Thoughts about Video as Interior Design

Now, I know very well that nothing of what is about to be written down here is very original or innovative.

For years now, people who know a great deal more than me about what they're talking about, have been speculating the future of video and the moving image in the domestic space.
It just so happens however, that my personal work has been recently linked with some of these ideas, and it seems like some of these potential developments could very well become logical continuations of what I've already began exploring in my practice.

Therefore, please forgive me as I re-edirate some stuff that you've probably read before many times. I'm new to these ideas, and it's all fresh and exciting for me, so please bear with...

Phew, OK here goes;
When we think about the evolution of the modern domestic or private space, we can identify a number of patterns in the functions and formal attributes of monitors:
We have more gadgets now, that support a monitor than we used to in the past, and as users, we seem to interact more fluently with monitors, especially the younger generations who are so well conditioned in that visual layout.
Video as a domestic form of entertainment and information, has assumed many new incarnations in the recent past. It's not just TV anymore, it's internet, and games, and computing (both work & leisure related), it's electronic books and music, and DVDs and photo albums and so on and so forth.

Most importantly, in par with their growing importance in our lives, monitors have themselves been growing larger and larger in size. And we have more of them, in more areas of the domestic space. Including areas which traditionally were not associated with the consumption of visual content i.e. kitchens, bathrooms, bedrooms etc. etc. Moreover, the portable devices (cellphones, laptops, ipods etc.) we use, also accompany us inside the domestic space, and follow us around it.

As technology has developed, allowing all those different visual applications described above to interact and coexist via the same hardware (and often using the same software), the prescribed functions of each individual monitor have been merged into all-in-one type arch devices (TV/DVD, computer/phone/photo album etc.).

So, what am I getting at with all this info we already know...
I think that all these progressions lead to an even greater revolution. One that is already ongoing, and has been for a while, in the public and commercial spheres, but hasn't really picked up yet, in our private and domestic environments.
When I think about video (and sound), I think of it as an environment. A space that is dynamic and occupies a sensual/emotional mass in our perception. I think that in the near future, video is going to break free from the screen that has been containing it thus far. I think that our private living environments are going to become customized visual displays, containing every and all the visual media functions in our lives.

I am not a very technically capable person, but it is easy for me to imagine how a monitor could expand to occupy a wall. This is something that we can already do using projectors. However, projectors are not ideal for a living space because they require a wide clear breath for the light beam.
A more suitable solution in my mind, would be a wiring of the wall itself into some sort of light emitting coating, that could be regulated by a motherboard or a chip or whatever they call those things now.

Obviously once the technology is fully commercialized, it would inevitably become better and better, and in a few short generations we could, and probably will have a whole plethora of competitively priced products that are cheap to manufacture, economically powered, produces a crisp HD (3D?) resolution and is easy to install (ideally, the hardware will eventually become a standard in all residence spaces).
These installations will communicate fluently with our desktops, electronic books, mobile phones, TVs and music and visual media players, finally replacing and taking over all those smaller monitors, and enfolding them under one arch monitor system that's built into our walls, floors and ceilings.
The system will be controlled by a remote control device that would probably look a bit like an ipad, allowing the user to adjust, move and crop the different media outputs into windows on the physical wall space.

The advantages for this sort of technology are great I think.
Quite simply it means an almost absolute freedom in the creation and design of our personal domestic spaces. We can live, work and entertain ourselves and our loved ones in a space that is a true and dynamic visual manifestation of our individual personalities.

Coming back home from work, you turn on the switch, and will be greeted by anything as epic as, say the canine major galaxy, to anything as conservative as a warm fireplace, and pictures of the grandchildren.
Digital images will regain their former positions on our walls, and could be arranged and rotated as ever going slide shows.
Light fixtures, and house paints will become obsolete, as we will be able to decide, and adjust  the colour, warmth and luminosity of our walls in an instant, and change them according to our mood, time of day, the season etc.

The greatest feature of these utilities will be that they will provide an equal stage for all classes, to display our personal tastes in designing our immediate personal environments, rather than be limited by the depths of our pockets. Designing your physical home would become as cheap as building a web page.
You could be working as a supermarket clerk, and have a convincing reproduction of a Jackson Pollock self portrait gracing your bedroom wall. And if those Monet water lilies are just too large for your small, cheap student apartment walls, well, just scale that bitch down! Problem solved.

