Tactical Museum

Naha, November 1-3.

At the opening of the new prefectural museum, artist Yuken Teruya organised a parade performance, where citizens were invited to file into the museum holding their art works which they could exchange temporarily for a museum entry ticket.

The outdoor video screening onto the walls of the museum.

Gunder Sanshin Trio performance.

Pictures from Naha. October 30-31, 2007.

T-shirt icon templates by Hiroharu Mori on an old wall.

Hiroharu Mori helps a workshop participant.

Kai and myself lecturing.

Museum of Okinawan Time

I am in Naha, Okinawa for the Museum of Okinawan Time. This is the final manifestation of AIT's series of 'Hour Museums', which we have held in various spaces since 2003. We decided to come to Okinawa for a number of reasons. The last prefectural museum opens in Naha this Saturday; we have worked a number of times with the Maejima Art Center, the only contemporary art non profit in Okinawa; and we have an interest in Okinawa's unique cultural and political position within Japan. The Museum of Okinawan Time takes place for ten days from October 26 to November 4, to cooincide with the opening of the new museum. We are working with the Maejima Art Center, who have secured two vacant old shops in the amazing Sakaemachi Ichiba (a covered market). You can get a feeling of the space in the picture above. An impressive bar, stocked with about 60 or so malt whiskies and the local spirit Awamori, is up and running. Each night the bar team alternates - I think AIT is on tonight. Kai and I are leading a lecture series for four days, artist Hiroharu Mori is leading a T-shirt workshop, we are showing our video interview archive of Japanese alternative art spaces, a session of chats with local Okinawan artists is planned and a performance by the Gunder-Sanshin Trio (who mix gamelan and the Okinawan sanshin banjo) is scheduled for the night of the 3rd. We have also curated a video screening program which will be projected onto the outside walls of the new museum on the evening of the 2nd (with the permission of the museum curators). A number of friends have also come down from Tokyo including ARCUS Residency Director and MAD tutor Mizuki Endo. As I have posted before, Okinawa has been in the news recently with the huge protests against the government's proposed review of history text books. I have visited four times now, and each visit the city of Naha seems to be getting more like other cities in Japan. Where the new museum is opening, Omoromachi, there is now a brand new huge duty free shopping mall.
Our little museum is located very much in what one can call an older Okinawa. Although relatively compact in size, the narrow alley ways and small shops selling everything from cosmetics, nuts, tofu, second hand clothes and vegetables, present a type of space which is almost comletely eradicated now in Japan. Walking around there yesterday I began talking with a man who sits in front of his shop playing an electric piano. The shop opposite serves coffee. I think I will wander over now to buy a cup.

16 HOUR MUSEUM, March 25th

The second eight hour segment of 16 HOUR MUSEUM happened at SuperDeluxe in Nishi Azabu on Sunday March 25th from 1pm - 9pm. One week on from the 17th section in Daikanyama, the programs of the 25th segment was framed by the more club-like space of Deluxe and by the production of a 100 page Journal which we edited and published in an edition of 500. The Journal, titled 'MUSEUM IS OVER! IF YOU WANT IT', is largely bilingual and includes texts, reviews, summaries, artists works and lists by many of the participating lecturers, artists and curators (see below). It was the first time for AIT to self-publish such a magazine and, as chief editor, it was something well worth doing. Our hope is that it contributes to a broader discussion in Japan now about the state and future of public museums and about other possibilities.

The two air walls which I designed in 2001 were also used to demarcate spaces within Deluxe (above). We designated a couple of volunteers as 'Inflatable Team', and their job was to pump the walls with air every one hour or so as they slowly lose air and start to sag. The notion of having to publicly re-pump the walls of our museum was something rather poignant - it symbolically asserted our desire to open out the workings of a museum and how it can be re-wired.

Like in Daikanyama, we brought forty or so 'zabuton' mats for visitors to sit or lie on. Samples of the journal were placed around for reading.

Swamp Publications (above), an artists group who perform live 'artist book-making' were invited to create a special 16 Hour Museum edition, to be inserted as a supplement into the journal. On benches, the artists drew, sprayed, stencilled and photo-copied non-stop through eight hours, making over two hundred artist books which were given away for free together with our Journal. Again, our interest in exposing the production processes inherent in working with artists and curating was reflected in this durational action.
The highlight of the day was a performance by Tadasu Takamine, who re-made an action he first did in Canada soem ten years ago. Tadasu (below) was editing the video until thirty minutes before the performance, which somehow went off without any major glitches. The action consists of Tadasu inside a large cardboard box which he rolls over from the inside. This is co-ordinated with changing scenes on large video screens projected behind the box area. The work used segments from various interviews the artist made with curators and artists concerning recent changes in museum laws, and the effects of this. There were so many people in Deluxe by the time of the performance that we had to restrict entry.

