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In Julius Redillas’ latest exhibition, the artist had only one thing in mind: the
nonchalance of the 1” x 1” ID photo. It is a continuation of his quest or probing for
questions of identities which has been a recurring theme in his works.
‘One by one’ is a phrase that most associate with photographs taken for
identification cards. For the portraits he did for this exhibition, the artist bore in
mind that the perfectly square shape denotes conformity and rigidity.

The show whose title, People You May Know, may strike a chord to any Gen X
to Z Facebook user as the social networking site’s feature that shows a list of
friend suggestions and gives options of ‘Add’ or ‘x.’ Redillas randomly chose his
subjects from a sea of profiles swimming in his ‘Suggested Friends’ section.
Redillas chose the ones closest to having traditional, mugshot-like ID photos.
There is nothing spontaneous about the poses. These photographs were mostly
staged, and probably rehearsed, with each cropped to the rigidity of the square
shape as they now appear in their respective profile pages. The chosen vantage
point might have guaranteed a subject’s best angle, especially if they were
selfies.

Redillas believes the vulnerability of the composition of such portraits is
something to be loved. It is something one can be identified with. He explained,
“There is something familiar about [1” x 1” ID photos] as people had their photos
taken that way as requirements for IDs, grad pics, mugshots, etc. We’ve been
doing it since kindergarten. Now, in Facebook, it is still in the same square
format.” It is this same built environment, that is social networking sites, that he
set the narrative for his new portrait series.

In the advent of facial recognition technology, which raises some serious
implications, Redillas touches on the issue of privacy. The artificial intelligence
research laboratory at Facebook has been developing an advanced recognition
technology, whose final algorithm had an impressive strike rate during a test last
year. What is even more alarming is, in the absence of a decipherable face,
people can still be tracked and linked to their identities by assessing other
characteristics such as body silhouettes, hairstyles, clothes, and even poses.
When these fail, the social networking site can just figure its metadata to act as a
stand-in.

It is a tight cage for the people—a biometric herd. It is 1984.
In this birth of modern telescreens, the only means of evasion is to be
inconsistent. For the exhibition, this is where the embellishment of hair in
Redillas’ portrait subjects come in. Here he does a documentation style that is
obviously short of being documentary.

The twelve acrylic on canvas portraits, each 30 inches by 30 inches, were done
in the artist’s mannered painting of intricate and meticulous brushstrokes in
translucent red hues, and the use of

generous white space. (His aesthetic is
conservative, if not traditional, judging from the manual technical mastery which
is apparent in his works.) The signature motif of intertwining rope-like hair
resembling muscle fibers organically crawled the skin and engulfed the subjects’
heads, while some were revealed under what look like flaked off skin. The
clothes look ghostly as they were rendered in plain white. Save for the eyes, the
faces were defaced of any other recognizable reference of identity.

In his artist statement Redillas wrote, “I see my works as a collective depiction of
a society that is voyeuristic and exploitative… Everywhere, we see things getting
fixed and people being saved.”
With cyberbullying being rampant, those courageous, or just tactless, enough to
voice out unpopular beliefs are at risk. One wrong move and you earn yourself
some trolls and risk your profile photos turning into memes and going viral;
hence, you become a posterboy for a Two Minutes Hate.

As people are believed to have a fear of isolation which consequently leads to
remaining silent instead of voicing opinions, conformity does not only become the
norm, it becomes the name of the game. In the Spiral of Silence Theory, it is
suggested that people who believe that they share the viewpoint of the minority in
a public issue will remain silent, while those who sing with the majority have more
confidence to speak up. Consequently, the society might exclude individuals
because of their unpopular stance. Thus, self-censorship becomes paragon. This
and Big Brother could not be happier.

Yet, there is power in this identity. Redillas recognizes this and plotted traces of
identity politics. Advocacy for specific causes can be done, as in itself an infancy
form, by using profile photos in social media platforms. It can be remembered
that there was a bombardment of rainbow filtered profile photos signifying
support for marriage equality. There was also the solidarity with France in the
wake of the Paris terrorist attack, thus the filter of vertical bands of blue, white
and red. There were green filters for Iranian protesters, Arabic ‘Ns’ to

support
Iraqi Christians, yellow ribbons for Hong Kong, and black dots to oppose sexual
violence in India.

Redillas attempts to tackle a very important aspect of identity politics which is
consciousness raising. In an act, rather glorified, each struggle dances to a
unified tune: that of defiance against an abusive power structure. Exigently, it
may facilitate in shaping social attitudes toward an issue or an entire
marginalized and oppressed sector. However, a danger happens when
movements split into disputatious factions and eventually diluted when individual
causes are taken out of the realm of politics.
It is 1984.

By not blending in which is tantamount to survival, Redillas’ grotesque portraits,
still ostensively meek, stand as a defiant observer. Is the artist trying to play Big
Brother with prying eyes on his unwary subjects or a messianic Christ saving
them from the latter?
Such play on sublime potential dualities in the portrait series is engaging.
Watching the artist’s obsession of putting contemporary issues of identities up for
questioning is exciting. The content of the entire exhibition lies in this artifice.

~ R. Coronel

WORKS

DOCUMENTATION