For each piece of art, yokoo freely arranged elements such as GG patterns and the Gucci brand logo. The B1-sized posters are framed in a TOKION original frame and are labelled with a unique serial number. The prints JPY180,000 and are limited to 15 copies each.

Yokoo collaged GG patterns in the two pieces that he worked on; “HANGA JUNGLE” and “Kohke.” They clearly express the fantasy of an undefined style.

The original frame can be wall-mounted, but they were designed to be placed on the floor like a standing mirror. A modern style stand is provided at the bottom and has a black satin matte finish. A handwritten edition number and the TOKION logo is on the right side of the frame.

Japan’s leading contemporary artist and his work is highly regarded across the world, collaborated with Gucci, to produce unique work that art lovers and those who are not can appreciate.

B1 posters are available for purchase at TOKIO OFFICIAL EC and TOKION the STORE at MIYASHITA PARK. 

Photography Eizo Kuzukawa

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Hans Ulrich Obrist（hereinafter Hans）：The first time I came to visit you, you told me you had played rugby before getting into art.

Pierre Soulages（hereinafter Pierre）：Yes. I am actually friends with a few players who brought me balls. I have rugby balls here.

Hans：That’s great! Gerhard Richter once told me that paintings is bit like pétanque. So, I was wondering if there was, for you, an analogy between rugby and painting.

Pierre：As I understand it, yes. In rugby, the ball is oval. It’s important because you never know where it will bounce: to the right, to the left, to the front, to the back? And in research it’s always like that. In all research, even in painting. You never know where it will lead you. But I was not a great player.

Hans：But rugby was more important for you than the palm game?

Pierre：No, I have recently played the palm game. I have never been a rugby player, I was only playing when I was a student! What interested me in this sport, is that there is always something unexpected.

Hans：Is that the analogy? “In painting, the unexpected happens.”

Pierre：As in all research. It all depends on how we understand painting. I have never believed in theories before painting, they can only come afterwards.

Hans：Can we then say that there is no a priori, but only a posteriori?

Pierre：Exactly.

Hans：I would like to know how your art began, since rugby is not the beginning. You told me, during my first visit, that the beginning was prehistoric art, the finds of Aveyron.

Pierre：Yes. When I was 16 years old, I thought that the teaching we received was limited to a few centuries. I was going to museums and I was only seeing four or five centuries. In high school, we were taught about art as if it came from Greece, twenty-five centuries earlier. Our culture, the Christian era, represents twenty-five centuries. And I had seen the Antalya caves, which had been painted hundred-nighty-five centuries ago. So I said to myself: “But it’s incredible, we are focused on five centuries and it has been a hundred-nighty-five centuries since men paint!” By the way, a much older cave has been found since then. These questions made me wonder, why do men paint? Why do I want to paint?

Hans：That is a fundamental question, indeed. I have also read the interview you did with Zoe Stillpass for Interview magazine. You told her that already as a child you liked black ink.

Pierre：[Laughs] Those are childhood stories. I was a few years old, 5 or 6, I was dipping bread in the inkwell and when asked what I was doing, I answered: “Snow.” The contrast between black ink and snow made everybody laugh a lot; so much that they remembered it. But there were already telling this story before I was a painter. They thought I was an intriguing, original character.

Hans：This obviously has a completely different meaning today, because with computers the inkwell is disappearing.

Pierre：It is true, it is different. But black hasn’t disappeared.

Hans：Why this idea of working with black and white? Fleck explains in his text that we must not forget the post-war climate, which was very present. Do you think it has something to do with the war or the post-war period?

Pierre：No, it has nothing to do with it. When I was 5 years old, if I liked black, it was not because of that. I liked it because it is a beautiful color.

Hans：Did it come from inside?

Pierre：Of course. It has nothing to do with circumstances, no political significance. Besides, color symbolism was already abandoned at this time. It is an ambiguous symbolism: black represents mourning in our civilizations, but in most civilizations it’s white. When I was a child, I liked black because it is a strong color. When you put black with any other color, very often the other color becomes much brighter. When you put grey with black, it seems less grey, less dull.

Hans：What are your work habits? Do you paint in the morning, in the afternoon?

Pierre：What a question, I’m not a civil servant! [Laughs]

Hans：So you work when you feel like it? Because some artists and writers have a kind of ritual habit.

Colette Soulages（hereinafter Colette）:That’s true.

Pierre：Not me, I work when I feel like it and when I can. Whenever I feel like it. Day, night…

Hans：It’s very interesting to know that you don’t have a regular schedule to work, that painting can come to you at any time.

Pierre：When I start something that interests me, I continue, and sometimes it goes on until three o’clock in the morning. One day, a friend was staying here and saw me awake at three in morning, I had just been working. So he asked me what I was doing, and I told him: “I’m going to sleep, but I am not sleepy. How about you?” He answered: “Neither am I, how about having a drink?” And we had champagne at three o’clock in the morning! [Laughs]

Hans：When you start a painting, is it often finished the same day or can the process be prolonged?

Pierre：Sometimes I work on it for a very long time, other times I work on it for a very short time and it’s already finished. But that’s what I like. The two excesses are being a civil servant – working fixed hours – or manufacturer. I am neither.

Hans：Your work is usually done at 360 degrees…

Pierre：Yes, my paintings are fixed, but if you move them around, they won’t be the same.

Hans：They are never the same twice, in the same way as stained glass.

Pierre：With stained glass, we can see the change from morning to evening.

Hans：Is it different with paintings?

Pierre：Yes, it’s different. The colors of stained glass change throughout the day; it’s interesting because it marks the passage of time. To mark the passage of time in stained glass is not innocent, it’s important: to know that time flows, that it is not the same in the morning and in the evening, it gives you food for thought.

Hans：The idea of time is already in your paintings, because they interact with each other.

Pierre：From the moment you work with light, you work with time.

Hans：How did you come up with the name Outrenoir for your paintings covered with black? Is it a question of going beyond black?

Pierre：I was interested in this process because it’s optical, it’s a physical phenomenon and not an artistic one. Outrenoir designates an artistic phenomenon, the aesthetic emotion that this physical phenomenon provokes in us. What is aesthetic emotion? It brings us to a pleasure, that of dreaming. It reaches our mental field, everything that touches us. This brings us to another question: why do we love a painting?

Hans：Because it is produced to create emotions? It allows us to dream…

Pierre：Yes, but what kind of emotions? The fact that the mental field can be affected by this phenomenon interested me. So I thought it should be given a name, but calling it black was not enough. Outrenoir means beyond black, as outre-Rhin [across the Rhine] means Germany, or outre-Manche [across the Channel] means England. It is something else than black.

Hans：You just mentioned the idea of dream. In the interview with Zoe Stillpass, you said that today we need painting to live in a more interesting way, because it allows us to dream and to create emotions. So for you painting is not just pretty or pleasant, it is something that allows us to confront ourselves, to stand up. Can you tell us about this idea of confrontation?

Pierre：Painting allows us to enter into ourselves. One thing I couldn’t explain is the number of people who cried during my exhibition.

Colette：Not just frail people.

Pierre：Yes. A lot of people wrote to me that they had cried. The first time I was exhibited in Strasbourg I received a letter from a lady who had seen my exhibition. I didn’t know her, I still don’t know her, and she wrote to me: “I saw your stained glass in the Abbey of Conques. I was particularly touched to see how this 20th century creation fitted in with 2nd century architecture. I was so moved that I went regularly to Conques, I found it overwhelming. When I heard there was an exhibition of your work at the Pompidou Centre, I decided to go. When I entered the exhibition room, tears came to my eyes and the further I went the more I cried,” she says, “and when I got to the last room, I cried so much that I had to sit down.”

Hans：Beautiful.

Pierre：She concluded telling me: “I’ve been thinking a lot about why your work touched me so much. I think it’s because you did it with all your soul.” That’s a consideration that I would rather not talk about. Anyway, a few days later, I received a similar letter, and then others. I had received four of five of them when Alain Seban, the director of the Pompidou Centre at the time, contacted me and said: “I’m going to give a decoration to a man who gave a lot of money for the exhibition, could you attend?” I accepted, so I attended this award ceremony. Everybody was very elegant, women were well dressed, men had some decorations… At one point, I took the elevator to meet someone in the street. A man took the stairs at the same time, and came towards me when we were both downstairs. He was a young man, about forty-five years old, with a sporty physique, and he said to me: “Sir, I am glad to see you, I like your work very much.” I thanked him and he said: “I’ve been to your exhibition twice, and each time I cried.” I was so taken aback that a man looking like that would say that to me that I didn’t think to ask him who he was, I should have.

