Y'know - interviews with the famous

Glenn Tipton, guitarist

2012-01-13T17:04:00.001Z

Back in 2001, I interviewed legendary Judas Priest axeman Glenn Tipton about a forthcoming trip to Japan. The interview was by telephone and lasted about 26 minutes, during which he clocked up a grand total of 46 y'knows, a rate of 1.76 per interview minute.

Glenn Tipton Interview

CBL: Hello...Hello.

GT: Hello. It's C.B.Liddell, right?

CBL: That's right. Is that Glenn Tipton?

GT: It certainly is.

CBL: It's an honour to speak to you.

GT: It's an honour to speak to you.

CBL: This is a piece I'm doing for the Asahi Shimbun International Herald Tribune here in Japan.

GT: OK.

CBL: And...well, I'll just get on with it then.

GT: Alright then.

CBL: OK, when was the last time you were in Japan?

GT: It was about three years ago. I'm not very good on dates, but round about three, three and a half years ago, I believe.

CBL: You did some gigs then?

GT: Yeh, I think we did about six dates.

CBL: Uhuh, so quite similar to this time?

GT: That's right.

CBL: OK, now with regard to the forthcoming trip, how do you feel about coming to Japan, and what are you looking forward to?

GT: Well, Japan's always been the sort of country, y'know... The kids there are real loyal supporters of Judas Priest and they've been with us right from the start and so we love the people, and we always look forward to coming back to Japan. It's just a joy to play for the Japanese fans.

CBL: Do you ever get much time to see the country?

GT: Sometimes. I mean we've played Japan a lot and there have been times when I've got a chance to go to Kyoto, y'know, the old capital. I used to collect Japanese pottery so I spent many happy hours browsing round there, but normally we don’t get a lot of spare time. We're in and we do the gig and we're out the next day which is a shame.

CBL: Yeh. So, you're on a tight leash this time?

GT: Pretty so much...

CBL: So?

GT: We see a lot of the bullet train though.

CBL: Sorry?

GT: We see a lot of the bullet train.

CBL: Oh yeh, you're doing Nagoya and Osaka and...

GT: That's right. We've passed Mt Fuji lots of time on the bullet train.

CBL: Uhu. So, it seems that heavy metal/hard rock is still very popular in Japan, much more so than in Britain. Also, nowadays, like, y'know, Britain used to produce most of the great heavy metal/ hard rock bands, which are mainly American now. Why do you think hard rock music's declined in the UK?

GT: I don't think it's declined as much as changed. I think it's going to, I think, to New Age metal. Has South America, really. Europe is still pretty big. Europe itself, Germany and Spain, Italy and France, and we've just been in Scandinavia and it was just fantastic, y'know. So there are pockets of heavy metal fanatics still left. I just think Japan has always been loyal to metal and just appreciated it for what it is. I mean Priest, although we've been around for 30 years, we have evolved a lot so I think that's why we're still around. Our music's still got classic undertones of metal but we have progressed a lot, and we've been fairly brave on some of the albums so I think that people understand that.

CBL: I would say that it's a bit more marginal than when you started out in Britain anyway.

GT: Marginal? In what way?

CBL: I mean like most of the new bands which come through in Britain are into much lighter styles of music. Like even rock music, there're bands like Travis and so on which play this very delicate rock music rather than the real heavy stuff.

GT: Well, I mean, we've always been… tried to be heavy metal. Some bands try to avoid the type of heavy metal because they feel it's dated. But in our case I don't think... I think Priest are a unique band. It's got a unique character in its music and therefore we've existed quite easily in the ever-changing, y'know, backdrop of heavy metal and I think that the fact that we genuinely love heavy metal and we genuinely love Priest music is what's carried us through. We don't just go on stage and go through the motions. We really love what we do and we've always believed in it and stayed faithful to it. I think people respect that.

CBL: Yeh, em, I've always thought of heavy metal as a very industrial working class kind of music. Do you think so too?