Needless to say, these visual arrangements will not just be about aesthetics, all the functional aspects of visual media will still be present, and will only become more accessible and enhanced.
We could watch TV in glory, on our walls, larger than life, in a wider aspect than ever before, occupying our entire peripheral visual field.
We could check our email account in the bathroom, or the shower, or while doing the dishes... We could read an ebook before we go to sleep, off of our bedroom wall, taking a break to check our friend's status online, and listening to some tunes off of our mp3 library, or Youtube.

The spaces we create and design will be remarkably dynamic and interchangeable.
Like playlists on our ipods, we will have different audio/visual set ups for different situations. A sleek lounge-like setting for romantic dinners, a cosy, casual array of personal images for when we are by ourselves, a bright psychedelic abstraction of some sort for parties, a serene waterscape for when we yoga, or read, etc. etc.

With so many wonderful options, designing our immediate living environments will soon become an ongoing art practice, one that everyone is constantly engaging in.
This will have wide cultural and economical implications. Interior designers will become interior programmers, and their services will become much more common and highly sought after (my new dream job).
The plastic arts will suffer , at first, but will later adapt and reincarnate as image makers of "stock" visuals that could be purchased online (much like what is happening to the music industry now). Still, and moving image makers will eventually become the greatest beneficiaries from these new emerging technologies.
The furniture industry will take a powerful hit, as a revival of a more minimalist style of design, as far as physical objects go will become prevalent.
In architecture, curved walls that are con-caved to create a better illusion of depth, round merges and corners, oval and almost sphere-like layouts, and smaller windows, or windows that can be sealed will feature more prominently in the design of residence spaces.

And this is the part where you put on your rubber pointy ears, as the more distant future incarnations of the audio/visual simulations discussed above will continue to improve, and our domestic private spaces will eventually become something closely resembling a hollo-deck.

Actually, I don't know what will happen. This is more about what I want, then it is about what I know.

The future of video might not end up looking anything like what I've said here. After all, the restrictions for why it hasn't developed that way yet, are not technological, but psychological. We are used to consuming video via the frame, even if that frame has become larger, more mobile, and versatile. As long as these restrictions hold strong, video will remain contained in its many boxes.

On a more philosophical note, I think that the human mind is also caged in a box.
The physical body, the bony skull that's wrapped up around us, caging our experience to what our senses allow us to perceive, of the outside.
But inside our skulls, we are free to close our eyes and envision things we cannot see. We can imagine imaginations, experience memories, think thoughts, and feel abstract emotions that can't be expressed through any verbal or written language, and there is far more of us, hidden even from our selves in the deeper realms of our unconscious minds.

So if we choose to think of our body, as the immediate cage of our mind, and our apartment, as the cage of our body, why not then, treat that private space with the same freedom we treat our bodies. We have almost the same rights to it, I would argue.
Why not make it more our own, fill it up with images that are ours, represent our thoughts, feelings desires and narratives, make it a truer expression of ourselves.

An honest projection of the mind on the matter, what could make a more natural and comfortable space for our bodies to reside and operate in?

Thanks for reading.

The Universal Language

Super busy couple of weeks.
A lot has been going on, and I do regret not finding the time to post stuff on here more often.

The common thread that seems to link most of what I've been doing recently is music.

I forget if it was Stockhausen, or Varèse or Cage or some other wonderful sound kook, who locked himself in a soundproof room for an extended period of time, trying to experience complete silence. Only to discover that he can hear his own neurones buzzing about inside his brain...

Music is all around us, it is in everything, and it is everywhere. Music is a psychological phenomenon, not a physical one.
One of my heroes, 敬二灰野 (Keiji Haino) taught me that. I'll get back to him later on.

Those of you who have been following the class, may remember my friend 友剛 (Tomotake, AKA Damon Shearer) whom I wanted to interview about his fantastic experiences here in Japan.
Well, the interview went through very well, and 友剛 was kind enough to perform one of his original songs on camera! 
The song is called; 約束 (yakusoku, a promise), and is the closing track on 友剛 debut album; True to Me.

友剛 - 約束, True to Me, 2009

OK so, I am officially in love with Osaka.
This city has everything a video maker could ask for. It's big, bright, accessible, loud and happy, and most importantly, it surprises you on every turn. On my last visit there we ran into a public show of some sort, that was absolutely free and absolutely awesome! The highlight was a performance by a young group of musicians, showcasing traditional Japanese Taiko drumming.

Last weekend, me and my friends rented a car and we drove to Nagoya. A super cool and fashionable city, just a short drive, east of Kyoto.
This is what I've been looking for! Beautiful cityscapes, spaghetti interchanges, shining glass steel and cement as far as the camera can see.
Nagoya is also, apparently a very musical city, we ran into a number of free of charge public performances, just strolling down Sakae, the main commercial and cultural hub.
First there were the Capoeira (Brazilian dance/martial-art) peeps.

