Pop to Noise: Interview with WSK

MANILA, Philippines - Erwin Romulo, curator for WSK’s exhibition for Art Fair Philippines 2017, shares how the practices of the WSK collective, while generally marked by its interest in “recently possible” media (what we could tentatively call “new media”) and experimentation, distinctly rest on collaboration. Artists come together in a space, stew over ideas, and produce new pieces. Erwin recalls how an online magazine article described this particular condition of their work: “Obviously parang hindi nila alam yung ginagawa namin. Para kaming Rivermaya dun!” Thinking through these remarks — both Romulo’s and the magazine writer’s — the question of the specificities that circumscribe artists practices surface. Complex transmissions of ideas, skills and labor prompt us to formulate impulsive comparisons and convenient handles to art. But perhaps it is also the magazine writer’s statement that explicates, although rather obliquely and without much difficulty, WSK’s impulse to (as their own proposal states)  “enable the free circulation of people and ideas while connecting them at different levels from grassroots to institutions to technologists and entrepreneurs.” For doesn’t pop music, given its free circulation within the free market, operate in a somewhat similar fashion?

I spoke with Romulo over the phone for a quick interview on WSK’s work for the Art Fair and the processes and exchanges central to its production — the question of “popularity” and “access” notwithstanding. Below are some brief extracts.

PHILIPPINE STAR: Please tell me more about the “SABAW Anthology of Noise, Experimental and Electronic Music” CD.

ERWIN ROMULO: WSK has always been trying to gather musicians of different disciplines to work together to form other kinds of music and expressions and media; it’s a coming together. So instead of doing it yourself, it’s doing it with others. It’s more of a participative thing. There’s a lot of technology and it’s more of an evolving practice for the group.

In 2006, when I first met Tengal Drilon, I spotted that he had released an album called “SABAW” which was a compilation of noise, experimental and electronic music. I’ve been working with these people, I’m familiar with them — but everyone had been saying throughout the years that they’d do something like that, compile it. But Tengal was the first person I knew who actually did it. So at that time I had a radio show on NU107 and I invited him on the program and we played the CD for two hours. So that’s maybe the first time ever in the Philippines on local radio that we put out all these sounds, basically, and it started from there and soon after the idea came about to stage a festival... andaming music festivals even now diba? At that time it was Fete de la Musique. So we decided to come up with Fete de la Wasak as a renegade festival. And it was spelled as “Wasaque” and so this group really is about — well, if nothing else, we have a sense of humor. So we take what we do seriously but we don’t take ourselves too seriously. So he put out that CD and when we were talking about the special exhibits for the Art Fair; I proposed it. I realized it has been 10 years since that CD and I thought that that CD was very important. It seemed remiss not to celebrate it.

What are your thoughts on archiving sound art?

So that’s why I pointed out that 2006 CD — I think it’s important to do that. I mean, apart from what UP is doing with the recordings of Jose Maceda — this is all important, this is our culture. And none of it is trivial; if we don’t preserve the things we do as Filipinos then basically we’re f***ed. E diba nga sabi ni Ambeth Ocampo, “history doesn’t repeat itself, we repeat history.” Why do we do that? Because we forget. We forget the very, very recent, lalo na yung distant past. I see all the efforts as an effort to preserve something, to present something. You won’t get institutional support for something that people don’t know about. Sad fact is that people don’t really want to go out and see shows anymore. They want to go to openings but not to see art at shows. That’s the sad fact. They want to be photographed and put in the Instagram accounts of the galleries but very few people really want to see contemporary Filipino art. Much less art that has been some decades ago behind it. So any way, any chance you get. But that’s the reality. So the point is you have to go out there and pursue whatever avenues you can. To bring it to the audience because you can’t expect the audience to come to you. But that’s to a certain extent diba? Pero kasi with this group given the art form that we’re dealing with, we’re the most versatile, we can go anywhere, we can play with anything. We’re used to the odds against us, we’re used to working with little or with nothing and making something out of it.

Tell me more about the work “Robot Relay Orchestra.” How will it differ from the one in 2015? Why reference the “orchestra”? Is it to make it more accessible?

The orchestra is for demonstrating possibilities for people that they can relate to but also to open up the possibility of using the same old things they’ve come to get used to. I don’t think it’s an accessible term, it’s the appropriate term. Honestly, call it what you want, we don’t really care. How will it differ from the one in 2015? Every performance is unique. By the very nature of how it’s created it will never be the same. They are working on a concept — they’re working with particular lost tapes that are similar but the way they’re working around it is totally different. These are all brand-new machines that they’ve created especially for the Art Fair. This is not old stuff that we’re reusing but, even if we did, it would still be different by the very nature of the performance. And the fact is, not many people witnessed Robot Orchestra in the first place, but besides that it really will never be the same — that’s actually the beauty of it. We can only predict up to a certain extent how it’s going to be expressed or how it’ll sound. But in the end, part of it is seeing what happens.

We are located in a lab that all artists are working in now. It’s become our temporary office. It’s a sound lab, a technology lab, an idea lab. And people collaborate with each other. The things that they’re making will have to talk to one another, they really can’t work in isolation... in many ways I think the real art is what’s been happening for the past months. Process-oriented talaga kami e. Like the other night si Erick Calilan, who’s from Cavite, and who’s an associate of Lirio Salvador from Elemento, he thought of something to add to his work, a hologram. And so he mocked it up and he created a hologram ganun lang. It was appropriate, we discussed it and then they did it. Very fast. A lot of experiments did fail, but it wasn’t the point, the point is that we tried it and learned something from it.

Given the context of the fair, how do you see WSK sustaining its engagement with its audience(s)? How do you see WSK operating within the art market?

We’ve been at it for eight years without any support from whoever or whatever. It was really a community that really believed in what they were doing. So the fact that it’s still going on, it’s getting stronger, I think that says something, right? We worked hard in making this exhibit, so maybe the audience should work hard in order to understand it. But to be honest, when we did Tad Ermitano’s installation two years ago — my experience with this medium, kids just love it. So if not this generation, then maybe the next. And it’s fun. You can play with it, it’s very, very tactile, very direct. I think we’re looking at an audience far wider than the art market. I don’t know anything about that. I don’t think it’s really crossed our minds. We had fun doing it, we wanted to do it and we did it.

Maaring, stranger things have happened. People are starting to buy video art... Kami na yung kidzania ng Art Fair e. We have to be experienced, we’re not static. When we did Tad Ermitano’s piece andaming bata at bumabalik talaga… The kids are really the market for it. They have a really — it’s pure joy when they experienced the art. Baka kung ganun ganun. Actually hindi naman it’s complicated. It’s really more of if you open yourselves up to it... to see the possibility. A “fair” denotes that there’s a lot of things available to see. Not just for sale. I was there working for Gabby Barredo’s installation in 2013. I remember the first part of it — I saw the value of the Art Fair when it first came — I’d like to keep to the original idea in my head when the Art Fair started. I’ll keep to what I originally thought it was. It’s a good venue for us. Sabi nga ni Tengal kay Trickie, kahit Eat Bulaga pupuntahan namin e.