GT: I think whatever, y'know... It appeals to the masses. I don't know whether you come from the upper or lower or middle classes. I think that it's got a wide appeal. Y'know I was born in an industrial area. Priest came from Birmingham. I worked for British Steel for years. Y'know, I think it was a good thing. It gave me the determination to break out of there, so I think what it does do is give you a lot of determination. In our case definitely we were influenced by the Black Country sky so to speak. But for the kids, I think it's got a wide appeal, and, no matter what walk of life you come from, there's always someone in it who knew it.

CBL: So, OK, it's still very valid for people from, y'know, a more privileged background or like a less working class background?

GT: I think it's right across the board. It appeals to all classes.

CBL: I'm sort of still amazed that you're doing these very heavy touring schedules and at your age you've still got the energy, the aggression, the hunger, and indeed the stamina to keep it up. How do you manage to do that?

GT: Again, I just think it's a belief in the music. I've got more enthusiasm than ever, and I surprise myself sometimes. But I think it's deep down, it's quite honestly just the fact that we love Priest music and we love what we do, and, as long as you're enjoying it, it gives you the enthusiasm. So I think it's that combination really that drives us on.

CBL: So, on the new album, Demolition, I was looking at the lyrics of In Between. It kind of sounded a little bit like a kind of middle age song or a kind of song of male menopause or confusion because of all the contradictions...

GT: I'm not sure it's a middle aged song. It's a song that I think is very appropriate for the younger generation because I think a lot of people nowadays are lost, y'know, they're 'in between,' y'know, they're not one thing or another, or sometimes they are in between and sometimes they're not. It's just a, y'know, I'm either polite or obscene or I'm nowhere in between, so it's just as though an appropriate song for the confusion that you're getting more, I would have said, in adolescent years, not knowing where you're going. I mean so many people go to university and study something that they never use again. It's a part of life where you sort yourself out. But it's a good message really in the sense I would say it's trying to tell you to focus on things, but it's just pointing out maybe that a lot of people maybe don't round about that age. It's just a little bit of, well, advice in a sense. It's just a [lacuna] in that area.

CBL: Would you say that society's becoming more like that, where people are left not really knowing what they’re there for?

GT: I think absolutely. Today's society is an ever-changing...particularly with recent events as well, but nobody really knows where they stand, what the future holds, and sometimes it's good to talk these things through, and I think that In Between sort of sums that up from my point of view, anyway.

CBL: One of the key things in heavy metal is its uncompromising stance so that seems to be something which doesn’t really sort of fit in with the modern world where people are constantly having to adjust themselves and assume certain kinds of faces.

GT: I think our music and our lyrics... I mean there are serious elements in there. There are with Priest a lot of tongue-in-cheek lyrics and we've always had a sense of humour woven in there, which is essential really because you can't take yourself too seriously. I mean, you can stand on a soapbox and say whatever you like, but there's only certain people going to appreciate it, understand it, or agree with you, and so many people are going to disagree so you can't really put yourself on that platform and believe that what you've got to say is right or wrong, but you can voice opinion and as long as you don't do it all too seriously I think that there's some good in that, and that's what I try to do lyrically is broach some of our opinion without pushing it down people's throats and still try and maintain a lighter side in there. I think that's essential.

CBL: So, when you're writing lyrics, I mean, how much of the lyrics do you actually completely subscribe to or believe in?

GT: I believe in everything really, but I mean a lot of the lyrics you don't have to believe in. A lot are make belief, y'know, like Metal Messiah or Jekyll and Hyde, y'know, they're just fun lyrics. There's a message, like, in One On One, which is just about, again, the music today, to give some determination and strength for the ups and downs, to pick yourselves up, focus, and get going. So, in a sense, when it's an issue like that, I try, y'know, and make that serious because it's only going to do good. We've never written lyrics that encourage people to do bad things anyway, so, in that way, we're pretty conscientious.

CBL: I've always thought, like, that Heavy metal is a music of extremes. The themes are destruction and horror and the Devil – things like that – and I've always thought that maybe this somehow reflected the horror of nuclear destruction that used to hang over the World during the Cold War year and, of course, that's all finished now, so what gives you that sense of rage and horror when you're writing lyrics now?