One of them explained that Capoeira is pretty big in Nagoya, due to the city's large population of Brazilian expat, factory workers. We sought these kids had a lot of heart, and their sound was solid, but their moves were sort of lame...

Anyways, literally the next block up, we found this local, swinging big-band, with an excellent brass section, doing a selection of crowd favourites.

And then the cream of the crop, a crossover visual/hardcore/metal/??? band named "Virbellwind" (yeah!) They played a full gig, on the street, for free.

Their technique is tight, but their style was a bit too... militant for me. I tracked down their Myspace page in case anyone is interested (the PR photos are hysterical):

http://www.myspace.com/virbellwind

The other night we went to an Okinawa themed isakaya (Japanese pub).
I learned three things about Okinawa which really makes me want to go there:
1. Excellent food.
2. Surprisingly good beer.
3. Super interesting musical tradition.

Okinawa music is rooted in very old, local folk traditions, and some of these songs date way way back to times and ways long forsaken.
The house band, whose name unfortunately escapes me now (I was pretty hammered), played an old staple called 涙そそ (nada so so, in Okinawa dialect - tears fill my eyes).
Also note the three-stringed, snake skin instrument, which is the original predecessor of the popular Shamisen, whose unique sound is so instinctually associated with Japan and all things Japanese.

This music reminds me a lot of Bossa-Nova. It's both happy and sad at the same time, and spiced with a salty tropical breeze of laid-back comfort. I don't know, I think it's amazing. 

Needless to say, this is all useful material for future projects.
For the last piece I did at NSCAD, I used someone else's music, and manipulated it to fit my video work, this was the first time in awhile that I did something like that, but I thought the result worked well, and I feel like I want to use all of this new material, in a similar way.
From where I am standing, I think that all music, is burrowed and appropriated in some way or another. Youtube "nada so so" and you'll land across scores of interpretations, in many different styles and languages, these all stemmed from something that probably began as a nursery rhyme, on a tiny island, who knows how long ago.

Which brings us back to the dark master, Mr. Keiji Haino, whose sound has inspired and influenced me for years, yet I never know how to describe...
Keiji Haino's work is epic, and groundbreaking in the scope of its experimental element. It is relentless and painful and terrifying and beautiful and haunting and oh fuck it, I'll just let it speak for itself:

灰野敬二 - I Said, This is the Son of Nihilism, 2002

It took me a long time to muster the courage to contact Mr. Haino, but I did, finally, and he responded. 

I sent over a DVD with some of my recent work, it must've gotten to him by now. 

Keiji Haino is touring this month (in Canada, ironically enough), and he generally is, a very busy man. However, he said that he'll watch my work, and I am cautiously hoping that he'll agree to meet me while I'm here in Japan. If that won't happen, I asked him to write back his thoughts and comments about my sound, and I am anxiously awaiting word from him or his assistant. 

I'll keep you posted on any developments with that.

I'll close this very lengthy post, with a visit to a local club, right here in Kyoto.

For a friendly evening gathering of visual and performance artists, musicians and poets that went well into the early hours of the morning. 

This was the opening act.

Thanks for reading.

On the Living Buddhas who Walk amongst Us

 

Say you were approached by a teacher, or an angel, or an agent, or a deity or any other sort of metaphysical authority you acknowledge, and were offered a share of someone else's suffering.

I would imagine many people would turn such an offer down right there and then. After all, we all have enough on our plates, right?

Still, Some people may ask, if they could take on the suffering of someone they love.

The answer however, would be no. You will suffer for a stranger.

Some may want to know if the person whose suffering they will receive, will know that they are suffering in their place. If that person would be grateful to them, and maybe even compensate them in some way for suffering instead of her or him.

The answer again would be no. They will not know you, and they will not know that someone else has taken a share of their suffering.

A stubborn few might inquire further if at least other people, the greater society, would somehow recognize their altruistic deed, and reward, or at least commend them for their selfless acts.

The answer yet again would be the same. No.
No one would know what you did, in fact, even you won't know what part of your suffering is yours and what part you took over from someone else.

At this point, I suspect that the large majority of sound minded people, save for a few eccentrics perhaps, would politely decline the proposition.


Now let's say that we were not given a choice at all, and the situation described above was the simple reality of the human condition.
That is to say, we, all of us, suffer for others, and others suffer for us.

Would you find this reality frustrating? or would you be able to find a small comfort in it?

