KAKAKOMPYUTER MO YAN!
at Art Fair Philippines 2025, Makati
Turning a corner of the Philippines' biggest art market into a karaoke party celebrating Filipino internet art—and selling nothing.
Half living room and half pisonet cafe, a celebration of our material realities and technological bodies.
Feb 21–23, 2025
Digital section exhibition at Art Fair Philippines 2025
Ayala Triangle Gardens, Makati, Philippines
Invited by Chris Fussner of Tropical Futures
Technical installation by Chia Amisola
Production by Emmanuel Fabella and Jasmin Fajardo of Et Alt
We turned a corner of the Philippines' biggest art market into part-living room karaoke / part-pisonet cafe / full-time karaoke party, presented 24 (!) new works of Filipino internet art, and sold nothing.
For the fair's three days (and an additional VIP preview today)—our corner was a non-stop mess of crowds, sweat, technical difficulties, singing, and love. Someone's house in the most unexpected of spaces.
We know best what technologies are like when they're 'spaces', places for intentional communing rather than ever-present fragmentation. While KMY is online forever, situating it as a 'neverending karaoke party' in physical space is important.
We wield technologies built for our exploitation to our potential liberation. Still, third world voices are left out in net art's telling, but their very labor, bodies, & stories make the internet; their community, longing, & loving making the pockets of it that are still precious. I'm immensely grateful to the artists who shared their experiences on-screen on our lives mediated by screens.
Internet art isn't a new field, but its presentation to this crowd is. It's easy to stumble into the space & think it's a nostalgic recall, but the materials represented are very much our present. The websites presented make use of and comment on emerging technologies, even if they're not as legible as flashier 3D works. While looking 'old', KMY is a massive technical endeavor; blurring old & new, high & low technology, public & private, legibility & obfuscated intimacies.
A special thank you to Guil Gonzales and Ysabelle Perez, interns from Art Fair Philippines 2025 who helped us staff the booth the whole weekend, along with Ari Flavier, Trickie Lopa, and Sofie Abrogar from the Art Fair team. Thank you also to our friends who volunteered and helped manage the chaos of the weekend: Carmen Castro, Gab Geraldo, Arman Burias, Tonchi (PK Shellboy/Fax Gang), Andrew Pagulayan, Francine, etc. Kuya Buboy and my parents helped with a lot of materials, which I'm grateful for.