GT: We don't really write about things like that. The problem with heavy metal is it's its own worst enemy. There are a lot of bands out there who look for sensationalism, y'know, and they look for extremes and unfortunately we get tarred with the same brush, but if you look back at our lyrics, y'know [lacuna] but at the same time our lyrics have never been, y'know... If it's about battles, it's about star battles and futuristic battles, and, y'know, it can be what you want it to be. Unfortunately there are a lot of bands out there who do specialize in horrific lyrics bit we're not one of them, and I think we do get tarred with the same brush, but I mean if people delve into our lyrics I think they'll see that our lyrics are harmless, but interesting and very current in places, and they should be entertaining really. Y'know, lyrics aren't just words for a song. They should have some interest going for them, and they can be as evil as you want them to be, but in our case we've never believed in those extremes.

CBL: So you're saying that the lyrics, it's a bit like the Rocky Horror Picture Show: it's a bit of fun; it's a bit tongue-in-cheek; it’s a bit Halloweeny? Is that right?

GT: Well, our lyrics cover many subjects, y'know, on this album I mean. For example Hell Is Home. It's got the word "Hell" in, but, if you listen to the lyrics of that song, it's not about Hell at all. What it's about is again finding your level in life. If you aim too high then you're not going to be successful in that particular level, but if you're realistic and set your sights a little bit lower, on that level in life you can be somebody, so it's all about finding your position in life...

CBL: It's about someone having their basic integrity and not trying to pretend to be something they're not?

GT: That's right, and I mean it's got the word Hell in but it's not really about Hell at all so, y'know, sometimes you can read the title and, unless you actually listen to the lyrics, you can get the wrong impression.

CBL: Do you think it's misleading then to put, to slap that title on it 'cos people will start thinking, "Oh, great – Hell is home! This is the Devil and everything"?

GT: I don't think it's misleading at all if you read the lyrics, and I think the kids have got far more intelligence than people give them credit for, y'know. They don't just go "Mwwah, Hell is home! Bwoah!" y'know. They do listen to the lyrics, and if there's something to be got from them, they get it, y'know. You can say that about any song really. You could read it, I mean, we know more than anything, but, y'know, then you get taken to the... It's a subliminal title, y'know, so you can't win really. If you're in a heavy metal band, people often say to me, "Oh, you write about demons and black magic," and I say. "No, we don't," but, y'know, I can't really blame them for thinking that because, y'know, heavy metal has got a lot of bands in that do specialize in that and that's quite OK if that's what they want to do. I've got an open mind. My son's 15. He doesn't, y'know... He's not brainwashed by any means. He picks and chooses what he likes...

CBL: What does he like listening to them?

GT: ...and he switches off what he doesn't want to listen to, and if he likes them, he likes them. They choose what they like and what's good and bad. They're, y'know, more intelligent than people think, I mean, kids are probably far more intelligent than what the adults, y'know. They're certainly more astute at working out what's good and bad.

CBL: What sort of music is your son into then?

GT: He's into new age metal, y'know. He likes all the bands that are out there at the moment, yeh, the Limp Biscuits, the, em... But he's also... I mean, I suppose he's a little bit influenced by me. He's got an open mind and he'll accept anything, y'know, if it's good.

CBL: So, he's got quite diverse musical tastes?

GT: Yeh, I think he's got every band that [lacuna] there at the moment, but he changes on a monthly basis, and, y'know, he's only searching for something new to listen to.

CBL: So, what are your thoughts on the current state of the music scene?

GT: I think it's good. I think it's interesting. I think it's more visual at the moment than anything else, but there are some great bands out there, and I think, y'know, it's a necessary thing to evolve and change. It keeps the whole heavy metal scene interesting or it can be very stagnant. It can be very old-fashioned and when things evolve, good things come from it. I mean some bands fall by the wayside, but the stronger bands or the more talented bands are still up there, and they've got a lot to offer for quite a long time. I think if you've been around a long time, it proves that you've done a lot of things right and you have got something to offer that people want.

CBL: Which bands do you particularly like at the moment?

