Contemporary Philippine

Arts from the Region

LESSON 7:
MEDIUMS AND
TECHNIQUES
WHAT IS MEDIUM?
MEDIUM

•A medium refers to the materials that are used to

create a work of art. The plural of medium is media.
Some of the most common media are oil paints (paints
that use oil to hold pigments together), tempera
(pigments held together with egg yolk), marble (soft,
white stone), and bronze (a metal used to cast
sculptures).
(cont.)

•It is defined as the material, or the

substance out of which a work is made.
•Through these materials, the artists
express and communicate feelings and
ideas.
The medium defines the nature of the art
form as follows:
Sculptor

•Uses metal, wood, stone, clay, and glass.

•Sculptures fall within the category of “three-
dimensional” arts because they occupy space
and have volume.
Sculptor (cont.)

•Pottery is a form of sculpture.

•Other examples are nudes or figures such
as Guillermo Tolentino’s Oblation, ritual
objects such as bulul woodcarvings in the
Cordillera, or the Santos or carvings of
saints in Christian churches.
Oblation
by Guillermo Tolentino
Bulul woodcarving in the Cordillera
Santos or Carvings of Saints in Christian
Churches
National Artist and “Father of Modern Philippine
Sculpture” Napoleon Abueva
Architect

•Uses wood, bamboo, bricks, stone, concrete and

various building materials.
•Buildings are also called “three-dimensional” arts
because like sculpture, they occupy space and
have volume.
(cont.)

•However, architecture has the added element of

time, since we moved into structures.
NATIONAL ARTIST for Architecture Francisco
“Bobby” T. Mañosa
Painter

•Uses pigments (e.g., watercolor, oil, tempera,

textile paint, acrylic, ink, etc.) on a usually flat
ground ( wood, canvas, paper, stone wall such as
in cave paintings.)
National Artist for Visual Arts
Fernando Amorsolo
Printmaker

•Uses ink printed or transferred on a surface (wood,

metal, plates, or silk screen) that is in keeping with
a duplicating or reproducing process.
•Prints and paintings are further classified as “two-
dimensional” arts, because they include the
surface or ground on which coloring substances
are applied.
(cont.)

•However, while paintings are unique and one of-

a-kind, prints can be reproduced in several pre-
determined editions.
Musician

•Uses sound and instruments( including human

voice), while dancer uses body.
•A T’boli chanter sings creation stories in a way
that is different from a classical singer or pop
music singer influenced by Western music scale.
National Artist for Music
Antonino Buenaventura
Dancer

•Uses the body and its movements.

•Dance is often accompanied by music, but there
are dances that do not rely on musical
accompaniment to be realized.
•Dance can tell stories, but at other times, they
convey abstract ideas that do not rely on a
narrative.
National Artist for Dance
Francisca Reyes-Aquino
Theater Artist

•Integrates all the arts and uses the stage,

production design, performance elements, and
script to enable the visual, musical, dance, and
other aspects to come together as a whole work.
National Artist for Theater
Daisy Avellana
Photographer and Filmmaker

•Use the camera to record the outside world.

•The filmmaker uses the cinematography camera
to record and put together production design,
sound engineering, performance, and screenplay.
(cont.)

•In digital photography and film, the images can

be assimilated into the computer, thus
eliminating the need for celluloid or negatives,
processing chemicals, or print.
The writer of a novel, poetry, non fiction, and fiction

•Uses words.
•The Designer, the performance artist, and the
installation artist combine use of the range of
materials above.
•On the basis of medium, the arts can be
classified as practical, environmental,
pictorial, auditory, narrative, dramatic, and
musical.
•The musical arts, practical arts, and
environmental arts are the classification of
arts.
Musical Arts

•Include music, poetry, ( those that have

perceptible rhythm and can be sung or danced
to), and dance that is accompanied by music.
Practical Arts

•Have immediate use for everyday and business

life such as design, architecture, and furniture.
Environmental Arts

•Occupy space and change in its meaning and

function depending on their categories including
architecture, sculpture, and site-specific works
such as installations and public art.
Pictorial Works

•Include painting, drawing, graphics, and stage and

production design (lightning, dress, props, and set).
•Works that are staged and performed are considered
Dramatic and they include drama, performance art, or
music and dance.
(cont.)

•If they are based on stories, the art forms are

classified as Narrative and they include drama,
novel, fiction, nonfiction, music, and dance.
WHAT IS TECHNIQUE?
TECHNIQUE

•Is the manner in which artists use and

manipulate materials to achieve the desired
formal effect, and communicate the desired
concept, or meaning, according to his or her
personal style (modern, Neoclassic, etc.).
TECHNIQUE (cont.)

•The distinctive character or nature of the

medium determines the technique.
•For example stone is chiseled, wood is carved,
clay is modeled and shaped, metal is cast, and
thread is woven.
TECHNIQUE (cont.)

