> Fátima Lasay - cric.ch fileFátima Lasay (b. August 9, 1969) obtained her BFA in Industrial Design in 1991, and since her college years, has worked as product, packaging

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artistes en résidence> Fátima Lasay <

Itinerary [E] 3

Fátima Lasay’s works 9

Project [E]-[F] 11

Workshop [E] 16

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> artistes en résidence > 1Fátima Lasay6/02 - 09/04 2004

centre de réflexion sur l’image et ses contextes

23/02 - 09/04 2004

2CRIC – Ecole Cantonale d’Art du Valais rue Bonne-Eau 16 – CH-3960 Sierre – T-: +41 27 456 55 11 – F-: +41 27 456 55 30 – E-: [email protected] – [email protected] – http://www.ecav.ch

Fátima Lasay (b. August 9, 1969) obtained her BFA in Industrial Design in 1991, and since her college years, has worked as product, packaging and systems designer. From 1993 to 1998, Lasay worked as freelance writer, graphic designer, and was associate editor of TravelNews Philippines. In 1995, she was invited to teach courses in Industrial Design and to develop and teach the first new media art curricula for the University of the Philippines (UP), College of Fine Arts. Lasay is currently assistant professor at the UP College of Fine Arts, handling courses in digital art, hypermedia, art theory and design theory.

Lasay's interest in the cultural facets of technology began in 1998 when she was awarded a grant by the Program for Cultural Cooperation (Ministry of Education and Culture of Spain in cooperation with Philippine universities) to conduct a digitization initiative involving nineteenth century Spanish colonial saint sculptures on the island province of Bohol, Philippines. Since then, critical historical and cultural research is highlighted in her work with technologies.

In 2002, Lasay earned her MFA from the University of the Philippines, her cultural research culminating in "Santo to Signal," an exhibition of three phase space portraits of the Nuestra Señora delos Dolores. The same year, the PCC awarded a grant for her project "Encarnacion and Estofado: Artists' Techniques from Golden Age Spain to the Philippines." The research, which brings seventeenth century santo (saint sculpture) painting techniques with digital media, is expected to be completed in July 2004. The research includes a workshop and exhibition.

Lasay's writing has appeared in various books, journals, and electronic publications including Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA), fineArt Forum (fAf), Inter-Society for Electronic Art (ISEA) Newsletter, Leonardo Journal for the International Society of Art, Science and Technology, The World Healing Book (Beyond Borders Press, Iceland), and Araw Magazine (NCCA, Philippines). Lasay also serves as corresponding editor for fineArt forum and the Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA), manuscript reviewer for LEA and the Leonardo Journal, and sits as member of the LEA Gallery international advisory board. Lasay has also recently been invited to write reviews of new media work for the trAce On-line Writing Centre, Nottingham Trent University, UK.

Lasay recently participated in the UNESCO-Sarai International Colloquium "Old Pathways, New Travelers: The Impact of Digital Arts in the Asian and Pacific Cultures" held at the Sarai/Center for the Study of Developing Studies in Delhi, India. In 2004, she will participate as an artist in the NCCA Sungdu-an National Traveling Exhibition to take place at the Cultural Center of the Philippines (February 2004), Luzon, Puerto Princesa (April/May 2004), Visayas, Bacolod (June 2004), and Mindanao, Davao (July-August 2004).

Fátima Lasay(Philippines)

> artists in residence > Fátima Lasay


23/02 - 09/04 2004


As a young artist and researcher, Fátima Lasay is interested in mythical ways of thinking in and about technologies, an approach which has allowed her to come to terms with a race and identity alienated by the violence of colonial past and the spectacles of the neocolonial present. This interest enables her to enlarge her knowledge and understanding of Philippine/Asian culture, especially the racial past. Lasay's research, creative and theoretical concerns include a cultural definition for technology-based art.

Lasay's artistic media include water media (subtractive painting), glass (engraving and gilding), sound and digital media. As curator, she takes much interest in organizing new media events and exhibitions, both in physical and virtual spaces, that provide interpretive frameworks for interdisciplinary collaborations, Asian mythologies, spirituality, and the intersection of electronic literature, visual art and sound.

