Jorge Juan B. Wieneke V is a producer, musician, artist, educator, and DJ from Manila, the Philippines, who has founded several cultural and community platforms, including BuwanBuwan (est., 2012), a collective, community, and label for hybrid electronic musicians. Cosmic Sonic Arts (est. 2016) is a non-traditional electronic music mentorship program and school that focuses on music as a means of self-discovery and meditation. Manila Community Radio is an independent non-profit, non-commercial internet radio platform “created by the community for the community.” Club Matryoshka (est., 2019), a Philippine-based International virtual club venue hosted in Minecraft, was established to enable a diverse and experimental set of artists to perform in a decolonized space that platforms and focuses on performers with non-white, LGBTQIA+, female, and neurodivergent majority lineups. His most recent venture is Kindred Music Productions, an all-around audio post-production studio, and hybrid music label.
Despite a good track record via his participation in Boiler Room Manila in 2017 and is one of the few selected artists to be part of the Redbull Music Academy 2018 in Berlin, plus numerous releases, residencies, collaborations, and releases on various labels through the years (Maltine Records, Zoom Lens, Darker Than Wax, Eastern Margins, Tropical Diskoral, Botanic Records and more). He retired from his 11-year-old similarobjects project in 2021 to make way for a new journey of sonic self-discovery leaning on a more primal, intuitive yet unapologetic experimental sound which he is currently cultivating under the pseudonym “obese.dogma777”. His new projects feature political, experimental, and mutated recontextualizations of club music and the Filipino music genre/style called “budots.”
In this episode on Extended Asia Vol. 3, “Discovery,” They have a work entitled HQHD in collaboration with Tropical Future Institute, DJ Love, & Angeline Meitzler.
Tropical Future’s interest in ‘diskoral,’ or pop-up block parties, near their family’s house in the Philippines led to their interest in budots and the Philippine sound system culture. This situation prompted a collaboration with the producer, musician, and DJ known as obese.dogma777 at a party in Cebu called Tropical Diskora (2017). Obese.dogma777 became attracted to budots because of the genre/style’s uniqueness and the adequate representation of Filipinos’ laid-back, high-energy, and idiosyncratic nature. The diskoral party was hosted inside an art gallery with other artists and designers with aspects of a traditional diskoral recreated, such as using palm leaves and artists’ performing as MCs.
While this audio/visual project emphasizes a playful interpretation of budots, we look towards hybridity and the reinterpretation of budots into other club genres by dispersing their signature samples and essence. Angeline’s interpretation of the track into a world built using game engine software furthers this vision of increasing notoriety for budots locally and internationally. Incorporating mythic symbols of Philippine culture alongside references to the genre adds a rich context to the essence of the track as a cross-genre, budots remix. We hope this track spurs more interest from musicians, dancers, and fans to explore this dance/music genre that originated in the Philippines.
Link:
https://linktr.ee/obese.dogma777
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Image by obese.dogma777
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This work is part of “Islandwide Coverage,” a multi-site, multi-author project by AWKNDAFFR is an artistic operation situated at the intersection of art, theory, and praxis by Wayne Lim and Soh Kay Min.
Part of “Natasha,” Singapore Biennale [SB2022]—across a network of sites, including the Singapore Art Museum [SAM] at Tanjong Pagar Distripark. It will take place from 16 October 2022 to 19 March 2023.