GT: Em, System of a Down. System of a Down are pretty unique. Looking at what's out there at the moment, a lot of it sounds the same. I'm not – although I've tried to get into it – I'm not particularly into rap metal at all but there are certain bands that stand head and shoulders above the rest. I checked System of a Down. I particularly like the singer. I think he's got a unique voice.

CBL: Yeh, I think there's a bit too much rap metal going on at the moment.

GT: Um, I wouldn't say there's too much. If there's a demand for it then the kids obviously like it. As for my preferences, I don't dislike... But I think some bands actually pull it off, and, again, if the lyrics have got something to say or are funny, y'know, or are amusing or entertaining, then that's fine. So often I think they're mundane lyrics with very little meaning.

CBL: Yes, that's often the case because they spit them out. And also they're often singing over something so there's less of that kind of organic interplay between singer and guitar and drummer and bass player, so I think they lose out a bit there as well... OK, talking about the music evolving, you had that very major change in Judas Priest when Rob left, and people are still sort of digesting that. It's been digested through the cinema as well, apparently. What do you think about the recent movie Rock Star and how much of the Ripper's story is in there?

GT: Very little actually. We've sort of kept our distance from it. They did ask us to write some music for it, but when we saw its format we decided... Definitely the only factor that's true in there is a guy from a tribute band joining the real thing, and, well, after that, they've just gone off on a Hollywood trail. We thought that if we got too involved with the film people might mistakenly think it was the story of Ripper Owens. It just isn't! It just isn't! So we've just distanced ourselves from it.

CBL: Do you think that the controversy it's generated has sort of got you back in the media spotlight to a certain degree, and it's been useful in that respect?

GT: Not particularly because what we're trying to do is show that the film has nothing to do with us. Unfortunately a lot of people think it has because they bought the story from the New York Times. [lacuna] joining the band but we [lacuna], y'know, so we just tried to keep as far away from it as possible.

CBL: I was reading somewhere that you're not too keen to sort of focus on the past and things like that, but still I want to ask you anyway what are the main differences between Rob and Ripper as singers for you.

GT: Um, it's a difficult question to answer because they've both got their own characteristics but they're both Judas Priest singers. What really surprises me about Ripper is the fact that he... Over the last two albums, I've helped him to find his own character and style, which there is an immense amount within him. He's very versatile, very flexible, and keen to develop his own character, but the thing that's amazed me is that it's still Judas Priest, so at the end of the day I'd say there's very little difference between them. They're absolutely perfect to sing for Judas Priest.

CBL: You'd say they're both equally as good?

GT: Oh yes. Yes, I would think so. Yeh.

CBL: There must be some differences like, y'know, they must have different strengths or weaknesses.

GT: There are different characters in the voice, but, as I say, it's still, y'know, acceptable in Judas Priest, and that's the thing that amazes me, 'cos with Ripper we found new routes to go down but once it's all done and dusted, recorded, it's just so appropriate for Priest and there's no real definition of why. That's just the way it is, which is it's a small miracle really that we found Ripper.

CBL: People are bound to harp on about Rob for quite a while. What do you think it'll actually take for them to forget about that whole question and to sort of just concentrate on the band as it is now?

GT: I don't think the subject will ever drop, y'know. I think it will always be there and will always be old.

CBL: So, you're quite happy to live with that then?

GT: Absolutely, yeh.

CBL: So, you've changed an important member in Rob and, of course, you’ve been through quite a few drummers as well, and would it be possible for Judas Priest to keep going even after you leave the band, y'know? Do you think that would ever be possible?

GT: I've really no idea if another key member left, the band would continue or not. Um, I've never even thought about it yet. It hasn't crossed my mind because I don't see any point where I will leave the band. Until we lose the energy and enthusiasm that we've got at the moment, and then I think it is time to give up, y'know. If you're just going through the motions and just going out there for the dollars – or yen perhaps as I should say in Japan – but I just don't think it's right to carry on. It must be very soul destroying to go out there and play when you're not enjoying it, y'know; just for the money.

CBL: Well, you don't really need the money, do you?

GT: I'm never going to say I don't need any more money. There are always good things to do with money but money isn't the issue, y'know. The issue is enjoying your music and going out there for the fans because, y'know, they've been so loyal throughout the years and they deserve it. They deserve their just reward.

