The Philippines is experiencing a new kind of era ever since the onset of Rodrigo Duterte’s presidency. Although the Philippines deems itself as a republic, the president exhibits an authoritarian nature. His tactics, rhetoric, and worldview have garnered attention and controversy, leading to a reevaluation of the country. Despite disagreement and condemnation from human rights groups and other entities, for many people Duterte stands as an effective leader in the Philippines. Even with his brutality, there is a strong presence of approval. In this project, I aim to explore and uncover what makes Duterte such a likable figure among Filipino citizens. A review of the literature reveals many plausible reasons. Duterte veils himself as a ‘common man.’ His efforts to combat the war on drugs are also admirable to many Filipinos; they feel much safer with some of his policies. Initially, my research was supposed to manifest in an academic paper. However, I found that one of my parents shared the same sentiments as other Filipinos. To highlight my findings, I chose to interview my dad and borrowing from the work of Ocean Vuong, I utilized the form of a letter to my father. With this project, I aimed to connect with my dad in hopes of understanding more about my people. Additionally, I was able to hear the genuine thoughts and background of my dad. This brought me closer to my roots, and my dad. This research contributes further to the broader question of what makes dictators and authoritative leaders, such as Duterte, ‘likable’ people to their citizens.  

Within the ethnographies, memories, and archives produced throughout a capitalist empire, the ‘gaze’ has generally been used against the subject, creating narratives which entrench the hegemony in defining the subject to accord with the needs of the dominating culture. The term ‘oppositional gaze’ was developed in 1992 by bell hooks in conversation with Laura Mulvey’s Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema: the ‘gaze’ is a scopophilic act albeit with the potential to be a radical method for resistance; the oppositional gaze then refers to ‘looking’ as a defiant act to which the actors reclaim a sense of autonomy over the spectator and turn the gaze back upon their oppressors. What makes the act of ‘looking’ so defiant and how this looking translates to an oppositional gaze is the question this project attempts to answer through a close reading of various media and using an array of methods and theories from such disciplines as film studies, ethnography, and data ethics. I build upon the foundations of hooks and Mulvey while asserting that the definition of ‘looking’ goes beyond visual perception and into the act of understanding and perceiving. I apply these theories of the ‘gaze’ and my own explorations of ‘looking’ to juxtapose Rahul Jain’s Machines (2016) and Chloe Zhao’s Nomadland (2020) in analyzing its application and limitations. With this project, I hope to impel further discussion on the study of the gaze by compiling demonstrations of its application in various media and its disruption of prevailing narratives.

This narrative web experience invites readers to rethink their own relationships with the material world. The piece frames materials within Western monumental structures — the marble pedestal, the bronze figure, and the “living” rock carving — not as inanimate instruments in colonial systems, but as living victims and actors within those very systems. I examine how these materials are treated within the Western monument-making process through alternate frameworks—namely Neolithic, Queer and Indigenous material theories—in order to expose the violences inherent in Western material theory and practice. This piece, structured in a series of web pages, leads the reader through a research narrative strung together from conceptual images, academic text, and instructions for a tactile activity. By highlighting these non-Western and anti-colonial material lenses, I explore how the critical lenses we choose to apply to examine monumental materials can act to liberate them from the inanimacies inflicted upon them and highlight the resistances they mount against monumentalization, prompting a further “dematerialization” of the Western monument. This liberation will allow us rethink the physical and ideological standards that have been established for monumentality and to ideate alternate material forms for future monuments that do not contain, impose, and idolize such colonial violences.

This project explores the history and power of language in relation to graffiti writer Rammellzee’s philosophy of Ikonoklast Panzerism as well as to his art. Using informal interviews, ethnographic engagement, and close readings relating to Rammellzee and the alphabet’s history, I investigate how the individual can claim the power of language back from colonizers and oppressors through subversive art. I question how Rammellzee’s work can be used to reimagine the alphabet as a tool to deconstruct monuments of oppression and imperialism that are pervasive to society. Rammellzee founded Ikonoklast Panzerism on the idea that each individual letter of the alphabet can be armored and weaponized in order to free themselves from the institutions which wield the power of language over the rest of society. He bases his beliefs in the medieval history of monastic illuminated calligraphy and uses his theories to create art which subverts structures of power. I argue that Rammellzee’s work reveals the potential of individualized power by reclaiming the almighty power of language and challenging the limitations of legibility and standardization. Drawing from concepts such as ethnographic refusal, and from the writing of scholars like Michel-Rolph Trouillot to inform my creative work, this project emphasizes the power of the written word in today’s world and investigates how language can be reimagined and repurposed by each individual. I synthesize my research findings into a creative form that touches on my own relationship to language in academia, and how I can apply Rammellzee’s ideas to my own life.