Lasay's computer-related work includes digital print production, accessible web design and development, and the design of interactive new media products. Years of training in piano and classical music, from seven until sixteen years of age, has also been invaluable in her use of algorithms to produce ritual music.

Education[2002] Master of Fine Arts, College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines, 2002 [1991] Bachelor of Fine Arts, Industrial Design, College of Fine Arts, University of the Philippines, 1991 [1986] Highschool, St. Mary's College, Quezon City, 1986 [1982] Elementary, Dominican School, Manila; St. Mary's College, Quezon City, 1982 [1980-83] Royal College of Art[1975-80] Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art, Dundee

Recent projects* Member, Scientific Program Committee, ICEC2004 3rd International Conference on Entertainment Computing, Eindhoven, Netherlands, September 1-3, 2004. * Presentor, UNESCO-Sarai International Colloquium, Old Pathways/New Travellers: New Media, Electronic Music and Digital Art Practices in the Asia Pacific Region, Center for the Study of Developing Societies, Delhi, India, December 4-5, 2003. * Member, International Program Committee (Geopolitics of Media), ISEA2004 Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts International Symposium on Electronic Art, Stockholm, Tallinn, Helsinki. August 14-22, 2004. * Selected Artist, FILE (FESTIVAL INTERNACIONAL DE LINGUAGEM ELETRÔNICA) Hipersonica 2003, Paço das Artes/São Paulo, Brasil. August 16, 2003. * Selected Artist, V Salón y Coloquio Internacional de Arte Digital, Centro Cultural Pablo de la Torriente Brau, Habana, Cuba. June-July 2003. Art Futures, Contemporary Art Society, London

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> artistes en résidence > Fátima Lasay


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* Programmer-Curator, streaming media programme for the Walker Art Center's (Minneapolis, USA) "Translocations/How Latitudes Become Forms: Art in the Globalized Age," February 8-May 10, 2003. * Selected Artist, Chiangmai First New Media Art Festival, CMU Art Museum, Chiangmai, Thailand, March 28-April 4, 2003. * Curator, "Decode" new media exhibition, Ateneo Art Gallery, Ateneo de Manila University, Quezon City, Philippines, August 14 to September 9, 2003. * Exhibition Designer, "Yankee Doodles" for Sangandaan 2003 conference on the centennial of Filipino-American relations, Main Gallery, Cultural Center of the Philippines, July 6-August 30, 2003. * Guest Curator, "InteractivA'03" new media exhibition, Museo Arte de Contemporaneo Ateneo Yucatan (MACAY) in Merida, Mexico, July 10-September 28, 2003. * Selected Artist, "Sungdu-an 3-NCR," the National Commission on Culture and the Arts' (NCCA) invitational exhibition, Pasig City Museum, Pasig City, Philippines, August 2003. * Member, Artwork Committee, International Conference on Computational Semiotics in Games and New Media (COSIGN2003), University of Teeside, Middlesbrough, England, September 9-12, 2003. * Research Proponent, "Encarnacion and Estofado: Artists' Techniques from Golden Age Spain to the Philippines," grant awarded by the Program for Cultural Cooperation (Ministry of Education and Culture of Spain in cooperation with Philippine universities), March 2003 - July 2004 * Corresponding Editor, fineArt forum (fAf) and Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA), 2003 * Advisor, Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) Gallery Board, 2003 Other Selected Projects:* Curator, "Inter/Active/Trans/Media: Media, Imperialism and Propaganda" CD-ROM, UP College of Fine Arts, October 19, 2003. URL: http://digitalmedia.upd.edu.ph/dmf2003/ * Organizer, "Mga Wika ng Liwanag" CD-ROM of student works for InteractivA'03, Museo Arte de Contemporaneo Ateneo Yucatan (MACAY) in Merida, Mexico, July 10-September 28, 2003 * Organizer, "The Hidden War: Re-imagining the Center", multi-media student works hosted by Kanonmedia.com, non-profit organization for new media based in Vienna, Austria. July 27, 2003. URL: http://www.kanonmedia.com/ * Festival Organizer, "Artifact Reassembly through New Media Art, Digital Media Festival 2002," Corredor Gallery, UP College of Fine Arts, October 3-19, 2002. URL: http://digitalmedia.upd.edu.ph/dmf2002/ * Member, Artwork Committee, International Conference on Computational Semiotics in Games and New Media (COSIGN2002), University of Augsburg, Germany, September 2-4, 2002. * Organizer and Contributing Writer, "Healing Cultures" digital images by students for "The World Healing Book", edited by Birgitta Jonsdottir and Michael Lohr (Beyond Borders Press, Iceland), November 2001. URL: http://this.is/poems/hope