Hans：It’s disarming.

Pierre：Then we went to our respective cars. I thought it was amazing that such different people would have the same reaction. I spoke to Pierre Encrevé [Pierre Encrevé was a linguist, ministerial advisor and art historian specialising in the work of Pierre Soulages] about it, who replied: “They’re not the only ones, I’ve seen several people crying at this exhibition. One lady came regularly, every Friday.”

Hans：It’s very powerful because it’s rare in exhibitions.

Pierre：But the question is, why? I think it touched something deep inside them. Deep down, what is art? It’s not a simple construction, it’s really about something important, something capital, that lies beyond us. It is not a simple activity.

Hans：It’s very moving.

Colette：What surprises me a lot is the passionate interest that children have in Pierre’s paintings. It’s absolutely incredible.

Hans：This was seen in Beaubourg. I saw this exhibition, which was magnificent, and the audience was very young. There were a lot of children of ten or twelve years old.

Colette：Yes, they love it.

Hans：It’s interesting to point out something that Fleck describes in his book about the black and white in your paintings. He says that it’s like zero and one in the digital age, you see? So I wondered to what extend the advent of computer had changed anything. Has digital technology made an impression on you?

Pierre：The computer doesn’t change the sun.

Full interview published in Pierre Soulages by Robert Fleck et Hans Ulrich Obrist, Manuella Editions, Paris, 2017

Pierre Soulages
Born in Rodez in 1919, France. Lives and works between Sète and Paris, France. Experimenting with the color black throughout all his career, Pierre Soulages spreads the paint, brushes it, scrapes it, digs it out with his tools to create unusual light effects. Pierre Soulages celebrated his 100th anniversary last year. For this occasion, the Louvre museum held a retrospective of his work, including new paintings.

Interview Hans Ulrich Obrist
Photography Joe Hage
Artwork credit underneath the painting:Pierre Soulages / ADAGP, Paris and JASPAR, Tokyo ©Photo: Vincent Cunillière / Courtesy of the artist and Perrotin

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The scope of art widens in tandem with advances in technology. Means of expression grow broader and more diverse as time marches on, such as with VR for AI and AR. Such advances and widening occur due to a desire for art among both the artists expressing themselves and the audience. Now more than ever, art is deeply entangled not only with technology, but also with fashion and music as it extends outward like a vast ocean. This should be apparent to anyone who takes a look at social media sites, where tons of art is being uploaded every day. It is wonderful that audiences are able to freely enjoy such art which is now so accessible. Yet rather than just merely appreciating it, at times we ought to turn our attention to the artist’s sensibilities and viewpoint, as well as the background behind its creation. 

Shohei Otomo is an artist who uses ballpoint pens to produce drawn pieces in black and white that are elaborate and subtle. Otomo’s works are drawn using the type of ballpoint pens for office use that can be found anywhere. It is this means of expression with a sense of tension hanging over it from the fact that these strokes of the pen cannot be undone that draws the audience in. In this article we will thoroughly examine the new pieces drawn by Otomo by incorporating iconic elements from Gucci as well as the rough sketches made on the way to creating them out of a desire to take a deep dive into both the messages embedded within them and the appeal of his work, together with comments from the artist himself. 

Two pieces imbued with Gucci elements and “hope” 

One of the two pieces he sketched portrays a motif of a kinetic, beautiful woman, while the other is that of a lion floating amidst a jet-black backdrop. At the same time these pieces take on a finely-detailed realism that one would not expect from works drawn with a ballpoint pen. When one examines both pieces by visually comparing them, one senses that they inhabit a contrasting relationship between yin and yang (light and shadow). If the piece with the woman in which the elements of the Gucci clothing pattern is represented in a gradation from bottom to top is taken as the yang, then the picture of the lion’s mouth with the double G pattern rising up out of the darkness represents the yin. In light of this contrasting nature, one might conjecture that the messages embedded within them are different, but in his response Otomo indicated that this is not the case. “I wanted to imbue the two pieces with this contrast between black and white. The portrait of the woman is an ascending image. The lion, which has held the significance of dispelling disaster and ill will since long ago in Japan, is an image indicative of the power that resides within.” Speaking about both pieces like so, Otomo used his ballpoint pen to imbue them with such “hope.” 

Next, we will examine some of the rough sketches from the process of creating these pieces. Along with the woman dressed in the style of the bosozoku (Japanese biker gangs) wearing the tokko-huku jacket typical they are known for, we see a woman’s arm holding a wakizashi (short sword) and a courtesan wearing sunglasses. As one can see by looking at these prior works, Otomo actively incorporates Japan’s traditional culture and subcultures into his works. Otomo has established a sense of originality through this mode of expression in which Japanese culture is fused with symbols of modernity such as the sunglasses. I believe that this style presents the viewer with new value while stirring up their emotions. 

Let’s examine these even more closely. Upon closer inspection, one realizes that in both cases their “eyes” are concealed: the woman’s by her sunglasses and the lion’s by the darkness. Works in which the subject’s eyes are not depicted is a feature often seen in Otomo’s past works. In a previous interview, Otomo offered the reply, “I feel that drawing absolutely everything throws my rhythm off, whereas leaving some things out produces its own rhythm … [omitted] … Doing it this way produces an enigmatic depth, and I am partially of the mind that I want this to serve as an entry point for approaching my work.” By not depicting absolutely everything, he creates blank spaces and intervals. These blank spaces and intervals are part of a sensibility that is uniquely Japanese, and become apparent by observing them as a characteristic unique to Otomo.

Shohei Otomo is using his ballpoint pen to clear the way in an anxious world with an uncertain future 

But why is it the case that Otomo, who studied oil painting back in his student days, draws pictures in ballpoint pen and not pencil? “My personal stance when it comes to drawing pictures is to leave them fundamentally unchanged from when I first jot them down in my notebook. I find they turn out better on ordinary stationary rather than with specialized art supplies. The feeling resembles drawing pictures on the notebooks you would jot notes down on during class, like the ones made for writing (kanji) characters. As for the ballpoint pens, I like the cheap ones for office use that are hard to draw with.” Ever since he was a young child, Otomo created pieces over a long period of time by continuing to use his favorite implements. This accumulated output is a testament to Otomo’s true self, and ties directly in with his outstanding powers of description. 

These two pieces imbued with Otomo’s heart and soul were created right in the middle of the novel coronavirus pandemic. They have an intense power that serves to embolden us and steel us mentally as we live through one day after another full of hope mixed with uncertainty. Shohei Otomo will continue to express himself via works that interweave the past with the present via ballpoint pen. One can’t help but wonder where such a rare artist as he is headed in the future. 

Shohei Otomo
Born in Musashino City, Tokyo in 1980. After graduating from Tama Art University, embarked upon his activities as an artist. Has released works made using ballpoint pens online, and has garnered worldwide recognition as an artist via the internet. Has displayed works in places like Japan, Paris, Italy, Australia, and Hong Kong to date. Recently has taken up the challenge of art via new forms of expression such as sculpted artworks and AR filter pieces.

Photography Yoshimitsu Umekawa
Motion & Sound Shigeru Suzuki (THE ME)
Cooperation Abilio Marcelo Hagiwara

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Croket is art. I say this as someone who does art, so it must be true.

Just so there’s no confusion, I did not say that Croket is an “artist.” Yes, Croket is a bona fide entertainer. As an artist, I imagine that what he does is very close to “art.” The arts and the performing arts have different roles to play in the society in the first place.

To start with entertainment, you have to become popular no matter what. If a comedian is not popular, he or she will soon be thrown out. It is quite a tough business. That’s why everyone is desperate to become popular. When a comedian’s story cracks up, s/he hits a boom and become popular. So, entertainment is like an instant pill for cheering up society.

