Tactical Museum

Sorry

Sumo Yokozuma Asashoryu and boxer Kaneda both held apologetic press conferences this past week in Tokyo. The whole apology thing has been getting out of hand lately -  there seem to be so many disgraced politicians, corrupt businessmen, inept policemen and dishonourable sportspeople lately that the whole ritual of public apology has slid into a rather sordid state of affairs. Particularly annoying are the ever righteous 'wide show' and so called evening 'news' anchors and their highly well behaved 'commentators' (they should be renamed 'guardians of the status quo'/ ''don't rock the boat-ers'), who endlessly try to elongate and dissect the 'sincerity' and 'purity' of the apologies.
I had a vision of a whole new mode of public sculpture in Japan - bronze casts of various public figures bowing low or sinking to their knees in apology placed on very high plinths around the place. There could be tasteful composition sculptures of groups of bowing people, like the US Marine monument of the Iwo Jima flag raising. A prize could be awarded annually to the sculpture which best manages to express the sincerity and truth of the apology, judged by an expert panel of Zen Roshi's, Freudian analysts, sculptors, former Samurai and news anchors. Or, NHK could begin a digital television channel which just loops endless permutations of people apologising formally in public - a multiplying public archive of apology for the nation. Actually, rather more practically, someone should create little digital apologies for mobile phone screens. On being told off at work, one could simply open one's phone and hold the screen solemnly up to the boss and play the appropriate apology scenario. This way, everything is purely above board, detached and without any nonsense - the trick would be in selecting the right scenario for the occasion, thus 'reading' the situation and expressing one's sincerity and sense of respect.
All of this attention on unfortunate individuals, also rather conveniently shifts the focus away from the fact that Japan is a country which seems averse to apologising - to former wartime victims, victims of mistaken blood transfusion which has led to HIV infection, victims of environmental and health devastation or to tax payers who seem forever to be paying for golfing trips for politicians or the building of massive, empty construction projects which go bankrupt.

   

Japan enters a New Age of Sakoku (Isolation).

November 20th 2007 will be remembered as the day when Japan entered its second period of isolation (sakoku). From today all foreigners entering Japan are required to submit their fingerprints and face photo on entry into the country at immigration control. This is part of the anti-terrorism law which was passed after 9-11. The new controls seem to suggest that all terrorists will be non-Japanese (rather strange considering recent history here, which is so often conveniently forgotten. I think The Japanese Red Army who committed a number of murders, bombings and hijackings in the 1970s were Japanese as were members of the Aum Supreme Truth sect who released sarin gas on Tokyo subways in 1995...).  The sad part of this is that Japan will be the only other country on the earth apart from the United States that operates this policy for immigration.
Other things which make me think that Japan is entering an age of sakoku are: the recent illness and coma of Japan national soccer coach Osim; the departure of the first and only non Japanese museum Director in Japan, David Elliott, from the Mori Museum last year; Micropop artists; the closure of NOVA english schools recently due to scandal; the continuing rifts with neighbor countries and Okinawa over history text books, amongst other things.

So, next time you enter Japan, wash your finger tips and put on a brave face. You will be entered into a vast database of identities, forever.                  Cheezu.

Sakamoto Ryoma's Boots

Sakamoto Ryoma (3 Jan 1836 - 10 Dec 1867) was a leader of the movement to overthrow the Tokugawa Bakufu. He wore ankle length elasticated leather boots, apparently because it prevented him from slipping on the wet decks of ships.
I declare Ryoma a proto-CosuPure-ist.

Ryoma's Boots memorial statue.

Audio Slideshow: Documenta 12

A narrated audio slideshow of my selections from Documenta 12
HERE.

There is a little audio intereference in the last minute: my apologies.

A Second Life Biennale?

Ever since my brief sojourn into Second Life earlier this year I have been waiting for someone to initiate a biennale there. Well, if this poster is anything to go by, one may be on the way. It was taken by architect blogger Andreas Angelidikas during the recently opened Athens Biennale. No idea if it is real or who is behind it.

Audio Slideshow for Venice 2007

Venice Biennale 2007 Selections.

