It’s my last day in Japan and after breakfast at my hotel I took the subway to Roppongi to visit the National Art Center- an imposing and spacious building designed by Kisho Kurokawa. I viewed an exhibition entitled Shadows, which featured works from the collections of the Japanese national museums by Japanese, European and American […]
This morning I visited NTT’s InterCommunication Center (ICC) in Shinjuku to see the exhibition Open Space 2010, which featured a number of stunning new works by Japanese media artists. I was particularly impressed by The Tenth Sentiment, a beautiful and engaging (although unfortunately unphotographable!) installation by Ryota Kuwakubo, Morel’s Panorama, by Masaki Fujihata and a […]
Yesterday afternoon I made a presentation about my early videotape and installation work to artists and art students at the National Film Center, with the help of Tokyo-based video artist Masayuki Kawai, who kindly provided an excellent live translation. After the presentation, I was able to meet a number of other video artists based in […]
After a day at Kyoto Seika looking at video work in the University’s Media Center Collection, that evening I had dinner with Prof Ina and Kyoto-based media artists Akiko Takahashi and Chie Hirano. The following morning Shinsuke and I took the train to Tokyo, working on the the book translation en route.
My morning session viewing work at the media center at Kyoto Seika was enjoyable and fruitful, and I was able to see a number of works by Japanese moving image artists relevant to my research. The highlights of the morning viewing include two pieces by Takahiko Iimura- Ayers Rock (1985) and Ma: Space-Time in the […]
I took shelter from the rain this morning in the vast hall at Nishi Hongan-Ji, and it will be my last temple visit this trip, as tomorrow I will spend the day at Kyoto Seika University, viewing tapes in the media centre in the morning and working with Shinsuke and Oha on details of the […]
There are so many extraordinary temples to visit in Kyoto. Today I visited three more in the Southern Higashiyama area of the city- Kiyomizu-Dera, Entouku-in and Kodai-Ji, with a side-trip to a little ceramics shop in between. On the way home it began to rain heavily, and peddling slowly along on my bicycle in this […]
This afternoon I spent a couple of hours at the Kyoto International Manga Museum in the centre of the city, which is run as a partnership project between the City of Kyoto and Kyoto Seika university. For the next three Saturdays the museum is hosting The Inter College Animation Festival showing the best work produced […]
I will be making a presentation about my early video work at the National Film Center at the Museum of Modern Art in Tokyo next Weds, Oct 6th from 4:00-6:00 PM, so I must leave Kyoto on Weds morning. This will give me a couple of days in Tokyo in which to interview Michael Goldberg […]
Its hot again today, and my pace along the Kamo-gawa was definitely slower as a result. I cycled north, down beyond Kyoto train station to the Temple at To-Ji. There is a five-storey pagoda there- the tallest in Japan! After lunch I crossed the river to see the Zen temple at Tofuku-Ji. This temple complex […]