After the very fun yet exhausting Hermosa Festival, I went to Manila for the well-deserved RnR. I took the chance to meet my ate and our bunso and meet my long time friends. I stayed at our aunt's condo at BGC and also went to Tagaytay for the weekend. I didn't really have an itinerary so I took the time to enjoy the place and take photos.


DAY 1 (10/15/15) - Zamboanga International Airport. Bidding hometown goodbye for now..

Hello Manila! Arrived at the urban jungle that is BGC.

The streets are so clean!

Go on and try to tear me down, I will be rising from the ground like a 🌆

Trees and greeneries between metal structures..


After my walk around the West side of BGC, i went to Market! Market! and met Ate.

I gave her these digital art prints of her friends and special someone. We had lunch at Kenny Rogers, my treat :)

I headed to SMX Aura and checked out Animahenasyon. I watched some of the entries for free!

I went back to the condo and saw this breath-taking window view in our unit.

The view of Burgos Circle from our unit.


BGC Bus Tap Cards to get around BGC

Walked around BGC at night...

I went again to SM Aura and met some friends and had dinner at Paul's Restaurant. Sadly, I didn't have the chance to take a group photo :(

After the dinner, I went up and checked out the roofdeck. Cool sculptures..

View of BGC from the roofdeck of SM Aura

View of Market! Market! parking area from above


SM Aura's slick architecture, view from the edge of the roofdeck

Fountain at the roofdeck of SM Aura

Coffee to cap of the night...

Day 2 (10/16/15) - Introducing Jotie, my travel buddy. For today, we're gonna have an adventure at Manila Ocean Park!

#ootd

First agenda: Eat all you can buffet!

Time to meet the manta rays and sharks! Kawaii! :3


Goofing around :)


He gave me a high five!

Look! He's waving Jotie hello!


Time to enter the main building, Oceanarium..


One, two, three, one two three, drink!

Me likey the stuff toys.

The hawk whisperer...

Alligator Gar (Atractosteus Spatula)

Jungle feels..

Taking a moment..


Waiting in line for the comfort room?


Big white fishy..


Don't get lost, okay?!


White seahorse! Such amazing creature!


Because Katy Perry..


Under the sea feels...


#clingy


Ahoy, matey!


Amazing view...


Finally, i got the tube on my own!


Heading south..


Antartica factoids...


#scripted


First time to see a penguin! :3


On the way to the coldest place in Manila..


I can't live here, such wow, much cold..


My glasses got fogged up upon exiting the snow village XD


Time for the Yexel's Museum! #minions


Jotie's power jump!


Error 404. Gravity not found..


Spidey dropped me XD


LoTR! White Gandalf!


Fanboy right here @_@


My precious!


Valar Morghulis! King Cedric of the South, breaker of farts!


The force is strong around here...


The best set in the house!


"Imagine all the wonderful things that will never happen if you do not do them."


Jelly fish life cycle!


Spectacular!


Jellies everywhere! See them float, see them glow..


Up close, they look like sci-fi alien creatures...


Breath-taking!


To cap off today's adventure, we had a foot spa by Dr Fish!


Garra rufa, also called doctor fish, nibble fish, kangal fish, and bonefish (in New England) is a species of fish that lives and breeds in the pools of some Turkish river systems and hot springs. Wiki

Dr. Fish spa at Manila Ocean Park. So tinlgy! 😂👣🐟

A photo posted by Ced Zabala 👑 (@cedzabala) on Oct 16, 2015 at 1:30am PDT

Feels good!

Manila sunset 😍🌇 #WhenInManila #sunset #skyviewers #skysnappers

A photo posted by Ced Zabala 👑 (@cedzabala) on Oct 16, 2015 at 2:38am PDT

Time for some reunion! Aljo, my bro, and my high school friends, Ajhay and January, college friends, Pepey and Jervin, and me and Jotie. Had dinner at SM Aura Pepper Lunch.

#beerygood First time to try this. #brewkettle #beer #bgc #tgif #fridays #unwind #beermoments #rememBeer #beerygood @pandekiko

A photo posted by JosephLou (@joseph_lou) on Oct 16, 2015 at 8:28am PDT

After dinner and lots of laughter, we walked along Bonifacio High Street and looked for a place to chill. We arrived at Fort Strip and had some drinks! First time to try this Belgian Witber style beer.