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* Festival Organizer, "DMF2001 (Digital Media Festival 2001)," Corredor Gallery, UP College of Fine Arts, October 1-14, 2001. URL: http://digitalmedia.upd.edu.ph/dmf2001 * Organizer, "Palm Reading" student works for 2nd Interpoetry Exhibition: A Hypermedia Poetics, Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Sao Paulo, Brazil, and I Congresso International Todas As Letras Lingua e Literatura, Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Sao Paulo, Brazil, October 9-11, 2001. * Artist, E-M/AG/INERO, An Experimental Poetry Installation (with Jorge Luiz Antonio). August 2001 URL http://www.the-virtual-mine.net. The physical installation was launched also in August 2001 at the Gegenort Industrial Mine Pit in Neunkirchen-Wiebelskirchen, Germany. Also presented in the "Reading Room, Hypertext 2001," 12th ACM Conference on Hypertext and Hypermedia, University of Arhus, Arhus, Denmark, August 14-18, 2001. URL: http://www.ht01.org and "2nd Interpoetry Exhibition: A Hypermedia Poetics," Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, Sao Paulo, October 9-11, 2001. * Curator, "Geocentricity, the Earth as Center," commissioned by fineArt forum, May 2001. URL http://www.fineartforum.org/Gallery/2001/geocentricity/ * Artist, "Digiframe," group exhibition of digital prints, Gallery Authentic, in Mozartstr, Koln, Germany, September 14-16, 2001. * Festival Organizer, "DMF2K (Digital Media Festival 2000)," Corredor Gallery, University of the Philippines, October 1-15, 2000. URL: http://digitalmedia.upd.edu.ph/dmf2k

Articles, Research Papers* "New Media in the Cradle of Modern Art" curator's essay for "Decode" exhibition at the Ateneo Art Gallery, Ateneo de Manila University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City. July 2003. * "New Media Art in the Philippines: the Bend in the Road." The Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts (ISEA) Newsletter Issue 90, December 2002 to January 2003 (Amsterdam, Netherlands) URL http://www.isea-web.org. * "Myth, Mind and Meaning in New Media." October 2002. Written for 1st Philippine Art Studies Conference held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Slightly different version of the paper was published in Leonardo Electronic Almanac (LEA) December 2002, Vol. 10 No. 12. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA. * "Images Resulting from the Application of the Mathematical Concept of Recurrence Plots (Phase Space Portraits of the Nuestra Señora delos Dolores of Baclayon, Bohol)." MFA Thesis. 2002. * "Working with International Cultural Organizations: Policies, Strategies, Intentions and Constraints (On the formulation of guidelines and the limitations and challenges of cross-cultural cooperation)." Paper read for the international symposium and workshop "Collaboration, Networking and Resource-Sharing: Myanmar." June 2002.

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* "Myanmar: Collaboration, Networking and Resource-Sharing. (The International Symposium and Open-Academy (Workshop) in Yangon)." Full report on the symposium and workshop written for Research Dissemination Grant by the University of the Philippine Office of the Vice-Chancellor for Academic Affairs. October 2002. * "Geocentricity: The Earth as Center." Leonardo Journal for the International Society of Art, Science and Technology Volume 35 Number 3 2002. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA. * "The Myth of the Divided Child," Vol. 10 No. 5 May 2002, Leonardo Electronic Almanac. MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA. * "Being Universal: A Dialogue on the Process of Collaboration between Joel Weishaus and Fatima Lasay." With Joel Weishaus. Vol. 10 No. 6 June 2002, Leonardo Electronic Almanac, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, USA. * "Crossing Language, Media, Culture," August 2001, fineArt Forum. * "A Digitization Initiative: The Spanish Colonial Santos of Baclayon Parish, Bohol" and "Preserving Object through Tradition (The Spanish Colonial Santos of Baclayon Parish, Bohol)." Research paper submitted to the Program for Cultural Cooperation, Ateneo de Manila University, Philippines. 2000. * "eART" Araw Magazine (NCCA), June-August 2000 Issue. * "Hiroo Onoda's Mission of Peace to Lubang Island." TravelNews Philippines, 1996 * "Meeting of Minds Summit." TravelNews Philippines, 1996. * "Mindanao Autonomy, Now or Never." TravelNews Philippines, 1996. * "Carlos P. Valino, Jr.: Reluctant Master." TravelNews Philippines, October 1995.

