The Bathala Project

Thursday, December 31, 2009

Eve of a new year

2010. It'll be bananas I'm sure! Quite excited about the adventures that I'll be having with the Baybayin movement/community. Last year of this time I was just getting my feet wet with scribbles and random acts of Baybayin vandalism. Now I'm knee deep and am about to make a cannon-ball splash onto the Baybayin and graphic design scene.

800px-wide-tbp

New suit, new style, new year. Let's go!

Stay up,

~Cyph
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Wednesday, December 30, 2009

Spoken Word Sunday: Intelect

A late Spoken Word Sunday upload, this week's episode features the homie Helio aka Intelect (yes, that's one L) spitting and politickin. Intelect describes his style as "Immortal Technique content with a Tech-Nine influenced delivery." Word up.



Stay up,

Cyph
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Tuesday, December 29, 2009

Translation Tuesday: "Ch-" Sounds

Welcome to the last Translation Tuesday episode of the year! My, what a journey 2009 has been... to compare my entire mindset, attitude, and Baybayin style in January to now, it's night and day! I learned alot, built with many people, and 2010 is only going to be bigger and better!

But first thing's first. Today's Translation Tuesday episode addresses how to achieve the "Ch-" sound, such as in "Chuck" or "Peaches"...



Again, thank you to all that have made 2009 so memorable and have supported the Baybayin movement! 2010, WE GOT THIS!

Stay up,

~cyph
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Thursday, December 24, 2009

Happy Humbugs

In this day and age of self awareness regarding consumerism, the echoes of colonization through Christianity, and general ideals that oppose the face value of Christmas, I can't help but still feel happy about the holiday season. I guess I can blame it on all on the great Christmas' that my parents could have afforded both my sister and I as children. I can blame it on the unity that my family had to congregate with the cousins and our ability to get along with each other, play, and give gifts. I can blame it on how much my family cares for one another with genuine smiles and cries.

But I am aware that it ain't all good in the hood. I know there are broken families that make being with them intolerable around this time of the year. I know there are people with no families to confide with throughout the whole year. I know there are those who can't afford to be a participant of the heightened consumerism culture for the holidays.

But I see you, brothers and sisters. I know you're there. For some, Christmas is the worse time of the year because it reminds them of what they don't have, much like Valentines is the worse for some because it reminds them of WHO they don't have. But stay strong, my brothers and sisters. You don't have to have a happy holiday just to be HAPPY. You're alive and breathing, and hopefully eating. I see you and I'm with you.

Baybayin (Alibata) Christmas Card

Happy holidays, stay up.

~Cyph
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Tuesday, December 22, 2009

Translation Tuesday: Twin (Kambal)

This week's Translation Tuesday is quite different. It's been a while since I did a walkthrough-video of myself creating a Baybayin art piece, so when a client called in to render the word "Kambal" (Twin) into a Baybayin piece, I thought to kill two birds with one stone...



Props to my brother in rhyme, Stimey, for assisting with the videography! So, here's the text: According to Filipino mythology, the supreme being Bathala one day sent a lightning bolt to strike the largest bamboo plant on earth. This split bamboo plant gave two beings, the first man and first woman. The man was named "Malakas" (strong) and the woman "Maganda" (beautiful). I always thought that this symmetery and close relation with god, earth, nature, spirituality and this overall harmony in the Filipino creation story was quite interesting. The idea of natural compliments is the essence of the balanced equations that ties all sciences and theories together. So what about life? What about emotion? These questions are raised in this 24" x 36" poster...

The Twin Poster

The bamboo, representing the whole idea of Filipino spirituality finding compliments and harmony in nature are represented by the symmetrical patterns around the border, and the two large bamboo poles. Complimenting hues, orange and blue, are each tinting half of the poster. In the middle however, is a hodge podge of colors. I always felt that visually, colors can represent so much simply because there are so many depths to interpret, much like emotion. So, I wanted each dash of color to represent an emotion, and the essence of this ball of emotions is a soul. But if everything truly IS complimentary, and everything essentially has a twin, what is a twin to a soul? A soul mate? A kindred spirit? A best friend? I don't personally know, but whatever they call it, "Kambal" (Twin) seems to be one of those names by which we call such a beautiful pair. On the Baybayin characters I included repetitious strokes to further resonate the idea of "twin". And lastly, the characters in red, which as a color has historically been used for either love or war. Many poets have compared and contrasted the two, but they indeed compliment each other regardless of their extreme outcomes...

Perhaps we're on this planet to find our twin? Our soul mate? Our optimal genetic match? Surely, if the universe is self complimenting with matter to antimatter, 0 to 1, on to off, then perhaps it is our mission/destiny/fate to search for our twin. But to realize our choice as to who our twin is would be a lifelong adventure. If you're lucky enough to actually identify who your twin is, then love with loyalty and leave with honor.

Stay up,

Cyph
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Thursday, December 17, 2009

FREE SWAG THURSDAY: Christmas Edition!

Be sure to follow The Bathala Project on either Twitter or Facebook for your chance to win a very special FREE SWAG THURSDAY prize: The Baybayin Christmas Card - Magellan's stocking

Baybayin (Alibata) Christmas Card

What you see is poor old Magellan, finding a lump of naughty coal in his Christmas stocking. Above him reads "Maligayang Pasko!" which is Merry Christmas! in Tagalog, written in Baybayin (Nordenx's Baybayin Round font). The colorway of Magellan's garb was inspired by historical documents:

magellan

Sort of... So again, be sure to follow The Bathala Project on both Twitter and Facebook for your chance to win this 4"x6" Holiday card print!

