“Maiba” – in Tagalog, “to change.” We are here, in the daylight, in ordinary reality. Often, we have this idea that breaking on through to the other side (to quote Jim Morrison) requires that we transform ourselves. With sound. With light, with objects, with costumes, with ritual, with words. To get across, we have to break — and break with — the daylight world of appearances. –Tad Ermitaño

The MusicMakers Hacklab is a performance laboratory open to anyone interested in attempting together what is inconceivable alone and aims to invent tools and strategies for improvised play. By encouraging new collaborative performances which explore music as a speculative medium for sustainability, wherein artists work together to generate rather than compete for resources, to propagate rather than consume, the MusicMakers Hacklab seeks to provide a platform for inspiration and knowledge exchange, allowing practitioners from a range of disciplines to create and play, and to find new ways of exploring the current and future potentials that lie in interfacing music with technology and other fields of practice.

Following an open call, selected Hacklab participants collaboratively developed ideas over the course of a week, allowing participants to fully utilize one’s unique skill set while learning from each other and adapting to a joint workflow. The resulting projects were then presented in front of a live audience on this evening. 

The Hacklab was hosted by Berlin-based musician/technologist Peter Kirn of CDM and Manila-based media artist Tad Ermitaño. Participants were: Peter Kirn, Tad Ermitaño, Gladys Regalado, Mark Rambo, Mark Omega, Jett Ilagan, Myka Arnado, Patsy Lascano, Brian Moreno, Chiharu Shinoda, Dale Bazar, Mark Frederick L. Bulandus, and Laure Boer.