What about art, on the other hand? The situation here is much different. If you think you should do something, you have no choice but to keep doing it. This is the nature of the artist. Even Van Gogh was like that. Before he died, he was only popular for his brother Theo and a handful of people. But in his short 37 years of life, he kept on drawing nearly a thousand oil paintings which didn’t sell, as if to say if he didn’t do it, who else would. And it eventually began to work like a body blow. It is only now that the world has come to realize the great benefits of his works. The effect may be slow, but it comes from deep within the body and mind. It is just like Chinese herbal medicine.

Entertainment is a quick fix. Art is an herbal medicine. These two most important elements add the vigour to our lives. It’s how culture is fostered.

Croket is seriously thinking about how to crack people literally around the clock. He is a true entertainer. As I said at the beginning of this article, there are curiously many similarities between the entertainment done by professionals and the art although they are at the opposite ends of the spectrum.

Let’s take for example, an often-discussed theme in art industry circles “original and copy.” In the old days, everyone thought that original was great. Copy or imitation was considered to be a fake, something inferior, one down from original. The so-called original myth was rife.

It was turned on its head by Andy Warhol. The pop art star created a work called Marilyn Monroe in 1962. A black-and-white photograph of the actress Marilyn Monroe was simply replaced by a colorful silkscreen print. It was a copy work if you don’t mind me saying so. Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe was received with applause and people said, “This is what pop is all about.” Then after there is much talk about, we came to know about the original photo that his work was based on. The copy is treated as the real thing here, and subsequently the original photo came out quietly as if to say “I’m something that Mr. Warhol has made a copy of.”
This episode about original and copy is applicable to Croket in the entertainment industry.

One of Croket’s signature repertoire is to mimic Kenichi Mikawa’s talk and gestures. Mr. Mikawa is definitely a professional singer who is very good at singing. However, Croket got more interested in Kenichi Mikawa’s unique characteristic, his other added values, like the way he casts a flirtatious sidelong glance, twists his mouth when singing, and his queer language. Croket picked up Mikawa’s entertaining aspects other than his singing and elaborated them to crystalize into his performance of mimicry.

Original Mikawa then came to know about Croket’s mimicking him became popular, now he mimicked the mimicry and gained popularity. This mysterious phenomenon of double-popularity makes the question of original and copy almost irrelevant, just like the myth of being original in Warhol’s Marilyn Monroe.

Let me give you another example. There’s a term often used in the art world called “Dépaysement”, which fits perfectly with Croket’s mimicking technique.

Dépaysement is a prime example of the expressive technique of Surrealist art, which is described by the following phrase. “It is as beautiful as an accidental encounter between a sewing machine and an umbrella on a dissection table.”

This is a passage from Lautréamont’s poem, The Songs of Maldoror, and is often quoted as a good example of the Surrealist method. The implication is that an unexpected combination makes a novel surprise.

If I were to apply this to Croket, it would be something like this. “It is as interesting as an accidental encounter between the singer Hiroshi Itsuki and a robot-like Terminator on Croket’s body.

Mimicry of Hiroshi Itsuki’s singing and facial expressions topped with robot-like mechanical movements are strangely intertwined and a surreal scene is unfolded on the stage. Croket is nothing short of a surrealist in the mimicry field.

Croket probably has no ambition to connect art and entertainment. While there are a lot of entertainers who pretend to be artists and artists who pretend to be entertainers, Croket doesn’t belong to either and simply devotes himself to refining the art of mimicry.

I personally think that Croket is far more than an entertainer or an artist. He is a “super comedian.” At least I take the liberty of calling him so.

CROKET
Croket made his debut in 1980 with The Birth of a Comedy Star on NTV (Nihon TV). Popular all over Japan, he has performed in prestigious venues such as Meiji-za Theater (Tokyo), Ozonza Theater (Nagoya), and Shin-Kabuki-za Theater (Osaka). He also regularly supervises the program of large venues such as Hakataza Theater (Fukaoka). His current repertoire consists of more than 300 different impersonations and includes different genres, such as robot talk, hip-hop dance, rakugo (traditional Japanese art of storytelling), opera singing, and collaborations with an orchestra. His popularity in Japan led him to perform abroad: USA, China, Korea, and Australia.

Text Yasumasa Morimura
Photography TAKAY
Edit Takuhito Kawashima（kontakt）

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Eliminate the thinking process for creation

Yokoo’s work doesn’t have a set style or pattern. Fantasy images coexist with reality in the work. Many of the motifs defy a logical explanation. Where do such ideas come from?

“Chosen intuitively and fleetingly from a stock of various visual experiences from past memories. I’m not particularly interested in logical consistency. I create an encounter between unmeasurable things. I don’t think of creating things with a purpose, so I’m not interested in finished work. So the purpose of drawing is not to draw results or a just cause.”

Eliminating the thinking process in the production of work is Yokoo’s individual stance of “reception ability” to make one’s own thoughts those of another, and has left countless works with that theme. Yokoo continues to collaborate with fashionable brands. What thinking went into the collaboration with Gucci this time?

Brand logo’s jump straight into one’s eyes from works in the series “Kohke.” Vibrant pink and yellow background is repainted over the green and red of the Gucci colors and the GG pattern is a brilliant collage.

Also, to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the Yokoo Tadanori Museum of Contemporary Art, built in 2018 to commemorate the Hyogo Prefectural government’s 150th anniversary Predecessor Project, the works of the HANGA JUNGLE exhibition are surprising with elements of Gucci motifs. “Hanga” is well-known in English to mean super print, not the more traditional meaning of “print,” and works that combine the Gucci brand logo with the key colors of red and green are included intuitively in collages with the same theme as the exhibition where Yokoo’s varied expression is layered with the word “jungle.”

“There is no particular reason for choosing from the several candidate Gucci logos. The collage balance was improvised and set intuitively. Other logos or characters would have been just as good. I made 2-D works 3-D and I’m interested in situations where a new function is implemented in society. Similar to certain works, artists and fashion brands, in a way homage aims to break away from authority. Malevolence is necessary for that. Respect and beautification cannot exceed the object. You may also unknowingly reject the value of the market. Being too greedy in the market will stifle your freedom. I even think I should deny my purpose for freedom. In other words, I prioritize self-evaluation over social evaluation. Conventional styles will be the death of art.”

One of a kind originality when even one’s own work is subject to copying

As a feature of Yokoo’s work, which does not have a particular style, is the repetition of motifs. The “Pink Girls” series, representative of the 1960’s, was displayed again in the 1990’s and was drawn intermittently until recently. Also, works since the 2000’s symbolize “Y-Junction” and the same scene changes gradually through many iterations. Originally, Yokoo regarded copying existing images as an important element of his work. Then is can be said that his one of a kind originality is subject to copying. It is not just self-imitation, his conviction is supported by the idea that “works evolve over time” and is antithesis to Yokoo’s common sense.

“I always want to be new. Today I want to draw different images to the ones I drew yesterday. I’m always thinking how my drawings will change and develop. This is different to forming a setup. When I didn’t have a particular style, one of my peers said “Your style is all over the place! Are you sure you’re not schizophrenic?” and then I knew I had found my path. That was shortly after I turned to painting. An original way of drawing or compositional variations was never there from the beginning.”

When asked for a final message he replied “I am incomplete; my drawing are incomplete.” This time the works are themed around the Gucci motif, and include collages on “repetition,” which is the true value of Yokoo’s work, as well as visual and abstract metaphors. The artwork makes you appreciate the message that “everything is incomplete” could be considered a final present from Yokoo.

Tadanori Yokoo
Born in Hyogo Prefecture in 1936. Worked as a graphic designer from the 1960’s, and transitioned to being an artist in 1981. Since then was engaged in producing various pieces as an artist. The Yokoo Tadanori Museum of Contemporary Art, opened in 2012 in Kobe city, stores over 3000 pieces of art. Recently, solo exhibitions have been hosted by Tokyo Modern Art Gallery (1997), Hara Art Gallery (2001), The National Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto (2003), among other venues. Currently, the “Hyogo Prefectural Yokoo Emergency Hospital” exhibition will be at the Yokoo Tadanori Museum of Contemporary Art until August 30th.