CBL: So, what is the essence of Judas Priest? Is it something greater than its sum parts?

GT: Em, I think Priest is an institution in a sense. It's been around for a long time and people... We're a yardstick really. People, they wait for our next album. Whether it's to criticize it, they still wait for it, and, because we've done over 15 albums, people have got a lot of regard for us. A lot of the younger bands at one time or another have done a Priest song, and they respect us, and we respect them as well, so, I think, at the end of the day, y'know, we're looked to with respect and that's something I'm very proud of. I think that, y'know, most bands out there have got a lot of good things to say about Priest, and, again, that's something I’m very proud of because it means a lot to us.

CBL: What's your favourite track on the new album and why?

GT: I think Hell Is Home for the reasons I said that it's all about finding your level in life so it's...

CBL: I'm sorry, I didn't hear what you said.

GT: Hell Is Home for the reasons that I've already stated. I think it's all about finding your own level in life and trying not to bite off more than you can chew just to get it right, and if you get it right you can be somebody. I think it’s a good sentiment.

CBL: I particularly like the lyrics on Cyberface. I thought they were quite, eh...

GT: Ehhh, Scott [Travis] was involved in the lyrics on that track as well, the drummer, so I think it’s very current really, y'know.

CBL: Sorry?

GT: Very current the lyrics on Cyberface.

CBL: Yeh

GT: [lacuna] computers

CBL: So, part of your attempt to always keep Priest up to date? Is that right?

GT: I suppose it is in a sense, but I mean I think you're [lacuna] just keeping your ear to the ground, not really trying to do it or contriving it, just being, moving ahead and trying to progress which is what we’ve tried to do

CBL: Yeh. Em, could I ask you a little bit about where you are right now?

GT: I'm at home.

CBL: In England?

GT: Yeh.

CBL: Yeh. Oh, 'cos I was half expecting that you'd be in Sweden or somewhere

GT: No. We've just finished over there. We just got back, well, yesterday.

CBL: Mmmh.

GT: Doing Scandinavia for about three weeks.

CBL: And how was that?

GT: Fantastic. It was... The people there are so much, so much into metal, y'know. They're so enthusiastic. It was great. It was a fantastic...

CBL: They've still got that Viking mentality, haven't they?

GT: I don't know whether it's Viking, but it's certainly totally into metal and it was just really enjoyable to do.

CBL: Where is home at the moment? I mean, I don't know where...

GT: I'm in Worcestshire.

CBL: Mmm?

GT: Worcestershire, yeh.

CBL: Leicestershire?

GT: Yeh.

CBL: OK, well, thank you for speaking to me this morning.

GT: It's been a pleasure, C.B.

CBL: Hope to see you in the future sometime.

GT: OK.

CBL: OK, thanks a lot. Goodbye.

GT: Bye bye.

Seiko Mikami, media artist

2011-11-13T09:28:00.002Z

On the 5th of November, 2011, I had a short telephone interview with the Japanese 'media artist' Seiko Mikami for an article I was writing about her exhibition, "Desire of Codes," which was being held at the NTT InterCommunication Center in Tokyo. While the mere layman might find her English difficult to understand, I am an expert in understanding Japanese English so her meaning was clear to me throughout the interview.

SM: Hai? Moshi moshi.

CBL: Hello.

SM: Moshi moshi.

CBL: Hello. Is that Seiko Mikami?

SM: Yeh.

CBL: Hi, this is Colin Liddell.

SM: Aha!

CBL: I'm phoning on behalf of the Japan Times about your exhibition.

SM: Ah, yeh yeh yeh yeh, ICC's Hatanaka emailed me about you.

CBL: Yeh.

SM: Yeh, yeh, OK.

CBL: I'd just like to...

SM: I'm sorry. I'm now in Yamaguchi prefecture...

CBL: I understand.

SM: ...working on my new piece.

CBL: Uhu.

SM: So now it's really critical condition so I cannot answer your question sorry, but I have... If you want to know a couple of things, I have time, like 30 minutes.

CBL: Sorry.

