gapnod_protocol is KoloWn’s third solo exhibition with The Drawing Room, following In Real Life (2021) and 404 (2022), as well as recent presentations of GhostControl and Screen Paintings at ALT Philippines 2026.
Named after the Cebuano word for flotsam (gapnod), the exhibition brings together five projects linked through the practice of material scavenging across both physical and digital spaces.
works presented:
Screen Paintings: Plein air painting but in front of an Ipad? The project explores painting in the age of screen-first reality and how it affects the concept, process, and technique of contemporary painting.
This is a continuation of the painting series created for 404 (2022) and the screen painting series exhibited at ALT Philippines 2026. The imagery in this current iteration was sourced from public domain collections on The Met Museum's open access website, various internet archives, YouTube film screenshots, Google Street View images, vintage user interfaces, 3D environment and character creators, and custom image-generation software. The paintings still maintain a distinct mid-2000s street art aesthetic.
Parallel: Chrono Escape 2050 is a game developed as part of the GhostControl project, which premiered at ALT Philippines 2026. The lore centers on a USB drive sent back from the year 2050 to 2026 through a wormhole, with participants using various real-time controllers to navigate the gameplay. Built entirely using open-source technology, the game's visual assets are synthesized from 3D-scanned objects, street photography, public posters, and original works from the Screen Paintings series.
In this iteration, the audience controls the game using a PS4 controller.
Your goal is to reach the next station before time runs out. Press the Up arrow to move the USB forward, the Left and Right arrows to evade, the Down arrow to stabilize, and R2 to shoot obstacles.
Souvenir Surplus: is a project speculating on artifacts from worlds that don't exist. Inspired by tourism memorabilia, it fabricates magnetic objects, faux ruins, and fictional relics from alternate timelines and spaces. Ultimately, the project treats these pieces as tangible memories of the never-have-been. The objects are made from found stryrofoam, marine epoxy, acrylic and acrylic paste.
The project started when Kolown and Co. found street signs from a mangangalakal. The original plan was to paint or create assemblages on the street signs, but they eventually fell in love with their texture and raw aesthetic. Using magnets provided a solution to "preserve" the signs while maintaining an assemblage effect. As a result, the work becomes interactive.
Walay_Katapusan: a doom scrolling video installation featuring video and images sourced from internet clippings.
This is inspired by the story of a child from the '90s who used to think that the Betamax tape of the movie The NeverEnding Story would continue after the credits. Now, the TikTok algorithm is literally a "never-ending story," with a narrative targeting not only that child, but all of humanity.
Data_Sculpture: a "micro-data centers" that gathers and houses data much like industrial facilities, but instead powered by renewable energy and can be installed anywhere.
In this case, it is installed in the front window of The Drawing Room.
The current iteration features the "KoloWn AI Chatbot," which can answer all your questions.
To connect, open your Wi-Fi settings and select "data_sculpture". On an iPhone, the chat interface will open automatically; if it does not, open your browser and navigate to "datasculpture.local".
This is a continuation of KoloWn's inquiry into the possibility of a non-human entity eventually becoming KoloWn itself. At under 5 kilobytes, the chatbot poses a question: maybe we don't need a new large language model every month, just a "dumb" AI?
Note: If uncharged, the AI is emotionally unavailable.