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[pilipinhoe]

wimtern task 3

Art Hoe: an Aesthetic, a Stereotype, or Something Else?

It seems as though each year a new fad era is introduced to the public. Last year was the era of the baddies and the hypebeasts with all the athletic jackets, chunky sneakers, and high-end clothing brands, while about five years ago was the era of the vaporwave with all the computer-glitch clothing, hologram bucket hats, and cyberpunk backgrounds. This year, with its ubiquitous round glasses, mustard kanken bags, multicolored and layered apparel, and socks featuring well-known artworks, is the era of what the public considers as the latest fad: the art hoe. Upon searching the art hoe hashtag on Instagram, you will detect an odd homogeneity among the posts under this tag: selfies with pastel squiggle lines or fruit emojis or superimposed on well-known paintings, people with short, colored hair tucked under a beret or a messenger-boy cap, white-walled rooms filled with dried flowers, vinyl records, posters of Tyler the Creator and Mac DeMarco, and sketches or writings deliberately torn from journals. One of the definitions the Urban Dictionary provides for the term “art hoe” is “a hoe who is mysterious, chill, hippy-ish, and good at art.” Another one is “some girl that wants people to think she’s all artsy and mysterious, so she goes to an art museum, not to admire the art, but to take photos of the art and her standing in front of the art. Despite popular belief, it is not good to be an art hoe.” Society seems to have a concept of what an art hoe is, but how did this entire art hoe “fad” start? Before it was turned into a mere aesthetic or a label with a relatively negative connotation, it was an art movement created by POC (people of color) artists specifically but not exclusively for POC artists.

The word “hoe,” a deviation of the word “whore,” is an AAVE (African American Vernacular English) term meant to disparage women, specifically black women, for their promiscuity as judged by the males. Mars and Jam, the founders of the Art Hoe Collective, are young POC artists that reclaimed this derogatory term and used it into one that would emancipate black women from the shame brought upon by this word; but not only is this movement a feminist movement, it is, above all else, an art movement. “Usually there is a myriad of stereotypes pertaining to POC,” Mars says. “How black people can’t be delicate, how latinx are no good but for cleaning and having a smart mouth.” The goal of Art Hoe Collective is to shatter these cultural stereotypes foisted upon colored people with artistic expression as a reflection of the internalized struggles these silenced POC artists encounter each day. Through this movement, Mars and Jam hope that colored creatives will feel empowered and will find a voice, and through these creatives’ collectivity, the rest of society will learn to listen to these voices without subduing them. Although this movement is made specifically for the empowerment of POC artists, the founders clarify that it is not exclusively for POC artists and that they wish to keep the movement as inclusive as it can be. Mars says, “We made this movement inclusive for everyone. The reason why we made this is so everyone can participate in it and have a place to call home.” At present, the Art Hoe Collective is growing in its artists, both POC and non-POC, and naturally, the community’s culture, which is different from the cultures or the “fads” modern society has now, is producing among the public appeal and even imitation.

Now, there must be no shame in taking pleasure in the art hoe community and its manifested “aesthetic.” Feel free to indulge yourself in dead plants, circular-framed glasses, dyed hair, polychromatic stripes and checkers, French paraphernalia, and all other cultural objects all you want! Just, at least, educate yourself on the very history of the community and on why this “fad era” was created; do not forget or erase what it stands for.

[pilipinhoe]

wimtern task 2

These Songs Have Been Scientifically Proven to Help You Sleep Better at Night It is a familiar scene. It is the night before an important exam, presentation, or interview. You are nervous, but you are readying yourself for bed to get enough sleep because you need your mind to be fresh for the next day. You have avoided exposure to light: television, computer, and phone devices. You have skipped big meals, sugary foods, and caffeine. You have optimized your bedroom environment. You have counted sheep. You are doing everything the Internet said would help you sleep better! But you are not sleepy. And you close your eyes again, but your mind is still very much nervous and awake. According to Pat LaDouceur, a therapist from Mental Help, one of the biggest reasons for wakefulness is worry. LaDouceur says, “Even while your body is relaxed, your mind can spin stories about problems you need to solve, calls you need to make, things you need to do.”

When we are feeling stressed or anxious, not just about school but also about different things, we tend to dwell on what makes us feel this way; but sometimes, instead of solving these worries, we tend to expound more worries on these worries. Usually, when we are feeling this way, we look for an easy and quick relaxer, and one of the relaxers most accessible for us is music! Though, sometimes, choosing what song that may give us a relaxing experience is a not-so-relaxing experience itself.

