August 16, 2004
Video art and process-oriented art production comprise the works in “Transient Body,” Poklong Anading’s latest solo exhibition at Mag:net Gallery Quezon City this August. In four installation pieces and several paintings, Anading explores an array of processes conveying fragmentation, simultaneity, and the documentation of transient sites and happenings.
In “Between Intersections,” for instance, Anading presents an installation of four panels on which a video footage of disparate sojourns on record are projected on each panel. The viewer thus witnesses Anading’s collection of spontaneous snapshots of his wanderings throughout different spaces, usually at intersections. While recording these sites, the artist resorts to a recurring mode of presentation: he covers the lens with his palm for several seconds, abruptly removes his hand to show the location, and covers the lens with his palm again. Anading loops all these disparate and
disjointed sojourns into familiar and unfamiliar territoriesat different times of the day (or night)– into four continuous hours of footage, producing a simultaneity of sights, location and dislocation as these are projected onscreen.
In “Dribbling Colors,” Anading installs six television monitors atop each other, each set-up and timed to show as a single projection or series the footage of six different balloons (representing a single primary and secondary color). Anading documents each balloon’s action of defying gravity as it is released into space, ascending to the ceiling. Each bursts
upon contact with a sharp object attached there, and falls back limply to the ground. The artist loops all these six footages of a repetitive process together and projects these as a single phenomenon and image, an exploration of a concern first articulated in his undergraduate thesis work “Line Drawing.”
“From Stone to Mountain” is a large-scale outdoor video installation where Anading projects on video a single stone on the façade of the ABS-CBN building. The footage is timed and edited so that the image of the single stone is eventually duplicated and “multiplied” until the composition spans the entire stone surface of the structure.
In another investigation, Anading documents the “vandalization of space.” Atop the ABS-CBN building, Anading arranges letters forming words such as “sky”, “land” and “endless horizon”, laying these out in concentric circles. Using this pattern as a compass of sorts, Anading proceeds to “write out” words in space using a video camera as a figurative brush, documenting the twists and turns of motion as he swirls the camera at Manila’s skyline. Anading, similarly, reverts to two-dimensional abstraction to articulate fleeting motions in his “Wall Piss” series. In these wall pieces, to underscore the pun, he bases the composition of his abstract works on trails left behind by urine spills on canvas a
documentation or representation of such transient phenomena, so to speak.
Anading completed his degree in Painting from the University of the Philippines-College of Fine Arts in 1999. He received the 12th Gawad Cultural Center of the Philippines award in 1999 (Experimental Video category) and has exhibited widely in Manila and abroad. In 2002, he represented the Philippines in the 4th Gwangju Biennale held in Gwangju,
South Korea.
“Transient Body” opens on 3 August 6:30 PM at Mag:net Gallery QC, located at The Loop, ELJ Center, ABS-CBN Compound, Quezon City. The show is made possible with the generous support from PHILIPS CONSUMER ELECTRONICS. The show runs up to 24 August 2004. For inquiries, contact 4100995 (Malou) or e-mailmagnet@pldtdsl.net
