October 8, 2014

Photograph by Stephen Shore

October 8, 2014

While wandering around Aoyama Book Center near Omotesando, I came upon a book of photographs by Stephen Shore.   Mostly they were detailed images of various landscapes in America, but what I found interesting are the interior images of hotel and motel rooms. America seems to have the ability to express itself in these interiors - no matter how exotic or homey they look, it always spells out “America” to me.  Not that I miss my home country, but I decided to use one of Shore’s images as an inspiration to re-do my tatami mat room in Meguro.

Researching his work, I found a quotation by him that I like a lot.  This is exactly what I read: “I discovered that this camera was the technical means in photography of communicating what the world looks like in a state of heightened awareness. And it’s that awareness of really looking at the everyday world with clear and focused attention that I’m interested in.”

I too have an interest in my own sense of heightened awareness.  In fact, I had to do away with the mirrors that cover my wall space, because it was too much of awareness.  Using the photograph, I went to Karf on Meguro Dori to make me the exact bed that is in the Shore picture.  The measurement had to be perfect because the room is very small.  So basically the bed fits the entire room. In other words, I can’t walk around or behind the bed.  The bed is the room.  Which is also a very seductive if I bring a girl back home. No where else to go except on the bed!

Also I found a painter in Meguro who could copy the image off the photograph of the tree limb. Every room needs a sense of nature, even if it’s fake.  The only question is where will I keep my clothes and records?  I decided to put my belongings in the toilet area, and just leave enough room to reach the instrument of need, and to be in a position to sit down, but I can’t stretch my legs out.  Luckily I have a portable turntable, and the only music I have in Tokyo is a bunch of recordings of Toru Takemitsu’s music.

Now I can lay in my bed and look at the tree limb and think of my own awareness while listening to Takemitsu’s music.  What I find aesthetically pleasing is the white backboard of the bed, and how it matches the wall.  It was tricky getting wood paneling in Japan, but I found wall paper in Tokyu Hands that resembles the paneling - so even though that is fake as the tree limb, I felt close to nature as well as my version, or I should say Stephen Shore’s version or vision of America.

As Tekemitsu commented, “...by admitting a new perception of space and giving it an active sense, is it not possible to discover a new unexpected, unexplored world?” I say yeah. This is so true!

February 20, 2014

February 20, 2014

People think I am a great reader, but I am actually one of those people who pick up a book and then leave it by the bathtub (I do a lot of reading while taking a bath), especially if its a collection of essays or short stories.  Those books take me the longest to finish, due that each piece in the book is sort of complete narrative or thought.  Right now I am reading Maurice Blanchot’s “Desperate Clarity” which is a collection of literary reviews he did during the Nazi occupation of France.  The most fascinating aspect of the book (so far) is what is not being said, and that silence is so powerful and depressing at the same time.  It got me thinking what is not being said, because we are so used to writing that deals directly with an issue, but now and even then, writing is sometimes about everything except that issue.

Another reason why I just have to stop reading this book is because I dropped it in the bathtub.  When I go get a bath, I use Japanese bath power which gives the water a nice green visual as well as a smell that conveys the forest of one’s imagination.   So as I let that book dry, and myself as well, I go back to bed in the morning to read “The Futurist Manifesto” by F. T. Marinetti, written in 1909 and published in French in the newspaper Le Figaro.  My first thought was ‘how crazy that a newspaper would publish something so uncommon as this manifesto. ' Personally, I’m a huge fan of art related manifestos.  One of my favorite all-time books (and yes, I haven’t finished that one as well) is “Manifesto: A Century of Isms,” edited by Mary Ann Caws, where one can find “The Futurist Manifesto” in its complete romantic glory.

Marinetti strikes me as a man who is in love with the ideal of man-made world where machinery becomes sort of a God, or maybe not an actual ‘figure’ but the imagination of man (and I am using that gender specifically, because the Italian Futurists were not that hot on Feminism) is alone on a spiritual plane.  Some of their basic political ideals are dodgy at best, but one can admire their paintings, poetry, photographs, and I think especially music or sound making.  The whole ‘Art of Noise’ aesthetic is something that is still with us, and whenever there is sound, I think that concept is the foundation of our desire to make some music AKA noise.  John Cage, was too influenced by The Futurists’ approach to sounds, but he is more of a natural process or liking silence as a form of sound as well.  The beautiful photography by Ansel Adams is totally the opposite of Marinetti’s stance against nature, yet it takes a machine, the camera, to photograph what is the ‘ideal’ of nature at its most stunning.

For me personally, the sound of Poison Ivy’s guitar (The Cramps) is the most beautiful sound on the planet.  It has roots in “The Art of Noise” but a much warmer sense of chaos and there is a beauty in her performance that is touching as well as sexual and obsessive.  The obsession to capture either silence, pure noise, or even structured noise (music) is very appealing to me, in fact I also admire the Japanese composer Toru Takemitsu for being on the tightrope between chaos and beautiful order.  Marinetti, I think is essentially looking for order within the spirit of the machine age and politics.  A zen liked peace in a horror landscape.  With that in thought I go back to the bathtub, with a fresh supply of Japanese bath scent of the forest, and continue reading Blanchot’s “Desperate Clarity. ”