Fortunately, we have found three songs that are meant to reduce your stress and to make you sleepier! Neuroscientists from Mindlab International conducted a study where they tracked the physiological reactions of participants to different types of music while they were completing complex puzzles. From this study, they were able to determine these songs and their incredibly calming effect. 1. “Weightless” (Marconi Union)

Marconi Union, an English band, worked with sound therapists to engineer this song, which was created for the purpose of slowing down breathing and reducing mental activity. According to the experiment, the song was able to reduce stress in all the participants by 65 percent! Lyz Cooper of the British Academy of Sound Therapy says, “The song contains a sustaining rhythm that starts at 60 beats per minute and gradually slows to around 50. While listening, your heart rate gradually comes to match that beat.” This synchronization of the heart to the external rhythm naturally causes a lower heart rate and will eventually lead to lower blood pressure and to less anxiety; this biomusicalogical phenomenon is called “entrainment.” Because of this, the song also induces a heavy sleepiness upon the listener. During the study, there were reports of some of the participants feeling a biting sense of drowsiness; and Dr. David Lewis-Hogson even advises against the listening to this track while driving as he believes it is a potential danger. 2. “Electra” (Airstream)

This song is similar to Weightless in the sense that it begins with 60 to 65 beats per minute. In comparison to Weightless, this song has more of a laidback but not lackadaisical vibe; it does not sacrifice the ethereal energy that the quasi-hip-hop / quasi-jazz track is superimposed on. It also seems to make use of more contemporary technique in terms of sound with its charming drum pattern. 3. “We Can Fly” (Café del Mar)

This song is a conjunction of white noise and music, and it sounds like, for the lack of a better description, liquefied electronic music together with a mystic flute. The white noise spreads evenly across the frequencies and serves as a masking effect from the mind’s external grasping; the electronic vibe adds an actual, humanly identifiable sound under the white noise’s cacophonous blocking. The concoction that is “We Can Fly” may not be for everyone, but it does serve its purpose! There is no denying that music and its elements possess the ability to shape our bodily performances and cognitive thinking; and apparently, music has the power to affect how we sleep, too! Think of including these songs in your relaxation playlist!

[pilipinhoe]

wimtern task 1

The First of Bea’s Attempts at a Proper Introduction

There are quite a number of things Bea Soliman is unsure of. One of them is what to place in her resume; another is why she insists on referring to herself in third-person. Unsure as well of who she is at present, she is apprehensive of encapsulating herself into a definitive word in the belief that she is persistently evolving; but for the sake of a proper introduction (and of avoiding an existential crisis), here are a number of things she is sure of or, at least, less unsure of. She is sure/less unsure it is her first year as a Creative Writing student in the University of the Philippines Diliman; but she did study Sociology in Los Banos for two semesters. She is sure/less unsure she enjoys writing and cannot imagine herself doing anything else. You can find her scribbling on journals, on book corners, on her skin, on any surface a working pen may produce ink, and when she does not carry a writing instrument, she scribbles in her head. Sometimes, she writes in different voices; her writing style flexibility and dissent for genre limitation allow this. In high school, she served as an editorial and feature writer for her school newspaper (Grace Journal), though most of her classroom outputs were of confessional and psychological nature; she can write about the pretense of human reality to Justin Bieber fan fiction to a year’s breakdown of internet memes, tweaking her vocabulary and sentence structures to the convenience of her expected audience.   She is sure/less unsure she enjoys reading. High-school Bea was quite the feminist literature snob and found pleasure in reading exclusively the likes of Austen, the Bronte sisters, and Plath (though she still very much admires Plath), but she is growing (and still willing to grow!) and exploring the spheres of metafiction, magic realism, and a bit of philosophy. She has also developed a liking for poetry (specifically by Filipino poets) this year; she can discuss poetry as a form or as a concept for hours, but she must admit she sucks at composing them. She is sure/less unsure she enjoys discovering new music, and she, quite old school, prefers finding music through the Youtube algorithm than on other streaming sites, going through the entire dance of converting video to mp3 and finding its album cover. She refuses to limit her music taste to a specific classification, albeit people who do not know her too well find it convenient to categorize her into the alternative genre. Friends, however, are aware of the mishmash that is Bea’s playlist; they put her music on shuffle outside of a milk-tea place once and began laughing as the artists went from the Black Sabbath to Carly Rae Jepsen to the Monsters Inc. soundtrack. She is sure/less unsure she enjoys supporting the art community, whether it be zine sellings, local gigs, art exhibits, or theatrical plays, and it ruins her spirit knowing that a mass deliberately invalidates local artists and their creations, saying it is solely for decorative purposes. One of her advocacies is the redefining of art as a catalyst for social and political engagement as opposed to but a hanging ornament. Another is to eradicate the misconception of being with the art community as an exclusive and intimidating ordeal, as she has observed that this impression reinforces the barrier between artists and non-artists. She wants to help in the interweaving of what is considered as independent with what is considered as mainstream, and she knows When in Manila is the perfect platform to help her with this. When in Manila, Bea is sure/less unsure that she is afraid of failure, of being rejected and of being seen as an incompetent writer and has missed national and international writing and debating opportunities because so, and she does not want this internship to be one of those opportunities. She is willing to grow, to learn, to help, and to say them all in meaningful articles. There are quite a number of things Bea is unsure of, one of them being who she is at present, but she is very sure of who she wants to be soon. Bea Soliman wants to be a When in Manila intern, and she is sure she can deliver.