Photography Masahiro Sanbe
Motion & Sound Shigeru Suzuki (THE ME)

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Stumbling—an event usually seen as an exception. Just like the word walk does not include stumble as a precondition, stumbling is perceived as something that shouldn’t happen.
We provided the theme, Observation of Stumbling, and asked a DJ, an architect, and a graphic designer, among others to use this as a basis for their own work in their respective fields. Here’s the result. The moment of an accident, the unexpected, something relegated to the outer limits of consciousness, failure, discrepancies, what threatens stability… By shifting our attention to stumbling, we aim to confront those matters.
It made us think again about stumbling. What exactly is it? Why did we even choose this word as a theme? To us, understanding stumbling means to also understand rhythm. Rhythm is not something that is only heard. We hope to share an experience of rhythm that could be read and seen as well.
Kukangendai

DJ FULLTONO

Concept MIX “BPM and Feels”

In dance music, stumbling is the most fun part. It is what attracts people the most. For example, the BGM you hear in a cafe may not need this stumbling. But stumbling may be essential to shake bodies. I created this DJ MIX while tossing around this idea. Please note the sensory speed when you listen to the mix. I focused on that and threw in various elements into it.

Before I talk about stumbling, I must explain first what a steady rhythm is. A steady rhythm in dance music is a repetitive rhythm. Its origin is in funk and soul music after the 60s: Kraftwerk who released Autobahn in 74, and Giorgio Moroder, who worked on Donna Summer’s “I Feel Love” in 75. These musicians came up with a beat that repeats over and over right from the beginning of the song. This technique was later transformed into house techno music and has been passed down to the present day. This repetitive beat is the epitome of a steady rhythm.

When you hear a beat for the first time, it is sometimes difficult to understand how each sound affects the rhythm. However, most of the sounds were put there for a reason. In my opinion, sounds either move forward or move around. If we are to visualize the sounds, they always move from left to right. In other words, they are placed there to move forward. When they are placed at equal intervals, the speed is the same throughout, but if one of the sounds is put slightly ahead of another, the sensory speed becomes faster at that particular point. The word fast here does not mean a fast or slow BPM. When the sounds are placed at equal intervals, the speed is the same as the BPM but the movement created by shifting the sounds generates a part where the sensory speed is different. It is the repetition of such small changes that creates the groove.

Another way to look at it, is to think of it as different BPMs progressing in parallel to the BPM of a single beat played. You may, or have the illusion to, hear a different BPM from that main beat. It is called polyrhythm. This experience of sensory speed is interesting. For example, did you know that iTunes shows you the BPM of a tune? When I DJ, I use a lot of 160BPM tunes, but I often see misquotations like 80, 120, 107BPM, etc., even though it’s supposed to be 160BPM (theoretically, it’s not a mistake, but I’ll leave the explanation for now). It is actually the best part, because such tunes may also have a groove with a different BPM.

What is a good groove, then? Just adding more notes or simply looping the same pattern won’t make a good beat. The most important thing is to be organic, even if it is a machine-made rhythm. For example, using the human body as an analogy, when we stumble, we more or less move in the same way to avoid falling over. So, when you shift one note for the drum, the choice for the next note is naturally limited to a few patterns. The sound of the rain may sometimes sound funky, and as long as we play and listen to music, we don’t get attracted to inorganic beats. The same applies to music composed on the computer. Whenever I talk about this, I always think of the words of Spanish architect, Gaudí. When Gaudí designed a building, he would say that a beautiful form is structurally stable, and we must learn the structure from nature. Applying that to dance music, it is most logical and comfortable to have a good beat in tune with nature. In other words, stumbling is an extension of a stable beat. Or put it in another way, it is an exaggeration of a stable beat.

I created this mix with all of the above in mind; some grooves are created intentionally, and some coincidentally, to be honest. DJing and beat-making is like a game of chess, where there are many ways to make a move. It gets refined in never-ending trials and errors.

In the 70s, electronic instruments were introduced, and a variety of beats were created. Human beings simply can’t stop searching for new beats. When a new genre comes into vogue, we naturally feel “It’s new! It’s the music of the future!” but it may be that music in its true form has been discovered then. When you think about where human desire and curiosity is ultimately headed, I cannot help but think that we are working on putting the concept of beat to its original form. That is what I have been thinking about lately.

You may not have to think that hard when you listen and dance to music, but if a fundamental question arises as to why you are attracted to a certain beat, you may find it helpful.

※You can listen the sound source in this magazine “TOKION”

DJ Fulltono
Based in Osaka, DJ Fulltono is signed on Booty Tune label. His My Mind Beats EP was released in 2014 and features his own take on the Juke sound of Chicago. My Mind Beats was selected for the yearly chart on America’s major music magazine, Rolling Stone. Regularly performs at Festivals in Europe and other locations.

Hideyuki Nakayama

Have you ever wanted to live in a hotel hallway?

I haven’t stayed at luxury hotels very often, but their corridors usually have long furry carpets so footsteps won’t be heard in the rooms. For the same reason, elegant chrome trolleys carrying room service have big wheels like off-road vehicles. The lighting is dim so guests can anonymously come and go. When you look down, a specially designed carpet with patterns matching the width of the corridor seems to extend forever. In the corners and dead ends, spotlights softly illuminate seasonal flowers and landscape pictures. Freshly-made ice cubes are always available. The next morning, after sleeping in, I walk the same corridor and I kind of like the way that behind half-open doors, messy bedspreads are bathing in sunlight with the roar of a vacuum cleaner. At the end of this corridor, in which the number of doors could reflect the number of nights and mornings spent here, is the elevator. It usually features a mirror and guests casually make sure they are presentable before going down to the lobby, ready for a new day.

You don’t hear about music stars renting out a whole floor anymore these days, but if I could do that, I’m sure I would spend the night in the hallway. I’ll have a couch, a stand light, and a bed brought out of the room, and I’ll have drinks that I wouldn’t normally drink, have them on a room service cart and spend time in the ambience unique to corridors. What would it sound like if you put speakers in a long, narrow, sound-absorbing space? It may be a silly fantasy, but sometimes I think about it.

The reason I’m talking about this is that I’ve actually designed a house that looks like a hotel hallway. I didn’t necessarily intend to do so but it turned out to be like that, if I put it correctly. Explaining the design process would be too long so I’ll save that for another time. The life of the family who lives there takes place in a hallway lined with the doors and scattered with furniture. When you open the door to Room 1, you are outside. The doors to Room 2 and 3 are connected to the bathroom and sanitary area, and the door to Room 4 (not available in Japanese hotels because four and death are homonyms) gets you to another little space outside. But all lined up, their differences disappear. The slightly curved corridor is somewhat similar to that of a cruise ship, perhaps because you have a row of windows only on one side. It is a short corridor, no more than 10 meters long, but since you can’t see the other end, it feels as if it goes on endlessly. It may also make you think of seeing a train from the window of your car when it is coming around a curve. If you turn around at the other end of the corridor, you will find a street corner instead of a landscape painting. From this street corner end window, this corridor looks like a dollhouse.

Hotel corridors, ships, trains, and dollhouses… You may think that the owner of this house had a tough time with my ideas. However, this house follows the regulations of landscape ordinance, strict rules on shape and color. There’s nothing special about the materials used, and the floors are just scaffolding boards covered with paint. I put underfloor heating instead of fine carpets, so you can lounge on the floor. Actually, the truth is, since wood for underfloor heating is expensive, I chose cedar wood planks that had been used for many years and were sufficiently dry. Architects know that a tunnel leading North creates a stunning gradation of light on the interior walls. And that explains why this particular shape, color, and materials were chosen. At the same time, you could also read this house as a fiction made up of a patchwork of silly fancy. Just like a rakugo (traditional Japanese comic storytelling), where two characters carry on their riddle without realizing that they are wrong about each other.

On which character’s side is the life of this house? Perhaps both, it’s very important for the designer to be aware of them both. The fantasy of a night spent in a hotel hallway is linked to the gap between knowing that it’s a hallway, and experiencing it in another way. It is more ambiguous than simple, immoral pleasures. Architecture, a discipline without instruction manual, is not limited to rules. It is also a result of social convention and, perhaps, commoditization. That’s why it imposes a yoke on us, without us even knowing it. Our work is always in between. No matter how cool skaters are when doing tricks on street railings, architects can’t design railings for that purpose. I don’t even have to ask you which is cooler, a dummy railing in a skate park or the street railing. Being cool is a hard thing. There may even be architects somewhere who secretly double the thickness of the street railing, without requesting it. Well, that’s it for now. This concludes my long explanation about including another time dimension and place in a house.

