An interesting look at Tokyo juxtaposing a car-ride on the Tokyo Metropolitan Expressway taken from Tarkowsky‘s 1972 film Solaris with the same ride filmed in 2005.
http://www.fischerelsani.net/kelvin/tme_v.html
Via vvork.
I checked out the Hitotsubo Photography Exhibition at Guardian Garden this morning, and now wished I had seen it earlier so I could have recommended it for this week’s upcoming HYPTYO list (Closes Thursday, Sep 6th) . I’m not usually a fan of art competitions (you could argue that as an oxymoron, actually), but the photography here was great. Each artists was given 1.82 x 1.82m space to show their photographs. Most were interesting, but one of my favorites was Susumu Shimonishi:
It’s a simple idea: travel the world with a remote shutter release, capturing self portraits in various places (Istanbul, NYC, Disneyland).
But may fave part is at the top left corner of his space. Called “I Am On the Air,” that’s exactly what it is: him with a camera behind TV reporters in Tokyo, Sapporo, Sendai, etc.
Another favorite was Yosuke Ashida geometric train designs:
He filmed trains at Shinjuku Station for 6 minutes, printed them, cut them out and then made the above design. A closeup:
Ping Magazine has a great interview with Richie Hawtin:
A lot of what we do with Minus stems from my kind of experiments with sounds, like what I did with the Plastikman albums. When working with sound, and as my songs don’t contain too much information, I kind of visualise them and place them in a three-dimensional space. For me, to fully understand how these sounds interact physically or in these virtual spaces is to go and see another artist’s representation: standing in front of a Rothko or walking around a sculpture of Serra, go towards his huge pieces of metal and get the weight of the situation. That enables me sometimes to formulate a musical idea. It’s a way connecting to our sonic expression…
Full interview is here
Hawtin also talks about collaborating with visual artist Ali Demirel, who mostly does the VJing and video work for Hawtin and his label minus, and blew the crowd away at Metamorphose this weekend. See some of Demirel’s work here.
Special Bonus, Richie Hawtin documentary:
I first heard of Kogoro Kurata through his steampunk laptop. Now the guy is making massive armed robots and this giant hand you see here. If his scale continues to grow at this rate, plan on Godzilla’s new nemesis by next summer.
All links through the venerable Engadget
Sunday’s Japan Times had a feature on the awesome rice field paintings we wrote about a few months ago.
Apparently, time is running out to see them in full detail because:
…now in August, the lengths of each kind of rice are different due to their different growth rates. Now, we cannot clearly see the drops falling off the waves, as the yellow rice for the drops is shorter than Tsugaru Roman. So by now the drops have begun sinking into the green background of the Tsugaru Roman.”
I just saw Joelle Bitton’s “Abstract” installation at Gallery Ef in Asakusa. Pretty cool stuff. The gallery itself is in a 140-year old warehouse that’s been converted into a cafe/bar up front with a small gallery in back. You walk through the cafe and then down a step, then crouch through an Edo-era doorway (maybe comes up to my waist. There in this old, darkened room is a white carpet on the floor and a digital recorder directed at…you.
I don’t know the details, but somehow it films you and then projects your form onto the carpet, with a constantly-changing palette of nature scenes, squiggly lines, and the like. I forgot my camera, so these pics come from Gallery Ef’s site. It’s quite cool, and I LOVE the building itself, but it’s hard for me to say “Drop everything and go” because this is it: one very cool interactive piece int the back of a cool cafe. If you are in Asakusa, tho, this is a must.
PingMag has an interesting piece on the two Ukiyo-e exhibits presently on display in Tokyo. Both deal with Ukiyo-e’s connection with ghosts, Yokai and other spooky/surreal elements.
I know Hyungkoo Lee’s Bugs Bunny bones and other cartoon skeletons have already made a lap or two around the net, but after seeing the Kazuo Oga exhibit, it made me wonder about what some of Miyazaki’s characters would look like. I mean, Totoro is a fat bastard, right? What’s holding up all that girth?
