Dissent and Translations

Hi David,
 
 
I’m glad it all fell into place somehow despite some unexpected detours and distractions that came along the way. And truly pleased you enjoyed my post.  On a side note, I find myself rather amused with the René Descartes excerpt for a good couple of minutes. As I was reading it, instinct has me figuring it out in the French. I was simultaneously reading and translating it.
 
It must have been an impractical habit of mine that stems back from the first semester I pursued postgraduate studies (almost a decade ago). It must have also been a kind of preoccupation to imagine elsewheres of different contexts/persusasions/historicities/systems/syntaxes/and so on if you were born somewhere where English is not your first language. And there’s always that uncertainty with a language you feel like you can’t completely express the recesses of your innermost thoughts. Yet somehow the reality of things being lost in translation is a form of dissent in itself and such actuality infiltrates a huge quotient of my artistic practice. These days I easily find myself precariously shifting from Filipino to English to French, Spanish, and Portuguese. Sometimes, it’s out of necessity but sometimes it’s also borne out of curiosity. It’s like distractions and detours that leads us to “elsewheres” which are in turn possibilities especially in light of the digital age, which is a Pandora’s box of discourses we have yet to surmount and properly catalogue… or at least we are somewhat pressured as it’s too ephemeral. The necessity quotient erstwhile is borne out of 

On this note, that particular image you left behind perfectly synchronises with my train of thought now… semi-linear yet actively seeking for contours and peculiar distractions here and there to break the cycle. Dissent is very much indeed linked to language and our desired forms of communication and also how we try to deviate from these often systemic means of communicating with each other and try to find our own negotiated terms like a universe or perhaps an orbit we imagined in light of ourselves.
 
​I end this post for now with an exterior and interior view of two cities I'm much fond of... a contrast between Berlin and Manila. I'm fascinated with the linearity of Berlin and how it enables me to be mobile and explore more (and easily navigate my way). This then is in contrast to a city like Manila where there's a restless reconfiguration as urban dwellers like me constantly insist on turning the city centre towards the peripheries or rather a "polycentric" hence postmodern vision of a city. The notion of centrality has been failing us immensely in terms of our capital city over the past few years. It's primarily due to our mobility issues and lack of sufficient infrastructure to efficiently take us here and there. This also perhaps sums up the tropes of the Apollonian and the Dionysian in me in Nietzschean terms but I'd always like to believe the latter is more exciting as things are in a restless state of movement. Lastly, this also sheds a light why dissent is in the core of the chaos surmounting living in a city like mine.... trying to find movement in something that hinders movement... embracing centrality when another centre emerges on the peripheries... the imaginary of another city infiltrating your way of life in the current place you're in... the simultaneity and discord much like detours and distraction contributing to your artistic process...

Best,
 
Gian