The Ateneo Art Gallery has opened Somatodelic, a retrospective of Filipino artist and educator Tad Ermitaño that brings together decades of work in electronic media, sound, experimental film and creative coding, while inviting audiences to rethink their relationship with technology through play and embodied experience.
The exhibition features selected works spanning Mr. Ermitaño’s decades-long practice, including Twinning Machine, a live video installation acquired by the Ateneo Art Gallery in 2012.
Rather than presenting machines as static objects, Somatodelic transforms them into responsive systems that react to sound, movement, and human interaction. Through algorithmic processes, Mr. Ermitaño’s installations encourage viewers to engage physically with the works before searching for intellectual explanations.
Speaking at the exhibit opening on Wednesday, Mr. Ermitaño said many of his works begin with a simple image or gesture, but evolve through experimentation.
“I knew that I wanted to build that, and I had that image that I was going for, but there’s also a bunch of stuff there… you just discover stuff that you can do on the way afterwards,” he said, recalling the development of one installation.
He compared the creative process to inventor Les Paul’s development of the electric guitar, saying its creator could not have anticipated how musicians such as Jimi Hendrix would later transform the instrument.
Mr. Ermitaño also reflected on the value of collaboration in artistic practice, saying working with others introduces perspectives that are difficult to achieve alone.
“When you make stuff on your own, you have freedom, but also you don’t have feedback. When the group works… people come up with things that I wouldn’t have thought about. The chemistry is one of the things that makes the thinking fertile,” he said.
The exhibition takes its title from “somatodelic”, meaning “body-manifesting,” emphasizing direct sensory engagement with the works. Instead of asking audiences to first understand the theory behind each piece, Mr. Ermitaño hopes viewers will allow their bodies to respond before their minds begin interpreting the experience.
Mr. Ermitaño also called for greater recognition of the role of the arts in nurturing creativity, saying opportunities for play and experimentation are essential to developing imagination and critical thinking.
“I think the lack of support for the arts comes from a lack of understanding about the role that play plays in your growth as a human,” he said.
He acknowledged that economic realities often lead people to focus on jobs and livelihoods, but said reducing support for the arts ultimately limits creative thinking.
“If you cut out art, basically, you shrink the territory in which you give children room for their imagination to play. The smaller that room becomes, the less they’ll be useful as workers,” he said.
Mr. Ermitaño likened the arts to a fruit-bearing tree, saying societies that focus only on immediate economic returns risk destroying the source of future creativity.
“It’s like saying, if you want mangoes, why don’t you just get the mangoes and then cut down the tree,” he said. “You can’t do that because that’s how you get the mangoes.”
Somatodelic runs until October 10 at the Ateneo Art Gallery’s Wilson L. Sy Prints & Drawings Gallery. The main exhibition text is written by Ian Carlo Jaucian. — Kaizzer Angela S. Manuba
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