Hold on, I take it back. Maybe just a little more.

Did you know that Franz Liszt’s masterpiece “La Campanella” has three surviving scores? The famous one starts with an imitation of the sound of the bells, featured in the second score. But the widely known third score has a different notation. The key you play is the same; in the second score it’s marked as an E♭and in the third score it’s a D#. I don’t play the piano, but for a pianist these two notes must be different, either up a semitone or down a semitone. Even though it’s the same key, if you imagine the psychology of diagonally going down and that of diagonally going up, the sound of the bell is different. I am not qualified to discuss Liszt’s message there, but if the original music star who knows music inside out broke a new ground and changed the note in the old score while keeping the key… I know what the sensation is like, at least a little when I put it in architectural design. For me, creating something is a little different from crystallizing a new truth or order. Rather, it’s about throwing out my judgments of the recent past into the city, society, and even space-time. It is almost like staring at and listening to this whole thing while I remain oblivious to it. So, when you listen to the same sound with all your strength, and when you see a completely different image in the same sound, something new comes to you. Even if it was a wild story about living in a hotel hallway.

Hideyuki Nakayama
Born in 1972 in Fukuoka prefecture, Japan. After graduating from Tokyo University of the Arts, Hideyuki Nakayama worked at Toyo Ito & Associates, and joined Hideyuki Nakayama & Associates in 2007. Involved in a wide variety of architectural projects in Japan and abroad, Hideyuki Nakayama is an associate professor at Tokyo University of the Arts since 2014, and the author of numerous books, including Nakayama Hideyuki/Sketching (Shinjuku Shobo), Nakayama Hideyuki/1/1000000000 (LIXIL publishing), And then, 5 films of 5 architectures (TOTO publishing).

Ryuichi Kawajiri

13 Cherries 12 Letters

In 2020, I was crazy about depicting fruits. This led me to call my solo exhibition, Kaho, which is a direct, literal usage of the characters, 果=FRUITS / 報=REPORT and it became the theme for my graphic series of FRUITS REPORT. I depicted the fruits by simplifying all of them and then combining them with colourful emoji mail marks. Amongst them, one was a cherry. I had set up cherries to be 1 mail mark per cherry. In response to an inquiry from Kukangendai which was, does stumbling and making mistakes equal an instantaneous discretion, a split or rift, something out of the ordinary in stable rhythm?, I responded by lining up 13 of the previously mentioned cherries. With each and every frame I made graphics to run in succession, to make it look like the cherries were moving as mail marks toward the right-side. I named this graphic work made of straight and curved lines: 13 cherries 12 letters. They both look like stable graphic, however there are certain rules and counts.

Ryuichi Kawajiri
Graphic designer Ryuichi Kawajiri was born in 1982 in Rumoi city, Hokkaido, and now lives in Sapporo. After joining design production company Dezain inc. as an art director and graphic designer, Ryuichi Kawaiiri started creating his unique two-dimensional visuals. In 2017, his work was included in the group exhibition Hatten. In 2020, he will hold his first solo exhibition, FRUITS REPORT.

Curation Kukangendai
Edit Takuhito Kawashima, Victor Leclercq (kontakt)

The post OBSERVATION OF STUMBLING appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

『20200609_HARAJUKU 1』
© Seigen Ono

Encountering Noise, Harmonizing Sound

Shinya Matsuyama：Seigen, do you consciously listen to sound and music in your daily life when you’re not creating artworks?

Seigen Ono：I don’t think it’s conscious. Since my job is to record sound and music, I’m sure I’m rather unaware of it in my daily life. But if I hear music that I don’t like, I’ll react against it as strongly as if it were cigarette smoke. [Laughs] If I’m in a shop, I’ll leave. And also, unconsciously, there are things I notice. A recent example is at a café I was going to every morning. They had a machine there for kneading dough, and the rhythm of the sound it made was samba. I thought about sampling it and turning it into a piece of music. 

Matsuyama：So you get your music from the sounds of nature and daily life, not just the sounds of instruments.

Ono：I actually recorded the sound of that kneading machine on my iPhone! If you listen to just the sound, I tell you, it is a perfect samba beat. I even went to the trouble of recording it on a portable recorder. One day, though, the café started playing background music. From that point on, only mere clanking could be heard, and so I stopped going there. 

Matsuyama：Seigen, remind me, when did you start using so-called non-instrumental or non-musical sounds in your works?

Ono：It was in fact for my first album, SEIGEN (1984), that I began incorporating sounds, or noise, into my music. It included the sounds of New York City streets and parks. In my second album, The Green Chinese Table (1988) , I used background noise from everywhere. In “The Pink Room” track, I used the buzz of an audience in a concert hall before the curtain opens, and reversed it. There’s a unique tension before a performance and during intervals. The buzz of a street corner, the hubbub in a hall. The live sound on the runway, the size of the venue and the number of people in the room before the show… if I were to put it all into words, they would be described as a “hum” or “buzz,” but the scene—the size of the auditorium, the number of people, the pre-opening atmosphere—is totally different, right? 

Matsuyama：So you’ve been aware of noise from the beginning as a musician?

Ono：I hadn’t really thought about it until you asked me this, but the movies I was watching in high school had a big influence on me. I didn’t go to university, and instead, worked as an assistant at the long-standing Onkio Haus studios for two years from 1978 to 1980. I gained on-the-job experience with commercial film editors, projectionists, and professional recording of the sound that is added to the film. For instance, on film sets, I would hold the boom microphone for actors. Thinking back now, it was an invaluable experience. Even after switching to music recording, visual collage naturally became my style. 

Matsuyama：Do you reckon you see noise, in and of itself, as a kind of musical sound, as one element of an ensemble? 

Ono：Yes, I’ve come to treat noise as a musical element, just like the sounds of an instrument being played or a sampler or tape editor. Suppose a script says, “A woman wearing heels walks in a bar.” To represent the bar, you can hear the distant clink of glasses. And what of the floor? Is it marble? Wood flooring? A sole of harder material will sound more like a pair of high heels. And what about the tempo of the woman’s walk? There is even a profession called “Foley artist” to create sound effects that sound more conceptual than they actually are. Rather than perceiving noise as an instrument, if you work in recording, you realize the importance of noise. People often aim for a particular sound and try to get a clean recording, right? They either move the microphone closer, or to prevent interference from ambient sounds, they use a super cardioid (super unidirectional) microphone or shotgun microphone which records sound only in the direction it is pointed. Like a zoom lens, it picks out only the object you were closing in on. But elements that end up being shed, that is, everything other than the object—so-called ambience and background noise—are surprisingly important, right?

Take for instance this plate of curry on the patio here which is bathed in sunlight. The curry looks absolutely delicious, but trying to reproduce the same light situation in the studio is very difficult. A spotlight mimics the direct sunlight, and the reflected light creates shadows. In terms of sound, the reflected sound creates shade around the curry and dominates the space. Even though it seems like the objects are captured by spotlights and super cardioids, the important noises and reflections that used to enhance the sound are now missing.

Matsuyama：You’re saying that music comprises feedback and harmony of all sounds in the world, so some music inevitably contains noise. 

Ono：That’s right. One of my albums, Forest and Beach (2003) , has five-channel surround content, but it’s impossible to extract the sound of waves from the beach. What is the sound of the waves? What is the sound of the wind? The rumbling sound of waves hitting, moving and rubbing against pebbles and sand is accompanied by a very high frequency of microbubbles with a fizz. The same goes for wind in the trees rustling leaves against each other. If you think about it, waves and wind have no sound; we sense the various noises, which are made by the energy of the wind and waves, as the sound of the wind. So, suppose for example that delicate, quiet music is playing. A roaring wind blows. The sound of the wind, or the sound of the waves, stops suddenly, and in that moment of silence, even though you haven’t turned up the volume, the music stands out as if suddenly under a spotlight. When recording music, the expression “noise” is spoken as if it were garbage, but musically speaking, it can also be viewed as a decoding that is out of tune and clashes.

Painting the landscape with sound

Matsuyama：Speaking of noise, the first 40 minutes of CDG Fragmentation, which was released last year with the reissue of COMME des GARÇONS SEIGEN ONO, contains the live sound of the runway at a Comme des Garçons show.

