Image production is fiction-weaving. Together with Sheena Absalud, we spent an entire day in Pride Month in my room documenting ourselves using different cameras: three mobile phones, one action camera, one CCTV camera, and one laptop, while asking each other questions about our asexuality. Recognizing the role of the moving image in constructing prejudice, self-identity, and desires, and therefore the expansion of neoliberalism, The Function of Fiction attempts to abandon temptations to define “asexuality” and its place in the context of “LGBTQIA+”, in pursuit of new socialities and possibilities. Music in the film was spawned with plants and machines
Directed by Mac Andre Arboleda
Featuring Mac Andre Arboleda and Sheena Absalud
Edited by Geraldine Loares
A selection of video stills from Arboleda’s The Function of Fiction is the Abstraction and Simulation of Social Experience (2021).
For my ambitious Green Gangsters project, I’ve decided to make a reference library on Notion, to remind me of my inspirations and resources for this experimental documentary project. The idea of “experimental documentary” is certainly quite foreign to me, and so I knew I had to ask around and research on how I can approach my work. I’m very grateful for my mentor Nana Buxani for reminding me to connect to my audience in the process of building this weird project. I’m also very grateful for my other mentor Cha Roque, who gave me ideas on how I can be more practical with my filmmaking process, and introduced me to the likes of Caveh Zahedi who make transgressive, humorous works which I similarly aspire for. Also very grateful for Epoy Deyto, who recommended me Joe Gibbons, and led me to works by Miko Revereza, all very crucial in my understanding of the possibilities of contemporary documentary.
GREEN GANGSTERS LIBRARY. I made a Notion page for my documentary project Green Gangsters, which houses references to film inspirations, art projects, visual pegs, and readings at the intersections of plants, gender, and experimentation.
PHOTO ASSIGNMENT. Throughout my residency, my mentor Nana Buxani asked us to do photo assignments that would help us rediscover ourselves and our motivations. This is an excerpt from one of my assignments, where I took photos using the front camera of my phone during a day in lockdown.
HALAMAN MUSIC. In my film The Function of Fiction…, I wanted to spawn music with plants and machines. Using a tool called Makey Makey, I recorded a few beats with my laptop made together with house plants in my San Pedro home.
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