Like the first AIT Hour Museum in 2002, we again invited DJ Duck Rock (below) to play tunes throughout the proceedings. This aspect has been another important part of our museums, not in terms of initiating any kind of 'club' atmosphere, but more in terms of using music and sounds as an additional aural layer which visitors can enjoy. The volume was set reasonably, enabling people to converse, and Duck Rock's selection ranged from Spaceman 3 through to some low-key break-beats. Duck Rock also contributed a Top Twenty selection of tracks for the Journal.

Other elements included a small installation by Masahiro Wada, monitors showing our alternative spaces video interview archives, and screenings of four artists videos. I like the brevity of our museums - and the very unique tensions and communities which they also enable. This is quite different to the usual month long exhibition, and may obviously restrict access on some level, but actually it is no different to going to see a play or a concert. Over eight hours, a number of things change and continue - hopefully creating a small and intense audience experience. I think this is the kind of 'museum' I would be quite happy encouraging.

16 HOUR MUSEUM, March 17

A few brief remarks and pictures from the first part of the 'museum', held in the Daikanyama area on March 17.

Our approach in setting these 'Hour Museums' up has always been directed towards the creation of spaces to lounge in, to spend time and chat with friends over a cup of tea or a beer. Rather than replicating another stark white cube (of which there are plenty already in Tokyo) we have always tried to initiate different models for how art can be experienced. In Hillside Terrace Annex A (above) we thus rented twenty tatami mats which formed low seating areas upon which were placed video viewing areas, a cafe and meeting spots. We have found that inviting visitors to remove their shoes is a crucial step in allowing people to relax a little. As an aside, The Mingei (Folk Crafts) Museum here in Tokyo is one of the few museums I know of which also asks visitors to remove their shoes and wear slippers.

One of the central elements of the 17th Museum were a series of four one hour lectures, free and open to the public. We are interested in trying to probe how a museum could also be a place where different kinds of knowledge is shared and dispersed - knowledge which is not just about vision and optics. Hiroshi Minamishima, Director of the Museum of Contemporary Art Kumamoto began things off with a lecture about his work with leprosy patients in Japan and the art they make. Independent curator Takashi Azumaya (below) used the white board to maximum effect, illustrating his thesis about museums and audiences and for who curators make exhibitions. He used methods from semiotics and geometry to logically think through this crucial question.

The artist Katsushige Nakahashi (above) presented his various works including his ongoing 'Zero Project', where the artist traces the histories of zero fighter planes from WW2 and holds community workshops around the world. Nakahashi's current project concerns his visit and interest in the small atolls of the Marshall Islands in the Pacific, and the many still radio-active nuclear test sites there.
Rounding things off was anthropologist and Creole studies scholar Ryuta Imafuku (below), who began his talk with a slide show and reading performance in the dark.

In addition to the lectures, various works by artists were exhibited and screened. Toyomitsu Higa from Okinawa screened his video of a female only shamans ritual on one of the smaller Okinawan islands to a capacity audience, Mary-Elizabeth Yarbrough, current AIT artist in resident from San Francisco, showed two tape drawings, one depicting Ron L. Hubbard the founder of Scientology and the other Rael, founder of the Raelian Movement - both men claiming special kinds of received gnosis from higher agencies. London based artist David Blandy's video 'The Soul of London', Saki Satom's 'Alternative Stories' and Second Planet's 'The Future for Museum' were also screened. All seemed to probe aspects of what knowledge is or how it can be gained - Blandy's video depicts the artist dressed as a Shaolin monk wndering the streets of London, intercut with scenes of wise men from famous films, imparting advice (Luke....), Satom's video concerned the difficulty of language and translation, and Second Planet's work showed various fortune tellers predicting the future of a certain museum in Japan.
The various works and contents which emerged on March 17th, was edited and transformed into a Journal which was distributed for free on March 25th at SuperDeluxe......

16 Hour Museum: building it up

The first part of 16 Hour Museum happened successfully last Saturday March 17th in four venues around Daikanyama. The fourth in AIT's 'Hour Museum' series of experimental exhibition platforms which began in 2002, 16HM takes the format of two eight hour 'museums' held over two consecutive weekends. As you can imagine there is a fair amount of work and energy involved in setting these 'museums' up - existing as they do for a very brief period of time. But, over the years we seem to have learned how to keep things to a minimum, re-using materials and allocating resources wisely. Our museum is something very tactical and hands-on - built with the tremendous help of many volunteers. So, for my first post on 16HM, I thought I would simply show photographs of the 'construction phase'. In Daikanyama we began installing works and spaces the day before on March 16th, and tuned things up on Saturday morning until the museum opened at 12pm.

Volunteers briefing in AIT Room.

Attaching the AIT banner to Hillside Terrace Annex A building, one of the main venues of the museum.

T-shirt making the night before opening with street signs in the background. We made as much as we could by ourselves.

Screen making for the lectures....again hand made and re-usable.

Setting audio levels.

