Recently retrieved photos and documents have shed some light on a previously mysterious period in my Grandfather’s early life. After leaving the army he traveled to Canada to find work in 1922 and planned to establish himself there before sending for his wife and young son (my Uncle Jack- now 89!), but after several years […]
On Monday, Oct 18th I visited Down House to discuss my on-going project to produce a time-lapse web-based installation at Charles Darwin’s former home in rural Kent. I met with Rowan Blaik, head gardener at Down House to discuss the next phase of the project. We have agreed that I will install some cameras to […]
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 […]