Would you say: why o universe is this happening to me? or would you say: thank you for making this happen to me, and not someone else?


Thanks for reading.

Golden Week

AD: I've noticed that Japanese people don't mix their ramen (noodles, pork & vegetables in a soup-like broth) before they start eating.

Aya-san: ?

AD: For example; in Korea they mix a bunch of ingredients into the soup before they eat. The flavour is enhanced by the fusion of the different tastes.

Aya-san: Ah, because if we mixed, maybe the ramen is not beautiful anymore.

Last week was "Golden Week" in Japan.
A combination of two or three national holidays merged with a long weekend, this makes for the longest holiday the average working Japanese gets annually, and most people make arrangements months in advance for sights, flights, accommodations etc.
Being the clueless gaijin (foreigner) that I am, I made no such arrangements, and needless to say, everything worthwhile doing or seeing in Japan was booked solid by the time I caught up with the hype.

With considerable help from my local friends I did manage however, to have a very enjoyable, and highly productive Golden Week.
I have been very lucky, as everyone keeps reminding me, to be in the right place at the right time, on a number of occasions. I was able to catch an intimate glimpse of some truly rare and exclusive events taking place, and to document those on video.

First day of the break we went up to see the glorious Kinkakuji, the iconic, golden temple of Kyoto. I also wanted to see Ryoanji, for its famous rock garden.

On our way there, we spotted a grove of cherry trees, remarkably still in bloom, almost a full month past their season! I've given up long ago on seeing sakura (cherries) this spring, and although the blossoms weren't perfect (we could see green leaves around the blossoms), they were certainly stunning and have pretty much made my day.

A couple of days later, we took the train to Nara, one of Japan's old capitals.
This was my first excursion out of Kyoto since my arrival. Nara was, as we expected, packed with sightseers and tourists. What we didn't know was that on that day Nara also celebrated one of its many annual matsuri or festivals.
While trying to advance towards one of the temple complexes through the crowds, and fending off the deer which roam free in Nara, we were approached by an elderly man in traditional dress.
He introduced himself to me in excellent English, and asked me if I was scared of earthquakes, and where I was from. We started chatting and he told me that he is going to conduct a tea ceremony later that afternoon in Todai temple. I told him that I am interested in tea ceremony tradition and he invited us to come along with him, it was at that point that I noticed the camera people, and that everyone around was staring at us...

Turns out the man was 千玄室 (Sen Genshitsu), a highly renowned tea master, and the guest of honour for the Todaiji matsuri! We later saw him present the Daibutsu (great Buddha) of Todaiji with a ceremonial offering of tea.

Before we parted ways, the tea master told me that the human spirit consists of two complementing elements. In Japanese culture, these aspects are expressed through the practices of Ochado (way of tea), and Bushido (way of the warrior).

Sure enough, the next day, we took the train to Osaka.
There, just outside of Osakajo (Osaka castle), we wandered into a public hall, where a graduation ceremony for a Bushido school was taking place! The celebrations included a demonstration of sword mastery by the graduating students.

I was excited to meet a couple of lady samurai amongst the graduates. One of them had two swords strapped to her belt, a privilege traditionally reserved for the samurai class. She told me that historically there are reports of past female samurai, but they unfortunately never were treated as equal to the men.

She also pointed out that the fencing skills of a samurai are judged not only by their deadliness, but also by their elegance. The samurai who won the highest ranks at the demonstration, were the ones who were able to swing their katana (sword) in a more graceful angle, and make cleaner smoother cuts.
I think this is remarkable.

In my very limited understanding, the common thread between the warrior and the tea master is this emphasize on perfection of form.

When the formal aspects are considered so fully, the content inevitably follows. This principle is apparent in many aspects of Japanese life, it is deeply rooted in religious beliefs and cultural and artistic traditions.

After our visit to Osakajo, we went to the Osaka National Museum of Art.
This rather small museum for contemporary art would have been a bore I suspect, if it wasn't for an exceptional exhibition by a young group of artists - Kaza Anna.
The show is called: Air Hole, Another Form of Conceptualism from Asia.
It's been a long while since the last time I was so deeply impressed by anything I saw at a museum.

The highlight of the show for me was the last exhibit, in which viewers were invited to meet a very very old turtle and spend some time with it.
The piece is called: My Teacher Tortoise.
Before I stepped on the platform to meet my teacher, I was greeted by a Steven Hawking quote, warning that "Humans should avoid contact with alien life forms".

I resisted the urge to shoot video or pictures, because I didn't want to offend my teacher. It also doesn't seem to like it when people touch its head.

Thank you for reading.