Carrying part of Masahiro Wada's installation across the road.
Our approach to making these 'museums' is one very much based on knowing our capabilities and limits - and trying to find workable and sustainable solutions to problems. Much fine-tuning is thus done on site together with the volunteers and artists. There is perhaps something rather masochistic about putting so much energy into something which disappears after eight hours....but I actually think that it provides a framework for something highly focused and playful. Most exhibitions run for weeks, if not months. I suppose this of course provides a broad window for many people to experience them, but it also often sets a certain laziness in motion.

Fu, Tape and Time

The drying up of posts lately has been in large part due to three upcoming things: a) AIT curated 16 Hour Museum which happens over two consecutive weekends (March 17th and March 25th) of which I am one of the curators/ editors. b) Ending of 2006 MAD courses (AIT's contemporary art school program) and preparing for 2007 courses which in Japan begin in April. c) the small, but not insignificant, issue of my wedding in early April. Consequently I have been to no exhibitions or openings, which is not always a bad thing, and instead been spiralling down a sequence of writing, editing, proofing, meetings, teaching and back again to editing...We are making a 100 page photo-copied Journal within the 16 Hour Museum on the issue of Museums now, particularly with reference to Japan and recent changes. I have been the chief editor, and seeing the items come in, I am very excited. This will be the first time AIT produce a publication in paper - something which I think we can continue to do for specific projects or themes in a very cheap and simple way.
My curatorial activities have included working with two artists who will show works in 16 Hour Museum: David Blandy (London) and Mary-Elizabeth Yarbrough (San Francisco) who is resident with us for three months.

The colour image above is one of Mary-Elizabeth's works. She mainly uses patterned contact sheets and various tapes to construct layered and detailed images culled from rock music, conspiracy theories, religious cults and the news. The image shown above was shown in an exhibition which explored American conspiracy theories and shows Flight 77, which is supposed to have crashed into the Pentagon in Washington. The B/W image below is by David Blandy. We will screen a video called 'Soul of London', which is part of an ongoing series of works which traces the journeys of an orange clad monk (the Barefoot Lone Pilgrim, actually David himself) in search of Soul and himself. David's videos weave together familiar fragments from well known films including 'Enter the Dragon', with shots of himself and deep soulful tracks.  He was recently chosen for The Jerwood Platform in UK.

What were they up to at The Electric Circus?

This is a pretty interesting essay written by James N. Lapsley, Associate Professor of Pastoral Theology at Princeton Theological Seminary, sometime in the late 1960s. It surveys the new youth movements of the time, with particular analysis of the psychedelic environments created at Electric Circus , New York.
'Psycho-theology of the New Left''

Preparations towards 18 Hour Museum...

AIT is currently planning the next in our series of temporal 'museums' - we began this in 2002 with 8 Hour Museum, followed by the second in 2004 and the third this year. The first two manifestations went on for eight hours, but for the third we extended this to twelve hours, spanned over a weekend. Our thinking for these events have, from the start, been pragmatic and utopian - that is, responding to the lack of space for exhibition making in Tokyo by deciding to 'create a museum' for a limited duration, whilst also trying to probe the experimental dimensions of what could be done. I am particularly interested in the various (largely unwritten) histories of such hybrid events that blend elements of exhibition, club and disco cultures, screenings and lounges. I guess this has a lot to do with the fact that most of these kinds of events happen outside of the museum (probably breaking most of their rules of behaviour), and have been organised by a range of people from artists and curators to community groups and activists. What we try to initiate through our time-based 'museums' is probably shared or at least sensed by many people of our generation who experience museums as a rather formalised spaces and who are open to engaging with installation works, interactive pieces or environments that invite you to stay in them for a long period of time. I remember for the first 8 Hour Museum, some people who came left almost immediately, unable to grasp what it was, whilst most seemed to find their space within it and stayed for several hours. It helped that the largest space was given over to a huge bean bag lounge/ bar, around which were placed various 'services' and 'displays'. What interested me was the fact that this space was not bound by a singular focus (like the DJ or a screen), but purposefully allowed to contain multiple activities and sounds. I suppose the notion of 'programming' an event, in the way that Timothy Leary writes about psychedelic experiences or David Mancuso writes about his Loft parties, is something which we are into exploring further though.
So, we are now preparing for the next 'museum', which we hope to set up for eighteen hours, all night in early 2007. I have been reading various things as background material for this - histories which I would one day very much like to try to compile. More on these snippets as they arise.

Hiroshi Fuji's Japanese Blog - for pictures of Bangladesh and AIT's recent 12 Hour Museum.

Although only in Japanese, artist Hiroshi Fuji's Great Blog  shows lots of pictures from two recent AIT related exhibitions - Hiroshi was one of two artists (the other being Yuken Teruya) AIT selected for the Bangladesh Biennale which has just opened in Dhaka, and he was also participating with his Kaekki Bazaar toy exchange project in the latest manifestation of AIT's experimental temporary 'museum' events, 12 Hour Museum.