This October, WSK: The Festival of the Recently Possible returns with a wider scope and deeper cultural exchange through exciting events and sessions

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The first and only annual international art festival dedicated to contemporary electronic, digital, and experimental art opens this coming October 23 at the College of Saint Benilde - School of Design and Arts (CSB-SDA) with the exhibition entitled, Interstices: Manifolds of the In-between, as its main focal point amid its axis of exhibitions, workshops, fora, and concerts.

Running until the 4th of November, the annual festival will be featuring artists from Japan and the Philippines showcasing critical perspectives on how emerging artforms and innovative applications of new technologies can respond to the cutting edge of cultural and social thought. In partnership with the Japan Foundation Asia Centre, the festival will feature interdisciplinary forms of media and art such as video, sound, robotics, computer-generated graphics, and other performances. Meanwhile, the exhibition Interstices will explore the cracks of art whose nature falls between, rather than within the familiar boundaries of accepted genres or media, and figurative gaps of the Philippine art scene.

IMG_3557 copy.jpgWSK founder and artistic director Tengal Drilon

"The exhibition spread all over the hallways, foyers, and classrooms all over CSB-SDA, these non-traditional 'iterspaces', act as a pop-up gallery where the usual exhibitions spaces of galleries and museums are suspended," WSK founder and artistic director Tengal Drilon said, explaining the concept behind this year's theme. "The choice of exhibiting instead within the crevices of a university building which includes a university gallery and a museum are deliberate."

Meanwhile, the Japan Foundation's media project entitled, ref:now—toward a new media culture in asia, aims to showcase contemporary media culture and creativity through art, exchange, and education thus deepening the collaboration with the WSK Festival this year. 

With this, Japanese artists will be flying in to Manila to put up some of their award-winning installations as well as collaborate with some of the Filipino artists. Moreover, there will be workshops and fora that will be open to all. Moreover, some artists from different Asian countries will also be participating in the festival.

WSK2017-Teaser-Poster (1).jpg"The mission of the Japan Foundation Asia Centre aims to create a new culture and give back the results both inside and outside of Asia through communication and collaboration," shares Japan Foundation Director Hiroaki  Uesugi.  "Through this project we would like to promote the exchange and collaboration among media creators of next generation in ASEAN countries and Japan, resulting in the creation of a new culture in the field of Media Art."

Lastly, in partnership with leading Manila electronic music record label Buwan Buwan Collective and Tokyo-based Maltine Records, the electronic music showcase X-Pol at XX:XX, Makati City on October 28 featuring the latest sounds from dance to pop, chiptune and electronic music, with the Philippines top musicians as well as special guests from Japan.

20170721132757-WSK_resized_773x514.jpgWSK Installation at the Art Fair PH 2017 celebrates sound art

WSK, a modern disemvoweled form of "wasak", which means "shattered" or "destroyed" in Filipino—is the first and only annual international art festival dedicated to these fields. Launched in 2009 as Fete dela WSK, the festival explores the diverse range of cross-disciplinary artistic activities in the context of digital culture and performance. It aims to blur, deconstruct, and reimagibe the preconceived notions of how art, culture, and technology diverge, merge, and work together.

Get to know more about WSK 2017's schedule here.