Cheeeers to life! Yeaaah! So glad to see you guys @pepey15 @yupyupyap @januaryleron @ajcresmundo 🍻👍😄 #highschoolneverends #tgif #WhenInManila

A photo posted by Ced Zabala 👑 (@cedzabala) on Oct 16, 2015 at 10:56am PDT

We laughed the night away. Many memories were relived, and new stories shared, but the friendship stayed the same. High school really never ends. What a great way to start the weekend.

Check out Day 4-6, where I got to visit Tagaytay and see Taal Volcano once again. Click here.

This is my second year in teaching Visual Communication in Ateneo. The dynamics in class are always changing with the different types of students that composes the class. For the first half of the semester, we focused on the History of VisComm and learned about the different period, era and art movements that became influential in today's visual world. We learned the stories and meanings of art works, posters and graphic designs from each era which contributed to our database of knowledge. To quote Aldous Huxley, "the more you see, the more you know."

Hoping that my students learned something from our activities and discussions, I gave a project for their midterm requirements. I've always asked myself "How did they come up with art movements?" What I essentially learned from our lessons is that a movement should have an intention. The Arts and Crafts Movement by William Morris was created in opposition to the Kitsche art that was manufactured by technology. They wanted to bring back the hand made quality of products and rediscover the artists in everyone. Dadaism was created as "anti-art" art movement. So if we were to come up with an art movement, what would it look like? We explored this idea in class and I decided that this will be our midterm project.

We started with brainstorming. I grouped them into small groups and asked each group to come up with the following: a motif, a color palette, a typography style, an inspiration, and a name for the art movement. After the brainstorming, they came up with these ideas:





To determine what our visual style will be, I first tried to see what are the common things that they groups came up with: Minimalism, Grey, Thin, Surreal and Euphoria. This may seem a good combination for an art movement but they weren't happy with we came up with. So to make it fair, we had a votation. Each member may vote one for each category except for their own idea. Finally we came up with another set of visual keywords: Floral/Victorian, Light/Dark Matte, Bold and Surreal/Nightmare, and "Euphoria". Well..that didn't come up better either.haha

Anyways, moving forward we have to take this as a challenge. I divided the class into 2 groups and gave the final instruction to them. They have to develop the "Euphoria" concept and put up an art exhibit. They may only change one of the keywords and they should individually create one poster and one artwork according to their group's visual style.

On the day of the gallery show, we divided the room in two and each group shall exhibit their artworks and posters. After the show each one of them presented their works and the judges gave their critiques and scored them. Here are some photos during the gallery show.

Team 1 getting ready

Pre-show rituals?

Preparing the circus-themed gallery

With the sophomores..

Mandy's final touch of their exhibit

But first...

Last minute preps...

Group 2's final gallery look

Cool installation in the entrance of  Team 1's gallery

Team 1 had a concept of "Circus". Some of their works included the floral theme and circus imagery like clowns and ferris wheels.

With Team 1: EUPHORIA: Circus of Fears

Special thanks to my panelists, Bianca Zamora and Tennyl Canlas

Team Euphobia during the presentation.

Team EUPHOBIA focused on each of their phobias. Their posters shows the name of the phobia and each of their artwork or design had limited colors: white, black, grays and red.

In the end, team EUPHOBIA showed more cohesiveness in terms of visual style. Individually, their artworks and posters were well-researched and presented well. For winning this challenge, I gave each one of them a print of some of my digital illustrations. Kudos also to Team Circus of Fears for the nice setup and cool artworks too. Congratulations to each one of them! I really appreciate your works!

In the end, I realized that creating an Art Movement was not easy. Individually, we have our own preferences and style and that creates conflict and tension. But what makes us are also the people around us. We are influenced by our peers, our family, our culture, school and the media. We must learn to adapt, collaborate with other artists and learn from one another. Critics are always there and it may hurt our egos and pride. But it's part of life. We must see the world in a positive light and accept these critiques constructively in the hopes of improving one's self.

I really enjoyed this activity and I feel contented with what our class has produced. I hope that these future communicators will grow into better visual thinkers and creators. Check out their individual works below. Click on the image to be redirected to their blogs.