Some pictures of works and captions set to a nice song.

Summer trips, Autumn tips and Pork Pies.

I have been in Europe for just over two weeks. It was a late honeymoon/ art viewing trip. Moving by train, we travelled to Venice and Kassel, ending up in London. I am currently reveiwing my photos and notes of the Biennale and Documenta 12, and hope to publish something, perhaps an audio slidehow, here soon. In the meantime, I was interviewed by Ashley Rawlings, editor of Tablog on Tokyo Art Beat in Tokyo. This can be read here: Tablog Interview.
We missed the forty degree heat wave in Tokyo thankfully. The last of the cicadas are buzzing in the trees and the air conditioners are being used less. Exhibitions and galleries are begining to wake from their summer slumber too - Mizuma Art Gallery is currently showing Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba's new film. Jun was one of the first artists I worked with on the Yokohama Triennale 2001. I am writing a review of the show for ArtIt magazine now. A former student of our MAD course, Makoto Hashimoto, has also just opened his first curated project at BankART Studio NYK, Yokohama. It is called 'Dialogue with the City' and shows works by seven relatively unknown Japanese artists.
I returned to Tokyo from London carrying the customary few food items which go off quite quickly. This time it was several pork pies and a jar of Branston pickle. Pork pies cannot be bought in Tokyo as far as I know. I get the urge to eat one perhaps twice a year. Since some years back I have often brought back certain foods from London with the specific purpose of eating them in Tokyo. I remember bringing back several almond criossants from my favourite cafe, Maison Bertaux in Greek Street, and enjoying the fetishistic pleasure of eating them at home in Tokyo, knowing that I was very likely the only person in Japan doing so. It's a rather silly pleasure, but a pleasure nevertheless. This time it was pork pies. The last one disappeared two days ago.
September means start of teaching. My classes at Musashino Art University begin this Friday and MAD starts next week. I have also been asked to lecture at BankART School in October. So in preparation for this I am currently re-booting my Japanese mind and vocabulary. It seems always to take a week or so for the language to come back, even though I am back physically.

JCP Election Posters '07 - Debut Audio Slideshow

I have been getting into a new thing - audio slideshows.
These are slideshows of still images put to sound or music. As an internet form it seems to have come into its own largely as a tool for photojournalists over the past two to three years. Several portal sites exist such as Interactive Narratives. I have always been a fan of the 35mm slideshow, but have never been able to carry this interest over into my web use. Now with tools such as Soundslides it is very easy to create and publish these basic multimedia exercises. I feel that the experience of watching still images with sound is quite different to that of watching streams of video - one's attention span and concentration seem to be greater. It seems to lean closer to radio than television, where the imagination is given a broader space to probe about in.
So, I have added a new category to the blog called 'Audio Slideshows'. I plan to post both my own and external shows which I find interesting. To start things off, a debut slideshow from me about election posters from the recently held Upper House Elections in Japan. I hope it works OK.