Stay up!

~cyph
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Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Teka muna...

No Translation Tuesday episode this week... but instead, will be a very special FREE-SWAG THURSDAY holiday give-away! So be sure to follow on either Twitter or Facebook for your chance to win some FREE Baybayin Stylin!

Stay up!

Cyph

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Sunday, December 13, 2009

Spoken Word Sunday: Under Pressure

So, I know I've been rather quiet this past week, but that's because I spent the most of that week rushing to finish this video piece, "Under Pressure".



Music recorded, video edited, and motion designed all in 3 agonizing days by yours truly. Good looking out to my brother in rhyme, Stimey, for shooting the video! This piece was my first real project using Adobe After Effects, to see what I can get done using pre-edited video without green screen or track markers (or money). In three days too! THE POSSIBILITIES ARE THERE, AND THEY ARE NUMEROUS! I can't wait to start working on some Baybayin-incorporated motion work, as soon as I figure out an idea to display modern Baybayin in practical design application...

Stay up,

Cyph
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Tuesday, December 8, 2009

Translation Tuesday: Modern vs Traditional


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Sunday, December 6, 2009

Rebuilding...

While I assess the Baybayin projects that I've lost, which ones I'll just drop anyways, and which ones I'll recreate, here's a non-Baybayin related piece I finished just before my hard drive crashed that I uploaded to my flickr. It's a photochop of me, smashing atoms the old fashioned way. Consider this my "I'm working on it" picture...

Smashing atoms

Stay up,

cyph


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Saturday, December 5, 2009

This might take a while...

It's been said that the universe is always self-preserving, as is the nature of everything. So, when my harddrive crashed, taking along with it several projects that I didn't back up with it... I can only assume that whatever benefits I get out of this are going to be so grand and fantastic, it will make whatever I lost seem trivial in comparison...

But to my old operating system... it was hard to say goodbye, but I have to admit, Windows 7 is pretty damn sexy. So, my dearest XP, though we met long ago when I was a freshman in college and we shared many secrets, laughs, and cries together, this is an official farewell.



Spoken Word Sunday and Translation Tuesday will be on hold for a minute, as will other works; give me a second to regroup, and I'll get back at ya...

Stay up,

~cyph
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Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Baybayin Modern

A great blog post written by Malaya Design on the modernization of Baybayin. Here's a snippet, but check out the whole post here.
Modifying, modernizing the Baybayin is a debated issue between some writers. Some don’t see a problem with using the Spanish modification by placing a + sign under a character to cancel out a vowel, but some do. It is both right and wrong at the same time, depending on who you are…yeah, it’s vague. I am a traditional practitioner that has evolved to include a variation of it by placing a kudlit above and below the character. I didn’t make it up, I saw it someplace and had an “error 404” episode.

Does that mean I condone the use of cancellation kudlits? Yes, to some extent, but I will not bastardize the writing system just because of an individuals ignorance. If anything, I hate seeing transliterations that are blatantly wrong because either the writer or the person wearing the script just didn’t take the time to research and ask questions. There is no “system restore” for this mishap.
And in case Wordpress gets wonky on me, here's the reply comment I (tried to) put up:
Very insightful and well put!
I do believe that modernization of Baybayin is the way to go, however, who would be responsible for doing so? Who should be held responsible to commit to the task of amending a writing system? The Baybayin artists? The tribesmen that still use an iteration of it? The Philippine government? College professors, academics and intellectuals? Consider a similar scenario in which the increasing Spanish-speaking population in America may one day deem it necessary to add the Enye (~n) letter to the American alphabet. Who would be responsible in doing so? And how would such an amendment be standardized throughout the country? Then how would this be distributed to the academic institutions? I suppose one can look at the politics behind the redefinition of Pluto no longer being a planet and being made into public intellect as a reference.

I understand that several Baybayin writers have tried to modernize the Baybayin script by adding new characters to express modern phonetics as well as reconfiguring the kudlits to become more expressive; however, I feel like most of these changes were done independently by the individual Baybayin writer thus becoming unlikely to be held as a standard. Without a cohesive agreement from the "Baybayin community", I think it would be difficult to bring forward a modern Baybayin character set if there are too many individual variations.

I think to successfully modernize Baybayin, several things must take place: First, a committee should be formed to discuss, debate, document and deliberate all Baybayin-related matters. By unifying efforts and collecting opinions, insights, and perspectives, macro-level changes of a writing system could have a stronger foundation to be built upon. Second, the 17 Basic character system should have it's character strokes finalized and standardized to be recognized by the Baybayin community; The problem with making changes to Baybayin I feel is that because of regional, stylistic and individual differences, it can be difficult to communicate the same idea when many are unsure if the character they're writing is founded on a standard character face. But once this has been defined, standardized, documented and distributed, I truly believe that modernization of Baybayin will be a much smoother, calculated and designed process.

As to what we do with this new Baybayin system is a discussion for another time...
~Cyph
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The future is now, it just needs to be thought out before it's implemented. Like the creative designer mantra goes, "Think more, design less."

Stay up,

Cyph
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Tuesday, December 1, 2009

Translation Tuesday: Wala...

Spelled as in, Wa-La, meaning "none"...



Stay up,

~cyph
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