Ono：Chapters 1 to 6 of the CDG Fragmentation are real sounds recorded in real time at the 1997 Paris Fashion Week. There are photographers calling out to the models, the clicking of their cameras, hands clapping, the sounds of shoes, and the hum of voices. At the show, for each model, I played a set of various sounds that I had put into the sampler. For the first five minutes or so, the audience seemed to think it was an acoustic mishap. But as I adjust the sound like an anime to match the model’s gait, the audience gradually catches on that it is part of the production. It’s even more realistic to the people who were there. I was in two minds right up to the last minute about whether it was OK for the first 40 minutes on a new album being released by a major label, namely Nippon Columbia, to consist only of live sounds (about 100 minutes long in total). But on hearing this, photographer Kazumi Kurigami said to me, “I want to use this in my studio.” I guess he doesn’t play so-called background music when he’s doing photo shoots in his studio. More than music, he was interested in being able to reproduce the feelings of tension that build up at a show. That clinched it for me. The fact you can record and reproduce in sound about 40 minutes of tension and atmosphere was also a discovery. What did you think, Shinya? 

Matsuyama：In a sense, I thought it was more eloquent and realistic than the music in that it made you imagine the clothes, the environment and culture surrounding the clothes, and even the faces and passion of the designers.

Ono：Apparently, Comme des Garçons didn’t use any music at all during a number of shows prior to 1997. Then in the commission I received from Rei Kawakubo, she said that she wanted to use “sound” but not “music.” Although it was like a Zen riddle, I defined the difference between music and sound for that presentation. Since it was Comme des Garçons, the idea of sampling any old fragments from records wouldn’t do. So, I went to the trouble of recording fragments of sound. But you can’t just order musicians to play fragments at random. I wrote a score to give to the musicians, and I recorded myself at the piano to act as a guide. These, however, only included chords and a simple melody. I call this “Lurking Tonality Piano.” Ha! I wonder, can it be called an invention? Anyway, based on the piano as a guide, and with the instruction to not participate as an ensemble, I proceeded to record the musicians, one or two at a time. The musicians, however, could not hear each other. During the mix, I muted my piano. The fortuitous result contrived from this process were a couple of pieces that clearly show some tonality but without ensemble: the 9th track on the album “Jean from 3rd street” and the 11th track “John from 3rd street.” Another possible way of looking at this is wondering how actors will act after reading a film script, or in this case, the musical score. At the show, we only used fragments from these pieces. Based on this “Lurking Tonality Piano,” I also recorded a new piece—the 10th track “At long last”. I find this approach interesting, and is one that I’ve adopted again—on a synthesizer this time—for the new album that I’m producing during the current #StayHome period. 

Matsuyama：You were heavily influenced by films, or rather, it’s the foundation of your work, isn’t it?

Ono：I recorded the album Bar del Mattatoio (1994) between 1988 and 1994 in places all over the world: Sao Paulo, Rio, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, New York… In retrospect, I’m still glad I made that album. Caetano Veloso, who I love, wrote the liner notes for the album, which made it a complete work of art. The answer to your question also lies there. While I don’t compose soundtracks, I was heavily influenced by films. Films by Fellini with Nino Rota’s music, Yasujiro Ozu and others. The genre of montage recording was created with their works in mind. 

It’s also interesting to see that space-time is different between video and sound, like in films by Jean-Luc Godard. In films, there are things that aren’t shown on the screen, and there are things that are connected by sound and music to move on to the next scene. It’s like in the 1984 video work released by JVC, MANHATTAN—which has close ties to my first album, SEIGEN. When asking Masanori Sasaji to compose a piece for the opening scene, we had meetings about instrumentation and chord. My brief for the sample really went something like… the intro will be like the interval music from Death in Venice (1971) directed by Luchino Visconti (the fourth movement “Adagietto” from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5), and the rest will be like Bill Evans. Once I’d specified the worldview, or broad framework, the rest was up to the composers and musicians. Within that framework, they were given free rein. 

Matsuyama：Wow, I didn’t know I had pointed such a specific example! 

Ono：Even though it’s music, the sound created by Takemitsu feels like it is painting a scene, doesn’t it? 

Matsuyama：In his case, it’s like he’s using sound to create images. He’s a composer and a film director by trade. He doesn’t just use music written in the score, but also electronically modulates the recorded sounds to make noise, and then makes them sound like he’s making a film. And so on. He also uses a lot of environmental sounds, and in his mind, the noise is also music and images. 

Ono：Memorable among recent film scores is the score composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto for The Revenant (2016). The tremendous visual images of nature and the cold are certainly stunning, but also there’s no boundary between natural sounds and music in the soundtrack, is there? It seems they’ve also used the “Glacier” music from his Out Of Noise (2009) album. In describing the sound of Arctic glaciers and water in the liner notes, he writes, “I left various sounds based on the sound of pure water several thousand years old.” If watching the movie on a DVD or TV broadcast, these sounds get compressed using AAC and so you can’t hear the detail. While The Revenant is therefore best listened to in a good cinema, it also sounds really good on Blu-ray with a good system. There is no division between the quiet, delicate sounds of nature and the sound of the synthesizer that whooshes in behind. It was brilliant, wasn’t it?

Matsuyama：That’s true. Sakamoto is very good at blending delicate electronics with noise-like sounds from nature. He’s been consistent since the 1970s. I sense he’s been constantly thinking about the division, and the shared domain, between noise and sound. 

『20200609_HARAJUKU 2』
©Seigen Ono

Observation of music beyond the conscious and subconscious

Ono：That said, what do you imagine if you see “sound of wind,” for instance, written in the stage directions of a script? 

Matsuyama：The sound of wind… the sound of a glass window rattling, or…

Ono：Wind, you know, doesn’t really have a sound. Actual wind. Then there’s the phrase “sound of rain.” But rain doesn’t have a sound either. Same goes for “sound of waves.” At the water’s edge, or where waves break and strike the rocks, there’s the sound of sand being shuffled by the wave, right? It’s the same with wind as it hits leaves. The rustling sound we hear is that of leaves rubbing against each other. And then there’s unwanted noise, right? Since we’re doing this interview outdoors, later when you transcribe the tape, it’ll be hard to follow because of the buffeting. This buffeting is the sound of wind hitting the grille on the IC recorder’s microphone. It’s the same as the whistling noise you hear when you open your car window while driving. It’s a noise that is not needed for this interview. But the whistling noise would be OK though if the stage directions said, “Sound of wind.” Recording the sound of leaves rustling might be quite difficult. 

Matsuyama：You’ve got me worried now, so… [wraps a paper napkin from the café around the IC recorder microphone] I know how hellish it can be if you can’t transcribe from a tape because of noise. 

Ono：Just now, a plane flew overhead on the new flight path to Haneda, but we were able to continue this conversation, right? The sound of the airplane recorded on your IC recorder should be much, much louder than our voices. But we humans are able to capture sound three-dimensionally, and if our consciousness is directed here (to this conversation), in our minds, we can cancel (ignore) the surrounding sounds (noises). Machines, though, are unable to do this, so when you try to transcribe it later, only noise will be recorded, and you won’t be able to hear this critical interview! It’s called the “cocktail party effect”—the ability to focus only on what you want to hear from among multiple conversations going on at the same time at a party. Human ears are amazing, aren’t they? The ability to differentiate sounds is one we all use unconsciously.

Matsuyama：In short, the IC recorder mechanically picks up all sounds equally without distinguishing between the sounds you want to hear and the sounds around you, but in the same way, if we humans try to listen consciously to the sounds that we’ve unconsciously removed, they may become music instead of noise.

Ono：Yes, that’s it! Like the sounds of this spoon scraping against the plate of curry we’re eating now.  This is delicious! Effective sounds, you know, also influence the way we  feel about things. So, I try to sample and record these sounds as reminders of that flavor. 

Matsuyama ：Non-musical things also become instruments. 