Workshops, Conferences* Presentor, Artists' Dialogues, "Sungdu-An 3 NCR 3" exhibition at the Pasig City Museum, Pasig City, Philippines, August 30, 2003 * Resource Person, ArtSpeak, for DECODE exhibition, Ateneo Art Gallery, August 28, 2003 * Paper Reader, "1st Philippine Art Studies Conference" October 24-26, 2002 - Art Studies Conference at the Cultural Center of the Philippines organized by the UP Art Studies Department Foundation, Pananaw Sining Bayan, Inc. and the Lopez Foundation. Funded by the Japan Foundation Asia Center. Title of paper: "Myth, Mind and Meaning in New Media." * Resource Person, "Accessible Web Design" September 18 & 20, 2002 - Conducted a 12-hour accessible web design workshop for SPMO at the Computational Science Research Center (CSRC) in UP Diliman. * Participant, "Tri-Partite Dialogue: Burma's Road to Democracy" A forum-sharing of experiences after the August 8, 1988 nationwide uprising in Burma. August 8, Thursday 2002, 4 p.m. at the Third World Studies Center, University of the Philippines.

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* Resource Person, "Collaboration, Networking and Resource Sharing: Myanmar" June 2002 - served as paper reader and respondent in panel discussion "Working with International Cultural Institutions: Policies, Strategies, Intentions and Constraints", panel moderator for "Networking and Resource-Sharing in the Globalized Economies" and conducted a workshop on digital art entitled "Healing Cultures through Digital Art." Research Dissemination Grant awarded by the Office of the Vice-President for Academic Affairs. * Resource Person, "Accessible Web Design Workshop" 12-hour Accessible Web Design Workshops for February 2000, April 2001 at the Computational Science Research Center (CSRC) UP Diliman. * Resource Person, "UP Webmasters Conference 2000" December 6-8, 2000, conducted Web Design Workshop for UP System Webmasters at Computational Science Research Center (CSRC) UP Diliman. * Resource Person, "UP Webmasters Training II" April 2000, conducted web design training for UP Diliman webmasters at the UP Computer Center. * Resource Person, "UP Webmasters Training I" September 1999, designed the training modules and conducted the First U.P. Diliman Webmasters Training at the MITC, College of Education. * Presentor, "The Spanish Colonial Santos of Baclayon Parish, Bohol: A Digitization Initiative" At the Ateneo de Manila, Program for Cultural Cooperation Executive Committee, and "Towards a Common Future" at the Ateneo de Zamboanga.

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> artistes en résidence > 1Fátima Lasay6/02 - 09/04 200416/02 - 09/04 2004


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Santissima Trinitad- subtractive painting on parchment. 2000

Loss of Memory, Return to Innocence - wide-format digital print. 2000

Totoy Ginto (Totoy Gold) - digital print on handmade paper, gold leaf, gesso. 2000



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Iconoclast 1 - digital print emulsion transfer on engraved glass, golf leaf, objects. 2001

Fire of St. Sebastian - digital print, golf leaf, textural medium. 1999

Ritual Murder - digital image. 2002

Project

"Mga awit mula sa gimokud / Songs of my two souls"Sound installation

According to the Bagobo people of Davao south of the Philippines, in every person are two souls called the gimokud. The right hand gimokud is the good soul associated with health and joy. The left hand gimokud is the bad soul associated with pain and sickness.

In “Mga awit mula sa gimokud”, my two souls are represented in the form of two drops of water from which the sounds emanate. The forms are woven from grape branches. In the vineyards of Sierre I see the eternal cycle of life and death, just as the soul is like a raindrop carried by the spirit boat in an eternal journey between heaven and earth. The songs from my two souls are reflections of this eternity through the sound of the endlessly flowing river and the hourly singing of contemplative nuns in the Monastère Notre-Dame de Géronde.