If you’ve seen a Miyazaki film (Totoro, Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away, etc), then you’ve probably seen the work of Kazuo Oga, who as Miyazaki’s creative director, was responsible for all the background scenery. The Oga exhibit at the MOT has room after room of Oga’s paintings, sketches and anime cells, and it says something that you can take out the characters from the scenes still be stunning. A few examples:
The paintings are cool, but my favorite part was on the 2nd floor – Oga’s paint-splattered desk was here, along with examples of the cell-making process. Then there’s several video loops of scenes from films with the original background framed alongside. Four or five glass celles were used to create the forest in the opening chase sequence of Princess Mononoke (around minute 4:30).
The exhibit is awesome, but it’s way too crowded right now. I left last Saturday because of the 90-minute wait, then returned near opening time Sunday morning to a 40-minute wait. I thought it’d be packed with kids since it’s school holidays, but the majority were adults. It makes sense, though: everyone in their 20’s or 30’s grew up watching Miyazaki.
I had a couple four-year olds in tow, however, and they got bored fast (They didn’t see the payoff of waiting in a line for forty minutes and then NOT see a movie. “Where’s Totoro?” they kept asking. They were dumbstruck when I said “Right up here. But he’s sleeping, so be quiet.” Sure enough, they had created a 3-D replica of Totoro’s lair, complete with sleeping Totoro, whose chest heaved as he slumbered. Classic.
I’ll stop harping on Cai Guo-Qiang’s exhibit at Shiseido Gallery now that the show is over, but I just found this video on his site, which is the best example I’ve seen of the process he goes through for his most recent gunpowder paintings. Click the number next to “Video” to watch.
Only 2 days left to check out Yoshiyuki Mitsuzumi’s bizarre and beautiful ceramic sculptures. He morphs all the naughty bits of the body to create new animals, complete with small museum-like panels describing their habitats.
This is one of the better exhibits I’ve seen at The Vanilla Gallery in Ginza. They specialize in erotic/fetish art, and some exhibits have had amazing work, but more often than not it’s WAY too rough or creepy for my taste. Mitsuzumi’s sculptures, however are gentle – even friendly.
Me like…
Seriously, if you haven’t seen Cai Guo-Ciang’s Gun Powder paintings at the Shiseido Gallery, you have four days before it closes on August 12th.
Cai is amazing. No surprise China tapped him to be one of the visual directors for the Beijing Olympics. He’s created some incredible (and arguably dubious) installations using wolves:
and tigers:
But I like his firework-based stuff best. Check out this “Black Rainbow” piece he’s done in Spain and Scotland:
Some homemade vid:
He “paints” with gunpowder, too, brushing and piling it onto massive canvases. Then he covers it all with stencils, cardboard and bricks and lights it. The colors he gets – deep sulphurous ocres, hearty chocolates, stark charcoals – are truly incredible at this scale.
This video shows Cai at work. Wait for it: the good stuff doesn’t happen till the last 5 seconds:
PingMag is running an interesting interview with 21_21 Design Sight director Naoto Fukasawa.
I wonder why they’re running it so late. I mean, they mostly talk about the awesome Chocolate show they just put on, but the exhibit closed last weekend. Hmm.
The Palace or Wonder area has always been my favorite part of the festival. I’ll add more details later, but here’s what your confronted with upon entry:
Giant sculptures made out of scrap metal, trees made out of mufflers, freaks of all stripes and usually some kind of carnival act that revolves around pain and/or danger. This year it was the “Globe of Death”
That’s THREE motorcycles in there. Great cheap thrills. And if that wasn’t enough, the bottom opens up. I caught it as it closed.
Japanese farmers in the town of Inakadate Aomori Prefecture create some amazing crop art in their rice fields. The works should be visible until harvest in September.
http://www.am.askanet.ne.jp/~tugaru/z-inakadate.htm
Link via Pink Tentacle