SM: I have time.

CBL: Uhu.

SM: 30 minutes only.

CBL: OK. I probably don't need that much time.

SM: OK.

CBL: So, just a few questions.

SM: OK. You already saw it my piece?

CBL: Oh yes.

SM: At the ICC, and Hatanaka, curator Hatanaka told you about...

CBL: Yes, he explained some of the points.

SM: Aha!

CBL: Em, could I just ask you, first off, is your work designed to give us a kind of foretaste of artificial intelligence?

SM: I think I'm not using, I'm not interested artificial intelligence so much actually.

CBL: Uhu.

SM: Aha, and then, uhmm, this "Desire Code" is not hardware, more like information oriented society, I express. For example, ah y'know, not machine have desire anymore like the security camera or y'know... These things are metaphor for information oriented society. So your name is Colin?

CBL: Yeh.

SM: Colin. So if I type it your name Colin whatsaname...

CBL: My full name?

SM: Your full name then something appear y'know like your information inside a social network things.

CBL: Yeh.

SM: Where you work it, where you bought it this book or sometimes something, right?

CBL: Yeh.

SM: And this all information, I mean for more... For example, you have social security number, maybe United States, right?

CBL: Ah, well, UK – yes.

SM: Yeh, UK, or some kind of number of calls, elect sometime very your income or y'know your all information this year.

CBL: Yeh?

SM: So your are... We are living in this kind of world for information oriented society, so if I type it your name so I can see your figure, what kind of y'know people are you, no?

CBL: Yeh.

SM: Then so, other hand, I'm talking to you by phone but real you is in there, right?

CBL: Umhu.

SM: There is two kind of, uh, you in this world. One is information, inside information, one is real.

CBL: Yeh.

SM: Do you understand? And so, it's OK, for example some... I bought it a teddy bear for my friend to birthday, right?

CBL: Mmhh.

SM: Through Amazon dot com. So Amazon dot com tracking me OK, This Seiko Mikami is likes teddy bear y'know some kind of.

CBL: Yes.

SM: And then they are sending over and over to me, OK if you like teddy bear y'know teddy bear likes people buy this book, blah blah blah. Do you know this system, right?

CBL: Yeh. I'm very familiar with that, yeh.

SM: Ya ya [***lacuna***] but anyway I don’t like teddy bear. Just I bought it for my friend, right?

CBL: So it's like... You're interested in how people's, em, sort of information selves will become distorted and different from who they really are?

SM: Ya ya or sometimes this information may be real you or... It depends the people, right?

CBL: Yeh, but of course, e-every single person knows several other people and all those other people have, uh, a kind of image of that person so doesn't that mean every person exists in many maybe hundreds or even thousands of different kind of versions.

SM: Uhu, yah. So, but especially this information world, I mean, for we are living in such a like iPhone or PC or this kind of world. It's more different type. For example my friend has lots of blog stff, right?

CBL: Uhu.

SM: Her blog is pretty famous so now, she, her act, action is, 'OK I have to see this movie or I have to eat this dinner because of this blog.' Not she decide. Because she has blog or a blogger things to make decision. Such things. So I am talking about more like this and then this desire code, y'know, if you are inside everything recorded.

CBL: Ah.

SM: Your face is recorded because this is three parts. One is wall have like really small camera to catch you, right? And then so and then this arm catching you also and then there is also microphone inside this room and all, y'know, conversations is recorded right? And then...

CBL: But your installation is not really capturing information is it? It's more of a kind of tacti... Well, sort of a sensory response. It's not...

SM: Yeh yeh.

CBL: There's no specific, eh, uh, information that's connected to the person.

SM: If specific it's illegal. Anyway this fragment...

CBL: Yes.

SM: ...this fragment of information, catch this and then if you are outside this sensor area, just for keeping tracking you to again, It is recording stuff to show it to people. You see this circle?

CBL: Umhuh.

SM: Fifty...sixty-one kind of compound eyes that...

CBL: Yeh.

SM: [***lacuna***] the screen. You see, right?

CBL: It's, it’s sort of reminded me of some of the kind of science fiction movies like uh well Solaris or 2001...

