Amiel Roldan blog

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and the historical Silk Road share a poetic lineage in their ambition to connect East and West—but they diverge sharply in purpose, scale, and geopolitical intent.  1. Origins and Intent:   The historical Silk Road emerged organically during the Han Dynasty (circa 2nd century BCE) as a decentralized network of trade routes. It facilitated the exchange of goods like silk, spices, and precious metals, but also enabled the flow of religions, philosophies, and technologies across Asia, the Middle East, and Europe.   In contrast, the BRI, launched in 2013 by President Xi Jinping, is a state-driven, strategic initiative. It aims to build infrastructure and deepen economic ties across more than 150 countries, enhancing China’s global influence through both land-based and maritime corridors.  2. Technology and Infrastructure:   The ancient Silk Road relied on caravans, maritime vessels, and human intermediaries. Its pace...

Clotting the Archive: Geoaesthetic Remainders in the Age of Soft Catastrophe  Abstract:   This essay theorizes the current geopolitical escalation in the Middle East—centered on the coordinated military operations of Israel and the United States, and the resulting reverberations through Iraq, Iran, and global actors such as Russia, China, and Turkey—as a generative site for speculative geoaesthetic inquiry. It frames these developments not merely as geopolitical phenomena, but as sedimentations of imperial residue and performative sovereignties. Departing from a narrative of immediate crisis, the work offers a method of aesthetic intervention organized around the lexicon of “clotting,” wherein historical trauma, archival latency, and contemporary spectacle become coagulant matter within artistic praxis. Interweaving Marxian materialism, psychoanalytic temporality, and vernacular epistemologies, this essay proposes an ethics and aesthetics of listening to conflict as unres...

Curatorial Statement: Clotting Futures: Echoes from the Soft Catastrophe by Amiel Gerald A Roldan In a world sliding between memory and militarism, Clotting Futures brings together artistic responses to the spectral afterlives of imperial choreography. This exhibition emerges from the current conjuncture of geopolitical escalation—where Israel, the United States, Iran, and their global counterparts rehearse a crisis as old as modernity itself. Yet what is offered here is not reaction but rupture: an exploration of geopolitical trauma, aesthetic residue, and the speculative labor of refusal. Rooted in Filipino vernacular epistemologies and trauma-informed pedagogy, this body of work reframes war not as a singular event but as a persistent atmospheric condition—a soft catastrophe. Here, clotting operates as both wound and methodology: a lexical intervention that resists resolution, refuses linearity, and coagulates collective pain into radical form. Visitors move through zones of tempora...

Title: Echoes of the Soft Catastrophe: A Speculative Schema for Geoaesthetic Interruption in the Age of Clotting  Abstract:   This speculative essay outlines a conceptual art framework that interrogates the contemporary geopolitical crises involving Israel, the United States, Iran, Iraq, and peripheral state actors such as Russia, China, and Turkey. Anchored in archival reconstruction and clotting as critical lexicon, this work proposes a multi-modal aesthetic methodology capable of mapping the spectral reverberations of imperial violence across historical time and speculative futures. Drawing from Marxian materialism, psychoanalytic fragmentation, and Filipino vernacular epistemologies, the project situates the artist as a cartographer of geopolitical afterlives—aestheticizing rupture, latency, and the recursive residue of war as a performative haunting.  ---  I. Introduction: Toward a Genealogy of Crisis  The contemporary geopolitical tableau—bookended by...

The recent escalation—Israel’s military campaign followed by the U.S. bombing of Iranian nuclear sites—marks a profound shift in global geopolitics, with ripple effects far beyond the Middle East.  1. Regional destabilization: The strikes have intensified the already volatile Israel-Iran conflict. Iran has retaliated with missile attacks on Israel, and tensions are high across the Gulf region. Iraq, caught in the geographic and political crossfire, faces renewed instability as U.S. bases there brace for potential Iranian reprisals.  2. Global energy shock: With Iran threatening to disrupt oil flows through the Strait of Hormuz—a critical chokepoint for global oil exports—markets are jittery. Analysts warn of oil prices surging to $100–$120 per barrel if the conflict escalates.  3. International law and diplomacy: The U.S. bombing of Iran’s nuclear facilities has drawn sharp criticism. The UN Secretary-General called it a “dangerous escalation” and a threat to internationa...

From Land to Liquidity: Speculating on the Gokongwei REIT Maneuver  By [Author Name]   For Institutional Review / Investment Futures Quarterly  ---  I. Introduction: The Architecture of a Quiet Pivot  On June 20, 2025, Lance Gokongwei—scion of one of the Philippines’ most influential business dynasties—executed a strategic maneuver that may redefine the contours of Philippine real estate investment. Through Robinsons Land Corporation (RLC), the Gokongwei-led conglomerate divested ₱30.7 billion ($536 million) worth of shopping malls into RL Commercial REIT (RCR), the group’s publicly listed real estate investment trust. This transaction, which follows a ₱34 billion property infusion in 2024, signals not merely a shift in asset allocation but a recalibration of capital strategy, liquidity preference, and speculative opportunity.  This essay examines the implications of this REIT maneuver from a speculative lens. It situates the transaction within broader...