In “Mga awit mula sa gimokud” I use sound to measure the distance between Philippine animist religion and Catholicism, between the cold and the City of the Sun, between the ancestral grapes and the eternal waters of the Rhône. “Mga awit mula sa gimokud” is about a struggle within myself; it is about the world of opposites, and my resistance against the desire for isolation.

Fatima Lasay

Projet

"Mga awit mula sa gimokud / Chansons de mes deux âmes"Installation sonore.

Selon le peuple Bagodo de Davao au sud des Philippines, chaque personne est pourvue de deux âmes nommées gimokud. Le "gimokud" droit est la bonne âme associée à la santé et à la joie. Le "gimokud" gauche est la mauvaise âme liée à la douleur et à la maladie.

Dans ce travail intitulé "Mga awit mula sa gimokud", mes âmes sont représentées par deux gouttes d'eau desquelles émanent des sons. Ces formes sont tissées avec des sarments de vigne et reposent sur l'eau. Dans les vignobles de Sierre, je vois le cycle éternel de la vie et de la mort, à la manière d'une âme incarnée dans une goutte de pluie qui se fait transporter par une barque funéraire dans un va-et-vient perpétuel entre le ciel et la terre. "Chansons de mes deux âmes" est une réflexion sur l'éternité qui se matérialise par les bruits constants du fleuve et les chants matinaux des moniales contemplatives du Monastère de Notre-Dame de Géronde.

Dans ce projet, j'utilise le son pour mesurer la distance entre les religions animiste et catholique, entre le froid qui m'habite et la cité du soleil, entre les vignes ancestrales et l'éternel ruissellement du Rhône. "Mga awit mula sa gimokud", c'est au sujet de mon combat intérieur dans un monde d'oppositions, combat tel que celui que je livre contre le désir d'isolement.

Le travail de l’artiste a été exposé au lac de Géronde du 26 au 30 avril 2004.



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"Mga awit mula sa gimokud / Chansons de mes deux âmes"

- installation, Sierre, 2004

Mga anak ng ubas / Enfants du raisinInstallation, ECAV, Sierre

The Sto. Niño de PascuaBaclayon Parish Museum, Bohol island, Philippines

The Sto. Niño de Pascua is a Spanish colonial religious sculpture kept in the museum of the 18th century coralstone church, the Immaculate Conception Parish, in Baclayon, Bohol. I encountered this image in 1998 while conducting research on Spanish colonial sculpture. The sculpture struck me as an imagenes repulsivas, a fierceful and efficacious god. Several of the fingers of the Niño were missing and I was told that people have used them as amulets.Eversince that encounter, the Sto. Niño de Pascua would persist in my work as an artist. In contemplation, I realize that the sculpture is a personal gateway to a precolonial past, a heritage that I seek to remember, to recover, as a significant part of my identity as a Filipino artist.I imagine the unknown santero, the Filipino sculptor of the Sto. Niño de Pascua, working under the supervision of the Spanish friars over a hundred years ago; in whose image would the santero have wished to carve out the divine? Would the Niño have legs and feet as large as the shapes of the sacred mountains? Would the Niño have the face of the gods of Philippine animist religion, that the more fierceful the gaze the more powerful the image?

The ancestral grapes of SierreTerraces that ascend to the heavensInscribed on the list of the Unesco World Heritage in Danger are the rice terraces of the Philippine Cordilleras. For 2,000 years, these high rice fields have followed the contours of the mountains, and passed from one generation to the next are sacred traditions that express the resonance between the Filipino and the natural and spiritual environment. Today, as more people leave the Cordilleras, some 30% of the terraces have been abandoned, the irrigation system neglected, threatening to erode the heritage landscape.Seeing the vineyards of Sierre cultivated in terraces, I experience a living and vibrant familiar heritage. Like our own terraces of rice, they ascend to the heavens and symbolize the proximity between the earth and the sky, between humankind and the gods. Easily, the grapes in the vineyards of Sierre became for me a powerful symbol of the eternal journey of the soul between heaven and earth.In „Mga anak ng ubas „, the Niños and the grapes are my gateways to a pagan soul, a soul and identity that I have always sought in my work as an artist.