SM: Yeh, yeh.

CBL: ...where you have this this computer which has...

SM: ...like 1984 or...

CBL: ...which starts to develop its own kind of intelligence and will...

SM: Yeh, yeh, exactly. Anyway...

CBL: I thought, I thought you were trying to give people a kind of, y'know, impression of how artificial intelligence might seem in the future when, when machines and computers...

SM: OK.

CBL: ...will be more powerful and possibly more self-motivated than they are now.

SM: I am really question about technology... So, like more critical.

CBL: Yeh.

SM: Cristicize. Either way, y'know, like become bigger things. On the other hand it's really critical for the humans...

CBL: Could I say you're pessimistic about technological development? Do y... You see lots of dangers?

SM: Pessimist and optimist, both.

CBL: Umhu.

SM: It's not either side. It's not like doing a wrestling. I mean more we are living between worlds...

CBL: Umh.

SM: ...so that, that's my position - two: sometimes AI is good, sometimes AI is scares, y'know.

CBL: Uhu.

SM: It's not so... It's not... [***lacuna***] art is just reflection of society, right? Now too I think. That's why I express this installation, big interactive installation to be... I am thinking about right now of my, our society, yeh?

CBL: Uhu.

SM: So it's not either side, so just reflection through my brain.

CBL: Yeh.

SM: Uhu...so, is that answer to you?

CBL: Well, uh, uh, I was just, uh, interested, eh, in another aspect, because usually this kind of technological area, it's usually associated with the kind of otaku or male geeks and otakus...

SM: Yeh, yeh!

CBL: ...and, and you're a female artist so why are you attracted to the technological art because...

SM: This is a kind of really strange question, y'know.

CBL: Umh?

SM: Strange question.

CBL: Why?

SM: Lots of female doing media art also. Lots of female in Japan have the same kind of mathematics or computer, or it's a lot of people are interesting right now.

CBL: I just thought being a woman might give you a different way of thinking about technology than a man because usually y'know technology's very associated with the male mentality, and when a woman is also interested in technology how does that, eh, effect the equation?

SM: Uhu. OK. But I'm not like that. I mean I don't think about that [***lacuna***] female or male... Also, all my pieces using eye-tracking or gravicells series about gravity, more like... Even I don’t... It doesn’t matter to Asia or it doesn't matter to area to... It doesn't matter to black and white or doesn't matter to female, male.

CBL: You say that, you say that, but I also, I also found out that the exhibition, eh, which is being shown around Japan also travelled internationally. It didn't travel to, say, Africa or South America. It went to Germany. So it went to a very technological... It went from a technological country to a technological country, so there are certain countries that are much more technological and the people are much more technologically inclined, aren't they?

SM: Yeh. No, no, I mean talking about my, my piece, my concept...

CBL: Mmm.

SM: ...of my piece is always using eye-tracking .

CBL: Yeh.

SM: ...[***lacuna***] or human-like eye to eye or just walking through to [***lacuna***] to gravity.

CBL: Yeh.

SM: I mean so like more universal things I use.

CBL: Well, aspects of humanity?

SM: It don’t matter to female, male, or Asian.

CBL: Yeh, well everybody has eyes, yeh?

SM: Uhu.

CBL: So, as long as people have eyes your eye-tracking art is obviously relevant to that, to every human being.

SM: Yeh, I'm not so using for this female or Asian. Normally a lot of Asian artists do...

CBL: Yeh.

SM: ...the cultural stuff, but I don’t do that...

CBL: But also if you're doing eye-tracking, you must notice there are differences between what men look at and what women look at, aren't there?

SM: Aaah, but eye-tracking I'm not using for real pictures, I mean more eye can make objects, this kind of stuff, yeh.

CBL: Mm? Sorry.

SM: My Eye [***lacuna***] maybe… Are you living in Tokyo now?

CBL: Yes.

SM: OK, so maybe this December 9th I will show also ICC one piece of eye-tracking at theatre A.

CBL: Uhu. Oh good, I should try to mention that in the article then.

SM: Yeh, yeh, so, anyway, uhhh, my piece doesn't matter so much female or male.

