TO THE VICTOR GOES THE SPOILER... (2002) is an installation of suspended barrel-like fiberglass sculptures constructed to evoke the aesthetics of Asian import and Chicano lowrider car cultures. Embedded into each barrel is a subwoofer through which the beats and deep bass-lines of club music was played simultaneously and in conversation with each other. Decorating the outer surfaces of each barrel are stylized cockfighting chicken forms in pearlescent automotive paint.
To the victor goes the spoiler... explores my experience of masculinity in paralleling marginal car cultures to cockfighting, linking the immigrant Filipino experience to the American-born generations that followed in Southeast San Diego neighborhoods. Male relationships are mediated by the customized car, a glorified phallic stand-in, and engaged through levels of competition and camaraderie. Similarly, sabong (cockfighting) is an 'old world' sport among Filipino men in which relationships are engaged and mediated through the fighting cock. Conceptually, the barrels (in reference to the Filipino barrelman tchotchke) are formal abstractions of the car as armor encasing the body (and male member).