The rivers of the soulThe spirit boat and the myth of the gimokudIn the Philippine pantheon, the god Mamaguayen ferries the soul in a boat to the end of the world; even if placed in the ledges of caves, the shape of coffins of ancient Filipinos was that of a boat. In Sierre, my soul will journey in a boat made of the branches of the ancestral grapes. Gold leaf is placed inside the boats as payment for Mamaguayen. The myth of the gimokud is also remembered in the building of boats from the grape branches. In the myth, the soul or gimokud sits on a boat made out of a leaf and waits until the hot rays of the sun dissolves it into water. The myth originates from the Bagobo[1] of Davao, south of the Philippines.No radical change in manner of life is conceived to be incident upon the shift of the soul to a new country. The spirit goes on with the same occupations that fill the time of the Bagobo during life, and everything that is used on the earth may be obtained down there. Whatever a spirit lacks in his traveling outfit (onong) that he brought with him, he can buy down there from the supplies laid in abundance before him. He may

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buy a jacket or a spear or a cock; since any manufactured article that wears out, or any animal that dies, forthwith gives up its immaterial gimokud, which then passes down to supply the needs of the spirits in the Great Country - a mythical situation quite in accordance with the common primitive concepts touching the souls of animals and inanimate objects.The same sun that shines on us by day travels around under the earth, and illuminates the world of the dead while we are in darkness, so that our day is synchronous with night in Kilut, and our night with their day. It is during their period of darkness that all the dead are in action: the gimokud - weak, attenuated, shadowy as they are conceived to be - work and dance and play and eat in the customary Bagobo manner; they sow and harvest rice; they dig camotes and cut sugar cane. The rice of Kilut is of immaculate whiteness, and each grain as big as a kernel of corn; the camotes are the size of a great round pot, and every stick of sugar cane is as large as the trunk of a coconut palm. All night long, even until dawn, this glad existence continues.At the rising of the sun, or just before sunrise, all of these activities come to a halt. Every gimokud plucks one of the broad leaves of a plant called baguido, and twists it into a vessel suggesting the form of a boat, similar in pattern to the cermonial dishes of hemp-leaf in use at Bagobo festivals and called by the same name, kinudok. Each one of the gimokud seats himself upon his individual leaf vessel, and there sits, waiting, waiting, until the hot rays of the sun cause him to dissolve, leaving the leaf-vessel full of water. Not until our day begins, and darkness spreads over the land of the dead, does the life of the ghosts swing back into action; but as soon as the sun has passed up above the earth every gimokud resumes his personality, and takes up his work or his dance or his feasting, apparently as if no break had occured. Then, again the next morning, he makes a new leaf vessel for himself from a fresh leaf (the old one having withered dry), sits down on it and once more melts away under the sun's heat. The conception of a periodically interrupted existence would seem to imply that during 12 hours out of the 24 Kilut is empty of inhabitants, but it is questionable whether the Bagobo has ever made that generalization. - from "The Soul Book", Demetrio, Fernando, Zialcita, 1991

The symbolic act of sending one of the grape boats out into Lac Géronde as part of the sound installation "Mga awit mula sa gimokud / Chansons de mes deux âmes", remembers the Philippine myth of the soul and the significance of the journey and the offering to the skyworld through the waters. As an archipelago, the whole of the Philippines is believed to have subterranean streams that pass through the highest mountains of every region. These eventually converge at a mainstream that heads to Mount Kanlaon, the center of the universe.

[1] The Bagobo are a proud people with proto-Malayan features. A strong social structure has enabled the group to blend well with the main body politic while retaining their indigenous customs, beliefs, and values. While many are in economically depressed circumstances, a great number have attained a considerable degree of self-sufficiency. Most of the Bagobos have suffered dislocation from the loss of their ancestral lands and the effects of modern day insurgency. (From the National Commission on Indigenous Peoples (http://www.ncip.gov.ph/)

Some notes about the installation Mga anak ng ubas - The formation of the boats depict the convergence of two rivers at a mainstream and towards the mountain of the souls, the center of the universe.- The enfants images are inkjet prints on watercolor paper. Overprinting with inkjet was also done on hand-applied gold, silver and copper acrylic color, and finally, a touch of gold leaf.- The enfants are from digital photographs of the Sto. Nino de Pascua which I took in 1999, digital photographs of a subtractive watercolor painting of the same santo sculpture I made in 2000, digital photographs of a replica - in caststone - of the santo sculpture which I am working on from March 2003-July 2004, and digital photographs of the grape plants in the vineyards of Sierre.

