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Thursday, September 22, 2005
Yap: 1896
By Januar Yap
Meanwhile
Some inebriated film editor spliced the wrong reels for a supposed period film “1896.” As a result, the storyline became a “timeless classic epic” spanning two centuries, specifically circa 1896, 1972, 1986 and 2005. Worse, or better (depending on where you’re coming from), accidentally added were clips from the 1981 hit “Gods Must Be Crazy,” a movie about how a bottle of Coke led an African tribe into a cultural revolution.
“Tools,” I remember Nick Joaquin say, “have cluster effects and exert influences beyond their respective field of function.” In this case, Timothy Berners-Lee’s development of the Web reached Philippine shores shortly before the start of the Philippine revolution in 1896. That was the Indio’s Coke bottle.
Or so according to this timeless flick “1896.”
In 1889, the Propaganda Movement, went online. You can access a chat with Graciano Lopez Jaena and Solidaridad's editorial staff. The Noli and Fili became downloadable e-books. The Spanish audiencia was helpless, except of course if an Indio uses pirated operating system software. The phenomenon didn’t solely interest the intelligentsia; the masses themselves thronged into it as they can play solitaire on the side.
The Internet ushered in a new venue for the Propaganda Movement. Rizal, Aguinaldo, Bonifacio--they all had Friendster accounts. Leon Kilat had a Blog.
Juan Luna learned Flash and Dreamweaver and posted his most radical illustrations. The Spanish government tried to install a Firewall-like program to detect web traffic and its contents, to no avail. The Katipuneros, now techno-converts, knew the complicated science of encryption. It was only almost half a century later when espionage found the great decoder John Nash. Meanwhile, information crept in like salinity on Cebu’s fresh water sources.
But as with Kill Bill the movie, “1896” has volume two. Coming soon.
(September 22, 2005 issue)
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