Maneki Neko's World: MassKara Festival

This piece was created specifically for the 2023 Philippine Blockchain Week in the nation's capital city of Manila and selected for exhibition through the HUG open call for the event and on display in the event's digital art gallery from September 19 to September 21, 2023.

This is an abstract depiction of the annual MassKara Festival annual held every 4th Sunday of October in the city of Bacolod. Begun in 1980 as a celebration to counter the citizen's despair at a tough economic situation for the region, the mayor Jose "Digoy" Montalvo, organized the inaugural event to live up to Bacolod's moniker of "City of Smiles". [It was a declaration by the people of the city that no matter how tough and bad the times were, Bacolod City was going to pull through, survive, and in the end, triumph.] The celebration is one of the most popular and spectacular events in the Philipines every year, now, featuring brightly colored costumes, masks and parades through the streets comparable to Mardi Gras.

[The word "Masskara" is a portmanteau, coined by the late artist Ely Santiago from mass (a multitude of people), and the Spanish word cara (face), thus forming MassKara (a multitude of faces). The word is also a pun on maskara, Filipino for "mask" (itself from Spanish máscara), since it is a prominent feature of the festival and is always adorned with smiling faces, giving rise to Bacolod being called the "City of Smiles"]

This work attempts to capture the feeling of that celebration as smiling costumed festival participants are blended with the colorful decorative atmosphere of the event in a joyous amalgamation of the colors of the Philipine flag.

https://twitter.com/thehugxyz/status/1697278238417199600
[quotes from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MassKara_Festival]

🇵🇭 ✧ 🇵🇭 ✧ 🇵🇭 ✧ 🇵🇭 ✧ 🇵🇭 ✧ 🇵🇭 ✧ 🇵🇭 ✧ 🇵🇭 ✧ 🇵🇭 ✧ 🇵🇭 ✧ 🇵🇭

This piece was created with care by Maneki Neko using the AI tools Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. A couple of images were curated from hundreds of iterations and variations on a prompt in Midjourney to create the look of a hand carved photo realistic sculpture with the colors of the Philipine flag. These images were collaged in Photoshop to create the best composition and the colors were carefully edited to achieve the desired restrictions. The result was then refined and upscaled slightly using Stable Diffusion to bring out the wood texture and details. This piece was then edited again in Photoshop for the final version and upscaled using Topaz Gigapixel. Don't forget to zoom in for all the details!

Digital image, 4500x8000 px

Year Minted: 2023

Extended Editorial License:

The image this NFT verifies may be used to display privately, or in commercial and non-commercial settings, or in groups with an unlimited number of participants. The license includes unlimited use and display in virtual or physical galleries, documentaries, and essays by the NFT holder. Provides no rights to create commercial merchandise, commercial distribution, or derivative works.