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- The metal rods used in the work are those used in the vineyards as guides and climbing rods for the grapes.- The small boats in the installation are made from the branches of grapes, string, papertape and gold leaf. There are 118 boats in the installation and 18 more were placed in Lac Géronde for the sound installation "Mga awit mula sa gimokud / Chansons de mes deux âmes" with two large shapes also made out of grape branches, representing two souls in the shape of drops of water.- In the Philippine pantheon, the god Mamaguayen ferries the soul in a boat to the end of the world; even if placed in the ledges of caves, the shape of coffins of ancient Filipinos was that of a boat. In Sierre, my soul will journey in a boat made of the branches of the ancestral grapes. Gold leaf is placed inside the boats as payment for Mamaguayen.

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Mga anak ng ubas / Enfants du raisin - installation, ECAV, Sierre, 2004

The Sound of Heaven and Earth: Recovery and RemembranceA sound archaeology workshop, Sierre, April 2004

In acoustic ecology and the practices of soundwalking and soundscape composition, there is the association with the context of sound. In electroacoustic, acousmatic and musique concrete, recorded sounds are taken out of their context. In the „Sound Archaeology Workshop,‰ we move across and beyond these practices - from an intense listening to a pristine and undisturbed sonic environment, to ritualistic listening and intervention by establishing a dialogue with the cultural environment. Hence, we engage a biocultural feedback system between ourselves, the sounds that we produce and the sounds from the natural and cultural environment.

A soundscape composer recreates or makes a representation of a sonic environment and inspires a dialogue through memories and associations. But what kind of dialogue or what kind of sonic memories and associations are recovered and remembered in a ritualistic interaction with the environment? In this workshop, we move beyond sound expression by employing the ritual acts of birth through death. We investigate the corporeal and incorporeal qualities of sound, of sound as relic or artifact, and thereafter, the digital editing studio as reliquary of sound events.

The inspiration for this sound workshop are the sound and dance rituals of the Subanen in the Zamboanga Peninsula of the Philippines. In the soten, dumadel and pangaliwato rituals, the shaking of dried fronds call attention to the diwatas - the sound of the leaves are the most beautiful sound to the gods‚ ears. It is also from the most elaborate of the Subanen rituals of thanksgiving, the buklug, that the „Sound Archaeology Workshop‰ derives. The buklugan is prepared by raising a platform or stage ten to eighteen feet above the ground. A beam passes through the middle of the stage, and below reaches a thick log laid on the ground. This log ishollowed out and lies over large earthen jars sunk in the earth, which serve as sound resonators. As in the Subanen epic Sundayo, the people dance up and down the stage to sound out a communal call to the gods and ancestors.

In the „Sound Archaeology Workshop„, we performed our personal and cultural rituals in the vineyards of Chateau Mercier; we paid attention to the sounds that we invoked. Collectively, our rituals comprise the cycle of life, a cycle remembered in the ancestral vineyards of Sierre. As our rituals are enacted, recovered or remembered, we receive the magnified sounds, and we respond by establishing a balance between the sudden expansion of a universe of ritual and sound.

Hence, our experience of the sonic landscape is burst out into a foreign situation, a foreign place and culture. In the archaeology of sound, we reassemble the evidence. From the vineyards to the sound studio, from the sound to its contexts, the challenge is how we may possibly achieve resonance between the rite and the relic, the composer and the listener. Between foreign cultures and languages, how do we learn to hear and understand each other?

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The Sound of Heaven and Earth: Recovery and Remembrance

- sound archaeology workshop, Sierre, 2004

Documents

> Fátima Lasay - cric.ch fileFátima Lasay (b. August 9, 1969) obtained her BFA in Industrial Design in 1991, and since her college years, has worked as product, packaging