i really just would’ve wanted to see both TNL and Adam take it to what seemed to be the path they were creating for themselves, as that of a refusal to be pre-/re-/defined by the institutions that exist and to escape its clutches as much as it can. and you’re right that TNL’s refusal to remove their blog archives might just create the illusion of “no capital” (other than the symbolic of course). on another level, it could have also forced the current mode of book-in-print production to contend with the fact that online publication has restructured/redefined/reconfigured our notions of publishing and authorship and ownership and power. at the very least. parang “manlang” siya.

as for adam, let me get another cup of coffee for that. :)

super true ka diyan. though i have a soft spot for all these projects you see as “simplistic” or just ugly (hehe), as the freeway clothes (wait, i really do want a womanwithtwonavels dress for you know, the heck of it. actually ang issue ko sa kanila ay ang mahal at pangit ang tela, at kailangan kasing payat mo si anne curtis para maganda sa’yo ang damit). anvil’s repub of nickjoaquin’s books, well, talaga namang pagkakakitaan din lang nila ‘yon, i guess i just imagine that at least si nick joaquin kesa si… ehem… margie holmes? chika. ang totoo, puwede namang ma-xerox ang mga librong yan ni mang nick, return-to-cover pa, equals mas magandang papel at cover.

but the neo-angono artists collective i still want to be surprised by, which is not to say that i “like” everything that they do. the last time i was in angono though, i realized that they were at that point of having ingrained their notion of public art (however that may be defined) into the lives of the angono masses, with the people involving themselves in the creation, care and maintenance, ownership of art. parang maganda pa ring tingnan kung anong kahihinatnan. :)

–But these are simplistic steps too. As simplistic as, say, much of the crud produced by the Neo-Angono collective (altho I still pretty much like the bulk of Wire Tuazon’s oeuvre) w/c you seem to like, as simple-minded as the Freeway National Artists line of clothing (w/c makes no interesting interventions in neither art’s relationship w/ the advertising/marketing world nor in the popularization of the oppressive high/institutional arts) w/c is just plain ugly (who wants to wear an Ang Kiukok anyway). Perhaps the steps toward real cultural revolts (but is a cultural revolt even necessary?) are already being taken, but some people are possibly too busy reading books published by capitalist hegemoths like Anvil & feeling good about themselves & their own supposedly progressive stances.