Art in a box, just like in the real virtual world

I would have to say, there were very inspiring moments.

Rachael Turner was engaging, her insights interesting, as was the story of Madlab (Manchester Digital Laboratory). Always say yes, she said, and in a whisper added, within reason. Then there were couple Robert and Lorraine Sylianteng who have given their property in Escolta a new lease on life by turning it into a creative hub, and with it may have just given the former major business district a chance at redemption. I wish I could have heard more from Ee Soon Wei of Art Printing Works-Malaysia, his journey was similar to that of the Sylianteng couple's. But there was not enough time.

For three days, creative communities united at the Arete of Ateneo de Manila. The first two days were filled to the brim with presentations, testimonials, pats on the back, success stories, offers of courses and workshops to make creative communities, hubs to become success stories, all in PechaKucha format - quantized storytelling, 20 slides, and presenters spend a maximum of 20 seconds on each slide and they have no control over the way the story should flow, Microsoft's Powerpoint's programmed to automatically advance to the next slide after 20 seconds. Your whole story, or pitch, whatever, in six minutes and forty seconds. Tops.

The PechaKucha website describes the format as the "Art of Concise Presentations," It originated in Tokyo in early 2000's, they say, "as an event for young designers to meet, network, and show their work in public." Apparently, it's totally new for everyone who went up on stage last weekend, not one was able to properly tell their story within the "rules" of the format, not even the representative of a reputable international business school who was supposed to show us how it's done by supposedly doing a presentation on how to tell your story, or give a pitch, in 5 minutes in, well, 5 minutes. Just like everyone, the first minute or so went well, and just like everyone else, he rushed through the rest of his story like a runner going down a steep incline. And even then, he breached his own time limit. That's the thing about the PechaKucha format, both the presenter and the audience, at least in last weekend's gathering, tended to focus on whether the presentation can make the deadline.

I was terrible at it. I did rehearse my presentation, and I had trouble spending 20 seconds on a slide where I only needed five, and spend 20 seconds on a slide that I needed 30 to properly tell the story of. Some slides I somehow missed a couple of lines and finished ahead of the 20 seconds, others a thought came to me midway which had me going over the limit. Between speaking to the floor director and  the tech guy to cut me a bit of slack and chill and focusing on the story I thought was worth telling, there was hardly any real time left to tell the story. What? I know, right. 

I understand that time had to be managed properly to make the most out of the eight hours per day, tell the storyteller they have six minutes or so to tell the story, but don't tell them how to divide those 6 minutes or so into strictly equal segments. In a conference for creative communities and artists, it's counter intuitive.

Each batch of presentations was followed by an open forum. The conference gathered creative minds, people, in one place, then placed a wall between them. Don't speak, text. 160 characters max. There's no microphone in the middle aisle where members of the audience could walk up to to ask questions, but there's a website you log on to where you can type in your questions. You can identify yourself or post your question or reaction anonymously. Most did post their questions and reactions anonymously.

Just like in the real virtual world.

I heard the phrase business model a lot. And gentrification, the idea of which most of the presenters seem to dislike very much. 

There were a lot of calls to avoid, prevent, even rally against gentrification. The calls were made against a backdrop of a blinding high definition LED wall, overflowing coffee, business school pitches on the importance of a proper business model, and testimonials that mostly equated economic gains with success, even good art, etc. What? I know right. 

The main proponent of the gathering was the British Council, and apparently Thames Business School. I had trouble reconciling the need for creative ideas to flow freely, sincerely, authentically on the one hand, and the pitches to place creative communities in pre-fabricated templates called business models on the other. I acknowledge the need for a way to make artists make rent, but not at the cost of being forced to color inside the lines, or think within a box. 

If artists and artisans and creative hubs and communities must be boxed, packaged in a way that would not only enable them to be economically viable and sustainable but at the same time help and allow them to thrive and flourish creatively, then the least we can do is not to come forward with a pre-fabricated box. Sit down and have coffee with the artists, understand their individual processes, the stories they want to tell and why they want to tell them, understand their dynamics and how those dynamics resulted in a community, a hub, what made them gravitate towards each other, then create that box, that business model, according to those unique processes, dynamics, circumstances, personal, individual aspirations, raisons d'etre. 

Or, well, I could be wrong about all this. 

I missed the tour of selected creative hubs around the metro on the third day. Limited slots only. 

Installation just outside Arete at the Ateneo de Manila, brightly colored flags on poles that flowed freely in the wind, each distinct piece of cloth reacting uniquely to its environment and together forming ever changing forms and shapes. I learned so much looking at this installation.