Ono：Plates, spoons, utensils lying around the kitchen… they are in fact musical instruments. Some of my tunes that feature utensils include “Anchovy Pasta” and “Sanma Samba.” Lots of kitchen utensils produce interesting sounds. Rolling pins and chopsticks in particular know no bounds. For softly tapping a cymbal legato like a clave, chopsticks are better than drumsticks you know. And while taiko drumsticks set you back between 3 and 5 thousand yen, rolling pins are a buck a piece if you go down to Chinatown. They’ve got piles and piles of them, so you can select the ones that produce the best sound as an instrument.

Composing music like a recipe

Ono：It suddenly occurred to me yesterday, and I uploaded a piece that is going to be part of a new composition. I’ve also used three-dimensional encoding for some headphones that are under development, but hardly anyone has looked at it yet.

20200403 Seigen Ono Fragmentation 2
© Seigen Ono

Matsuyama：It’s great. It’s so vivid and heart-pounding. Seigen, you can clearly feel your sense of beauty, expression vector and emotion in this work.

Ono ：Shinya, hearing you say those words makes me happy. It’s a collage of the Manaus jungle in Brazil in 2010, the sound of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo dancers gliding across the floor of a rehearsal room in Nice in 2003, and the sound of scurrying children, combined with a variety of music tones. I feel it has a similar sensation as making pasta sauce. 

Matsuyama：The vividness reminded me of works by Chris Watson, as if the smell and humidity of the wind were almost carried by the sound. One of the founding members of Cabaret Voltaire, Watson later produced a great many of his own recordings while working as a sound recordist for the BBC in the UK. Since his time with Cabaret Voltaire, he has single-mindedly pursued answers to the questions: What is music? and What is the relationship between sound and music? There have also been a number of Japanese who have incorporated field recordings into their musical works. Key figures include Amephone and Aki Onda, who lives in New York. Always found with a cheap cassette tape recorder wherever he goes, Aki Onda records the sounds of various places, and creates collages using only those lo-fi sound sources. It’s wonderfully musical, wouldn’t you agree?

Ono：When it comes to making the most of a good opportunity, scouting for a good location and positioning your microphones are more important than any expensive mic or equipment. Rather than making a reservation and going to a three-star restaurant, you’re more likely to come across the fish of the day and have a tastier meal if you drop into that place near the fishing port where the local people go to eat. With sound and video too, it’s more about content than equipment and technology, right? What image and what sound do you want to record? Questions of the composition itself and emotional performance are absolutely more important. 

Matsuyama：These days, it feels like we’re too afraid of mistakes, errors and noise in all aspects, not just music. I think this is especially evident in Japan. And that’s despite superficial perfection having hardly any bearing on the depth and strength of art. More important than anything else is properly communicating what it is you want to convey, and the emotion that is contained within. Errors and noise will often clarify the essence of the art.

Ono：In commercial music, it’s commonplace now that everyone is always revising and correcting work recorded on computer. Personally, I think it’s just a waste of precious time. I don’t think anything is completely free of little mistakes. Rather than trying to fix them, I think that music that feels good and features emotion will ultimately be more appealing both for the players and their audience.

Seigen Ono
Seigen Ono launched his career with JCV in 1984 as composer and artist. In 1987, he became the first Japanese to sign a contract with Virgin Records (UK). He established Saidera Records in 1987, followed by Saidera Mastering in 1996. He has engaged in a wide variety of work, including joint development of acoustic technologies such as VR, acoustic space design, consulting, and more. He won the ADC Grand Prix in 2019.

Shinya Matsuyama
Born in 1958 in Kagoshima, Japan, Shinya Matsuyama is a music critic and author of The Age of Pierre Barouh and Saravah and BLIND JUKEBOX. He is also an editor of Perspectives on Progress and has co-authored numerous disc guides.

Interview Shinya Matsushima
Photography Erina Takahashi
Edit Moe Nishiyama

The post What we hear, what we can’t hear, and what we actually listen to appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Looking up, Tokyo skyline is changing. Buildings are being demolished to make way for the coming Olympics. Looking down, there is infinite information available on my phone. In these times where standing still is impossible and the days fly by so quickly, I felt something was missing. I looked around. There must something to observe. There must be a way to slow down.

An article from local paper also came back to my mind. It was about people a who listened to stones. The Anoshu are a group of stonemasons who orally passed on their technique for over 400 years. Their stone walls are made by stacking stones without shaping or altering them. The article mentioned a stonemason called Suminori Awata. I became interested in the idea of listening with stones, but I couldn’t find much information about the Anoshu and their technique.

The Anoshu lived in Anata (present-day Sakamoto, Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture) on the west shore of Lake Biwa in the province of Omi. They were skilled at naturally stacking stones without shaping them and in the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568-1600), when Oda Nobunaga heard of the engineering that prevented the stonewall at Hieizan Enryakuji from falling, he hired them to build the walls of Azuchi castle. The Awata family is the only family in Japan to have inherited the technique.

Can you hear the voice of a stone? It might sound spiritual, but this traditional technique has over 400 years of history. What sort of training did the Anoshu receive? Perhaps they have an answer to the anxiety that can be felt in a city like Tokyo. With such questions and some hope, I decided to contact Mr Awata.

Moe Nishiyama Hello, nice to meet you! The theme of our magazine is Observation. In this day and age, it has become easier and more convenient to look up for information. I think it is becoming more difficult to sharpen one’s senses and believe one’s eyes. I contacted you because I think there could be some important advice for us from the Anoshu and their 400 years of history of listening to stones. I was wondering if you could tell me more about it.

Suminori Awata Listening to stones has been passed down from previous generation 13th Anoshu head mason, Makizo Awata. First, you look at the stones and consider the type of wall you want to build. You observe and imagine. You look at a stone and think where it wants to go, and you slowly build up an image in your mind. The biggest part of our work is selecting the stones. After this step, that’s 70-80% of the job done. So how you look at a stone during that process is very important.

Nishiyama：How long do you spend selecting the stones?

Awata：It depends on the scale of the masonry, but we usually study the stone for about a day or two. If it’s a big stone wall, then it may take a week. As mentioned, the saying, listen to the stones and put them where they want to go, was passed down from the last generation. In today’s words, I think it’s close to observe carefully. Look with your own eyes and think. We call the visible side of a wall the face. Knowing the face, the vertical and horizontal sides of a wall is the most basic aspect of masonry. “Can’t you see the face?” At first, I was often scolded about it.

Nishiyama：I didn’t know that a stone wall had a face… So for you, choosing a stone, or listening to a stone means trusting in your own eyes. Is that so?

Awata：Yes. The way you choose a stone reflects your personality. For example, if my grandfather, my father and myself were each given 100 identical stones, we would build 3 different walls. It’s all about personality.

Nishiyama：Can you tell who built a wall just by looking at it?

Awata：For most of them, yes. My grandfather was quite delicate and meticulous. My father is rough around the edges. I am somewhere in between the two. My grandfather was able to draw everything in his mind. I’m not there yet, so as the scale of a project grows, I go looking for stones again and again. Every time I find one and look at it, the sketch is redrawn in my mind.

Nishiyama：What is an actually masonry drawing like?

Awata：It’s only in my head. If you intend to build a stone wall before observing the stones, you are likely to choose beautiful stones, with a pretty shape and easy to stack. But a stone wall made of beautiful stones only is not interesting at all. So, if you make a drawing beforehand, you will end up with what I call an ideal stone wall. And I am not interested in this at all.

Nishiyama：Although you have a plan in your head, you don’t try to build a nice wall. Now I’m really confused. Do you have some kind of criteria when choosing the stones?

Awata：My grandfather told me that a stone wall is like human society. There are beautiful stones, dirty stones, ugly stones. Some are big, some are small. Other are sharp, or round. The world is made up of those relationships. When I first started, I wanted to build nice walls, so I only chose beautilful stones. That’s when my grandfather told me “Would a world with beautiful women only be interesting? Who are you going to pick? If there aren’t any ugly girls out there, how will know which one is pretty?” That’s how I learned that every stone, big or small, has a role to play. Every single thing matters.

Nishiyama：That’s why, even when looking at the uneven stones piled up, there is a sense of strange harmony between them.

Awata：For example, the role of a small stone could be to make a large stone look bigger. It’s important to bring out the individuality of each stone. By placing ugly, rugged stones next to beautiful ones, you can reach a sense of beauty. By the way, it’s hard for moss to grow on a beautiful stone, but it’s easier for moss to grow on a rough stone. So, by placing beautiful and ugly stones together, I can get an idea of what the wall will look like after decades, even centuries. Also, the colors vary slightly from place to place, depending on where they come from, so I try to arrange them separately. Once you’ve piled them up, step back, and take a look. Observe the whole thing.

