louie

Doyle See

Stephanie Tudtud

Karl Aguro

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E P I S O D E

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SPECIMENS FROM AREA X

ASTRO SKULL

PHARAOHWL

NIANHUA

Van Kevin Opura

Patrick Mackay

Aya Jugalbot

Francis Bitamor

HERE’S TO TERROR

DREAM CATCHER

NIGHT HAUNTS

Winston Cangsuco

Alwin Aves

Marc Abuan

Happy Garaje (Mark Deutsch & Johanna Velasco Deutsch)

THE WORLD IS A BOOK

90s

CONTROL

NONSENSE

Kat Bacasmas

Edzel Rubite

Anthony Aves

Nikka Uminga

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