This book reads the emergence of a unique art and culture in the Philippines during the colonial era from the optic of communications theory and the emerging theoretical discourse from information design. It views colonial exchange not primarily as an exchange of cultural goods, but as a negotiation forged by the communication between sender and receiver. In such a process, the cultural good is ineluctably transformed. Because emerging new cultural expressions involve communication, both sender and receiver interact in the creation of a new culture. Communication becomes a leveler because either side in the cultural dialogue can fail, which can also be an opportunity to find something exotic, novel, and unexpected, or to create something completely new. These two meanings of "invention," as discovering and creating, weave in and out in the discourse of this book.