Disc.cussion

Poeleen Alvarez / Diana Aviado / Pandy Aviado / Luigi Azura / Jojo Barja / Plet Bolipata / Elmer Borlongan / Mars Bugaoan / Benjie Torrado Cabrera / Noëll EL Farol / Don Kusuanco / Alynnah Manalac-Tadeo / Angelo Magno / William Matawaran / Soler Santos / Taj Hassan Tadeo / Anton Villaruel

The Compact Disc as Matrix

Text by Marz Aglipay

Disc.cussion brings together a group of artists to examine the possibilities of alternative printmaking through the use of discarded compact discs as matrices for drypoint. Once a widely used medium for storing digital information, the CD is recontextualized here as both material and subject—situated between obsolescence and afterlife.

The exhibition can be understood within what Florian Cramer describes as the post-digital condition, in which obsolete and residual media are reactivated through material engagement. Here, the compact disc persists as a physical artifact with its surface reworked through drypoint to foreground tactility, resistance, and transformation. In this shift, a medium once defined by the seamless transmission of data is recast as a site of friction and singularity.

Although often described as outdated, the compact disc persists as a technological residue. This exhibition engages that condition by foregrounding the tension between immaterial data and material inscription. Through the act of etching the CD’s surface, artists translate a medium associated with storage and playback into one of direct, tactile mark-making. The works shift the CD’s function from a carrier of encoded information to a site of image production, where traces of its prior use remain conceptually present.

The circular form of the CD, punctuated by a central void, introduces a shared structural constraint. As Noell El Farol observes, “the void at the center becomes an integral part of the composition,” complicating the placement of a focal point and often necessitating a radial approach. This condition produces a dynamic visual field in which balance must be negotiated against an implied sense of motion.

Material considerations further shape the works. Distinct from traditional metal plates such as copper or zinc, the CD’s surface offers a different kind of resistance, affecting both the incised line and the retention of ink. As Pandy Aviado notes, “the whole process is about tactile resistance… the resulting prints serve as a bridge between two worlds: the ghosts of digital tracks and the new graphic narratives formed on the press.” The act of engraving becomes a means of mediating between digital memory and physical transformation.

Taken together, the works position the CD as a kind of “digital relic.” Its microscopic grooves—originally designed to store data—are disrupted and reinterpreted through the burr of the drypoint line, producing images that hold both material and conceptual depth. The process establishes a dialogue between ephemerality and permanence, suggesting how forms of information persist even as their technologies fall out of use.

At the same time, Disc.cussion points toward questions of sustainability and access in contemporary printmaking. By repurposing discarded media, the exhibition proposes a circular approach to production, where waste materials are reactivated as sites of creative inquiry.

Featuring works by Alynnah Macla-Tadeo, Benjamin T. Cabrera, Diana Aviado, Don Kusuanco, Plet Bolipata, Elmer Borlongan, Jojo Barja, Luigi Azura, Angelo Magno, Mars Bugaoan, Noëll EL Farol, Pandy Aviado, Poeleen Alvarez, Soler Santos, Taj Hassan Asinas Tadeo, Anton Villaruel, and William Matawaran, Disc.cussion presents a focused exploration of how artists engage material constraints to generate new visual and conceptual possibilities.

¹ Florian Cramer, “What Is ‘Post-digital’?” in Postdigital Aesthetics: Art, Computation and Design, ed. David Berry and Michael Dieter (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).