JCP POSTERS AUDIO SLIDESHOW

Creative Commons Japan seminar and e-learning

Last Friday evening Kai from AIT and I went to a seminar organised by Creative Commons Japan. Our friend and MAD guest lecturer Dominique Chen is active in commons activities in Japan, and he made a report on the recently held isummit in Dubrovnik, Croatia. Although I had been aware of Creative Commons for a long while, I had never really spent much time looking into it and related issues. In fact the catalyst for our participation was our current research into extending our MAD school into the web through some form of e-learning. One of the main issues discussed in Croatia was what is called Open Education - emerging forms of learning which are essentially free and open to all and which enable users to produce or remix received content, like a wiki. This kind of thinking about online education and learning has been referred to by Stephen Downes in a 2005 article as e-learning 2.0. There seems to be lots going on in this area - education in the virtual world Second Life is, I understand, also an area of great interest for this community.
As an educator at both official art universities (I have to grade people) and MAD (independent evening classes run by non profit AIT since 2001), this is all exciting, if a little overwhelming. As we look into the possible routes we could take into this area, we are thinking about how content can be transmitted to learners, what kind of content this should/ can be, if it should only be us who makes this content, the implications for economics and charging in all this and how Creative Commons can help, whether all students can 'get into' using web based tools and things, whether we will retain our motivations to keep transmitting through computers etc etc.
The positive sides are that e-learning can potentially reach out to people who live far outside Tokyo and who are interested in what we do, or people who are super busy.
I learnt at the seminar that the next isummit will be held in Sapporo Japan next autumn. It would be good to make this a target, and try to get something running by then. I am very interested in attending the next summit too. Dominique mentioned that these summits used to be dominated by media activists and the free culture hardcore, but that in recent years they attract a much broader range of people including business leaders, copyright lawyers and sponsors. There seems to be a much more open and friendly mood between all parties - probably due to the 'movements' maturing over time.
Over Belgium beers afterwards (Trappiste Rochefort) I exchanged ideas with various Creative Commoners. It was interesting how few knew much about figures like Marcel Duchamp or even Walter Benjamin - both  important figures within the arts in terms of issues of originality, reproduction and  sampling. We may be invited back to present some thoughts on these kinds of people from the art historical/ theoretical perspective, at the next CC japan salon.
Many thanks Dominique and all involved.

The Left Opposition in Japanese Politics

With the Upper House elections being held on the 29th July 2007 and politicians of various parties electioneering on the streets and television, I thought I would introduce some interesting links regarding the Japanese Communist Party (JCP) - perhaps the only political party now in Japan which offers an alternative politics to the largely homogenous right-centrist positions of the governing LDP and Minshuto (largest oppisition) parties. Although I had been aware of their existence for many years, I had never really taken much notice of the JCP, thinking them a remnant of Cold War ideological politics. I understand that the JCP does indeed still operate in rather formalistic and restrictive ways regarding policy and party membership - what the leadership says, members must follow. This seems another manifestation of what I have come to see as a widespread application of the 'cosu-pure' or costume play syndrome in Japan - the adoption formally (in terms of looks, clothing, postures, formulas etc) of some system or trend without necessarily thinking beyond this. Perhaps this reading emerges out of a Barthian 'Empire of Signs' discourse of seeing a Japan made up of only surfaces and signs. However, the 'cosu-pure' syndrome seems to offer one way of understanding how many institutions or cultures adopt something in a formal manner (kata), and pursue this to highly detailed and rigorous ends. In many cases, through this process of inhabitation, the thing appropriated is transformed beyond recognition and made anew.
Back to the Communists. Their english website is HERE.
There was a very informative article in a recent edition of TIME magazine that analysed the JCP's current standing within the political lanbscape in Japan and its critical stance against the right-wing government of PM Abe. You can read this HERE.
Also an interesting June report in the Boston Globe reporting on the JCP's uncovering of surveillance of Japanese citizens and NGO's who opposed the dispatch of Japanese troops to Iraq. This can be read HERE.
Finally, on the cultural front, I have been doing some research on the links between the JCP and Japanese artists and writers in the pre-war and post-wars years. This is a topic of considerable interest which has, I think, significant meaning for thinking about contemporary developments. The JCP were the only group actively opposing the rise of militarism in Japan in the build up to the Manchuria/ Pearl Harbour episodes. For this they were essentially banned and persecuted. After the war, many artists and writers were highly sympathetic to the JCP as a clear alternative to Japan's militarism and Imperialism. This is a complex topic, but just to mention one point: through my talks with Fumihiko Sumitomo (AIT member and curator at MOT), I learnt that it was the JCP who founded the 'Nihon Bijutsu Kai' - an arts group opposed to the conservative Nitten arts group - which was to form the basis for the highly radical and important Yomiuri Independents Exhibitions. This was a period when culture and art stood for democracy and freedom of expression in Japan. Art represented individual thinking as opposed to mass mobilisation. One significant writer here is Abe Kobo, who along with others such as Hanada Kiyoteru, were active in left politics. There is an interview with Abe's daughter HERE, which lightly covers some of this territory.
I am trying to gather thoughts around this area towards a paper I plan to give at a conference in November.