•It involves tools and technology, ranging from the

most traditional (for example carving, silkscreen,
analog photography, and filmmaking) to the most
contemporary (digital photography, digital
filmmaking, music production, industrial design
and robotics) .
For example:
Filipino Struggles Through History 1963

•It is a mural made by National Artist Carlo

Francisco depicts Andres Bonifacio leading the
Revolution.
•It takes advantage of line and color to
communicate dynamism and intense passion, in
expressionist modern style.
(cont.)

•The Bonifacio Monument by another National Artist,

Guillermo Tolentino, on the other hand , make use of
carving to come up with work that has mass and volume,
enabling him to depict the scene realistically capturing a
moment of stillness when Bonifacio stands reflectively on
a scene of death, but with grace and dignity befitting a
leader in a the Neoclassic style.
Filipino Struggles Through History
by Carlo Francisco
Bonifacio Monument
by Guillermo Tolentino
HOW IS ART EXPERIENCED AND
CONSUMED?
•ART is considered an “artifact,” when it is directly
experienced and perceived.
•It can be spatial and static or unmoving (e.g., a
painting or building, or a novel) or time based
and in motion (e.g., a live theater production,
mobile sculpture).
•When we experience a work indirectly or
through a medium like film or video, we describe
it as a “recorded” or documented artwork.
(cont.)

•Examples include a documentation performance,

a photograph of a painting, a DVD or CD of a film
or musical piece, or a novel read from an
electronic tablet, such as an IPad or Android and
through an application such as Kindle.
HOW HAVE CONTEMPORARY
ARTISTS EXPANDED THE
RANGE OF MEDIUM AND
TECHNIQUES THEY UTILIZE?
Mark Salvatus’ Secret Garden 2 (2010)

•It is created purposefully for a small room at the

Vargas Museum.
•It is an example of a site-specific work, which
refers to work in which location of space is crucial
to the artist’s intended meaning and experience
of the work by the audience.
(cont.)

•It is interactive; one has to peek, but not fully

enter the space, to get but a glimpse of what
appears to be a “secret garden,” as the title
implies.
•In other words, the work is meaningless without
the collaboration of an actively participating
audience.
Secret Garden 2
by Mark Salvatus
Maria Taniguchi
Maria Taniguchi

•She is an artist born in Dumaguete and now

living and practicing in Manila.
•She uses the traditional medium of acrylic on
canvas and the traditional modern style of
abstraction, one of the hallmarks of 20th century
Modern Art.
Maria Taniguchi (cont.)

•However, she gives these elements a

contemporary twist that turns painting into a
meditation on form.
•The work can be best described as a Conceptual
Performance that is the site-specific, sculptural,
and environmental.
Works
Untitled (Mirrors)
Felix Bacolor’s Waiting(2012)
Waiting

•Transformed an independent space in the

Museum of Contemporary Art and Design to a
simulacrum ( a “fake” real, a simulation that is
not actually “real” but simulated or copied) of a
terminal waiting room, complete with metallic,
immovable chairs, and digital clocks that
torturously register the passing of time.
Echo Studies
Waiting (cont.)

•Site-specific and interactive, the installation

combines the environmental, the dramatic and
the narrative, with viewers weaving their own
stories into the space of travel, caught in-
between mobility and immobility.
•Medium and technique in contemporary art
have become more and more integrated, such
that the works have crossed boundaries
between art and science, and between
mediums and techniques.
•The works are also using contemporary
medium and techniques based on digital and
electronic technology, as well as reformulated
traditional methods.
Anonymous Animals

•It was made on 2013 held in Mariyah Gallery in

Dumaguete City consisted of a Conceptual
Performance piece by Dumaguete-based artists
who posed as excavators of strange animals they
formed out of terracotta sourced from outlaying
areas .
•The artists, Cristina Taniguchi, Michael
Teves, Danilo Sollesta, Mark Valenzuela, and
Benji Ranada, provided the animals they
“excavated”(which they actually made)with
matching scientific data including the
animals’ scientific and common names,
taxonomy, morphology, history, etc.
•The artists exhibited the terracotta animals
as specimens, with documentation from an
“embedded journalist”, the photographer
Hersley Ven Casero.
•The curator – Flaudette May Datuin –
invented stories about the artists, and wrote
the fiction in the form of a diary form the
field.
Fauna (1999,Arte y Proyektos Editoriales, SL,
Seville, Spain)
•However, while Fauna, the inspiration is in
book form, while Anonymous Animals is also
exhibited virtually at.
•The piece crosses boundaries betwwen aart
(terracotta sculpture) and science (natural
and social sciences), literature , drama, and
photojournalism.
•It is the another simulacrum- a “fake”real-
that creates a world that looks real
(hyperreal) and has its ownvirtual and
“actual” reality, but actually has no
counterpart in real life