Nishiyama：So rather than looking at a single stone, it is important to harmonize the differences between them. Where does the ability to find the right stone come from?

Awata：At first, the job of a young child is to find a small stone to put between the large ones. Unless you walk around in the mountains all day long and search for stones, you won’t find a natural stone to fill the gap. Of course, you can cut or grind stones into a triangle and it will fit. But that’s easy. So, what is important is a good training. Our job is to handle natural stones. So if we place an altered stone, it will stand out and look unnatural.

Nishiyama：So, a perfect fit is not good enough. It’s not easy, is it?

Awata：There is a meaning to choosing a stone. It’s hard to say whether it’s a good or bad one just from its surface. I can tell when someone isn’t thinking when picking stones, and I always ask: “Are you looking at what you’re doing?”

Nishiyama：How do you feel when choosing stones? Has your training finally allowed to find the right stones?

Awata：No, it’s still a long way off. I still don’t really understand. My grandfather was a well-known Anoshu, but he kept saying: “I will train until I die.” The ultimate goal of us masonry craftsmen is that when we collect 100 stones, we will use up 100 of them, and at the end, no stones will remain. But it’s not that easy. We must train every day.

Nishiyama：It’s not important whether you chose a stone or not, but rather that all stones fit together without being chosen.

Awata：You can tell how good or bad a mason is by looking at how many stones remain once a wall is complete. You can’t have an ego. Castles and stone walls are rooted in the community, so everyone in the community should work together to build them and protect them. It’s not just a matter of good or bad skills; it’s also about making the people of the city happy.

Within an hour or two of our first meeting, I forgot how nervous I had been and got lost in the conversation with Mr Awata. The diverse collection of stones, no two of which are the same, creates a unique harmony. After this Zen-like exchange, I felt like I was catching a glimpse of the truth behind the masonry. It was still hard to believe. The work is made by human hands without any arbitrary intentions, and yet it is perfect and harmonious. Although Mr Awata looks at stones, he actually observes something much deeper: the roots of human society.

After the interview, we went out of the building. I had to look at the stone walls. I asked Mr. Awata where I could see his work. I walked up the slope in the direction of Hiyoshi Shrine, climbed up and down the steep stone stairs an kept walking along the Sakamoto approach. I can still vividly recall the view of the half-day walk along the approach to Sakamoto. Under a light cloudy gray sky, the branches stretched out in the cool, quiet air at the beginning of spring. The harmonious combination of cherry blossoms and a series of stones of various shapes and sizes, full of force, is a sight to behold. It would be a bit cliché to say that, but it was really, really beautiful. And I’ll never forget the taste of the buckwheat buns and green tea I ate halfway along the path.

Suminori Awata
15th generation stonemason of the Ano-shu Guild and president of Awata Construction Co. Spent his childhood around masonry sites around Japan, and upon graduation from junior high school, became the pupil of his grandfather, Makizo Awata, 13th head of the Ano-shu Guild. As the successor of Makizo, Suminori became head of the company at the age of 20. He is also actively involved in overseas masonry workshops.

Interview Moe Nishiyama
Photography Kazumasa Harada

The post Listen to stones appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

We now face challenging times like we have never experienced before. The ideal values held in modern society, “to consume more, faster, and something rare,” are rapidly fading away… because we can no longer practice them, even if we want to. Instead, a new value has emerged: to find greatness in the things around us. Now, movies are the best form of entertainment that modern society has produced. The characters, almost by definition, set to go on adventures, leaving behind their boring everyday life. Those adventures invariably have “faster, abundant and rare” factors. But now, we can only sigh watching such movies, because they just make us more aware of the difference with our situation. What if, instead, you watched a film in which the characters go about their daily lives, at home, in an unassuming manner? There aren’t many movies like this, but you might be able to relate to the characters and learn more from them. That’s why we picked up 10 “stay home movies” for this issue of TOKION and had a close look at their characters. Additional notes about how they live might help you find greatness in your close surroundings.

The Man Who Fell to Earth（1976）by Nicolas Roeg

But it is private

Greetings Earth people, it’s been a while! I’m Thomas Jerome Newton.
What do you mean, I died 4 years ago? Ha! That was a ruse. I simply and returned to my home planet.
I was recently on a mission to another world and decided to drop in and visit Earth, but it seems there are some unusual circumstances here. I am puzzled by the curious lack of people walking around town.
Although the best course of action would be to stop someone and ask, I’m rather well known around here. Dealing with the fuss of explaining how I’m still alive is too much bother. What should I do? I know, I’ll use the information gathering method that I used when I came here the first time. I’ll just watch T.V.
So, I intended on settling down to see what’s on the box, but there are just so many channels now! I see, they’re called streaming platforms, like Netflix, Amazon Prime or Apple TV. They’re all new names to me. All the programmes seem to have been diluted with water or something. Hmm, this Stranger Things appears to be a popular drama. As far as I can see, it’s just an unfriendly fantasy drama for children. I may as well watch a bit more. Well, it seems they had a good budget and it is certainly well made. There is a lot of detail in homage to the 80’s culture. Ah, this has brought a happy tear to this old man’s eye. I can’t stop watching, the story is so compelling and… Oh my! I’ve already watched 3 seasons!
Hmm, it’s time to get back on track. Oh, I seem to have found another interesting programme. Let’s give this Marvelous Mrs. Maisel a go. What I assumed to be a sweet and simple drama turned out to be about a housewife wanting to become a stand-up comedienne in the late 50’s. It is an ambitious work on the entertainment industry and the initial phases of counter culture. The background research into the period is perfect, with devilishly cute clothing and details!
Right, I guess it’s time to watch something other than dramas. What? Is this Tiger King really a documentary? The galaxy is a big place so it’s unusual, to say the least, to come across stranger people than these!
Well, I’m stunned! Even with my ability to watch several programmes in parallel, there is just too much on T.V. for my lifetime on this planet. I think I know why there are so few people outside. I think I’ll put off my trips to other planets for a while. I’ve got some programmes that I want to watch…

Home Alone（1990）by Chris Columbus

I made my family disappear

A child nearly caught in a Christmas robbery

2 men were arrested for breaking and entering in an upper-class Chicago suburb just after 8pm on December 25th (11am on the 26th in Japan).
According to Chicago police, the men, named Harold Lime (47) and Marvin Merchants (43), are homeless and unemployed. The pair is known to target homes vacated during Christmas vacation. Although they entered the McCallister’s residence on Lincoln Drive, they were apprehended empty-handed. The McCallister’s youngest child, Kevin (8), was mistakenly left behind but is unharmed and his parents are relieved.
A happy Kevin commented to a local media outlet:
“Because it’s Christmas I wished for my annoying family to disappear and it came true. I got to do all the things I wanted to do. I shaved my beard, jumped on the beds, and ate a takeout pizza all by myself. But I got lonely so I went to church and asked God to bring my family back. I like being by myself, but being with my family is better.”
A mystery is that although Kevin didn’t have a scratch on him, the robbers in custody were covered in injuries. In their police interview, they repeatedly moaned “that the devil did it,” but what actually happened is unknown. (John Hughes, Chicago branch office)

High Fidelity（2000）by Stephen Frears

Autobiographical

Q1 Name
Q2 Occupation
Q3 What do you do on your days off?
Q4 What do you gain from doing that?

A1: Rob Gordon
A2: Second-hand record store. Owner of Championship Vinyl.
A3: I maintain my analogue record collection at home.
A4: It isn’t good for my body, but quietly doing this work is good for my spirit. Reordering my huge record collection by genre, or thinking about the order in which I bought them brings up old memories so I can look back on my life. I regularly stand up at the thought of a past mistake only to find out that it’s already the end of the day.

Movie Selection & Text Machizo Hasegawa
Movie Capture & Design HATO PRESS
Editor Takuhito Kawashima（kontakt）, Moe Nishiyama, Victor Leclercq (kontakt)
Graphic Design　Akinobu Maeda（MAEDA DESIGN LLC）

The post An In-Depth Look at “Stay Home Movies” appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.