Gary-Ross Pastrana is an artist interested in the philosophies of art and the epistemologies of the art object. His unique conceptualist practice, often addressing destruction and mutation of material, differs from the more symbolic, allegorical, nation-building art practices largely found in contemporary Filipino art. Therefore the relevancy of Pastrana’s work lies in the artist’s experimentation with more subtle and poetic languages involving non-linear moving images and other fields of knowledge, such as music and science. The way that classical music appears in his work can be seen in relation to a number of contemporary artists interested in its sonic value and embodied (colonial) history of westernization. Pastrana’s work is also a sophisticated approach to the dichotomy of culture and nature, and to current relevant sociological discourse on humanity’s relationship to non-human animals.