CBL: Umhu.

SM: Like, sorry about that.

CBL: Oh no, I'm just, y'know, the key point would be what people look at and people look at different things connected to their interest and motivations.

SM: Uhu.

CBL: But your art doesn’t look at that.

SM: I don’t care about that.

CBL: Uhu. OK.

SM: Yeh. Very unusual, yeh?

CBL: Yeh?

SM: I don’t know.

CBL: OK, let’s see, em.

SM: It’s Ok?

CBL: Yeh, I think that's plenty of material for my article actually, so I don't think I really have to, y'know, em, spend any more of your time because I have a lot of information to give the reader already.

SM: That's good.

CBL: OK. Thank you very much for your time.

SM: Thank you very much, so keep in touch.

CBL: OK, I will. Goodnight.

SM: Bye!

Miya Ando, artist

2011-10-09T09:22:00.002+01:00

I interviewed the artist Miya Ando by telephone on the 12th of September, 2011. She was in California, where she was anodysing some of her metal sculptures. We talked for around 40 minutes, mainly about her recentlty unveiled London memorial to the victims of the 9-11 attack and about her connections with Japan. Here are the first 25 minutes of the interview, during which she produced a commendable 22 y'knows.

MA: Hello

CBL: Hello, is that Miya Ando?

MA: Yes, it is. Is this Colin-san?

CBL: Yes, Colin here.

MA: Hello.

CBL: Nice to speak to you.

MA: Likewise. Nice to speak to you. Thank you so much for your calling.

CBL: Yeh, yes. You seem to be quite, quite busy, moving from, between different time zones. I mean a few days ago you were in London and then back to New York and then you’re in California now, and soon I think you'll be in Tokyo, won't you?

MA: Yes I will, but, y'know, first I have to go to Korea and Seattle, so I am a nomad at the moment I think. [laughs]

CBL: How is that effecting, effecting your work?

MA: Well y'know before I left for London, I was very, very busy making all of the work for the Tokyo show and also for Korea, which is, em, an outdoor public piece, and also for Seattle, so I was doing a kind of [*lacuna*] art making this very, very busy, but actually between the time... In October and November I am going to be, em, doing some more of my aluminium works...

CBL: Yeh.

MA: ...that I do, em, in a facility in Santa Barbara California, so I have a little [*lacuna*] where that I can do the anodysing stuff, the new stuff.

CBL: Yeh, cos I mean, your art, em, it's quite different from somebody who's just doing sketches. It's very dependent on, eh, having the space and the materials, all ready and to hand, isn't it?

MA: That's true, but, y'know, while if I have to be travelling I usually bring something like drawings or some little things that I can work on because, y'know, even though I [*lacuna*] the metalwork, I also do a lot of work, small, middle, y’know, I work with little light things and some drawings. I put forth some scrawls and things that y'know I repetitively write things like prayers and things like that. Yeh, so I do... I've got sort of my art practice that I work on when, even if I'm not in my New York studio.

CBL: Uhuh. Now, um, like to, em, go back a few days to when you were in London and the 9-11 memorial. Em, how did that come about? Why were you, eh, selected out for what is quite a, obviously, eh, a kinda high profile thing because I mean, uh, at the unveiling there were... The mayor was there and, y'know, a few other dignitaries.

MA: Oh yes. Yes, yes. I have to say I was not the first choice.

CBL: Sorry.

MA: I was not the first choice for the 9-11 London Foundation. It is... The 9/11 London is a non-profit group that commissioned me to do the sculpture. The first person they approached was Richard Serra and he said no. [laughs]

CBL: Uhu.

MA: And then in London they met with Anish Kapoor's agent and Anish Kapoor's agent said he was interested in it but he didn't want to use the World Trade Centre steel, and the whole project was based upon the fact that the September 11 London Foundation had received... They had written to the Port Authority and they had gotten permission to receive [*lacuna*] really a piece of the World Trade Centre Steel to utilize for a memorial.

CBL: Aha.

MA: So after those two very famous artists who, y'know, they are my heroes of art. Those are two of my most favourite artists.

CBL: Yeh.

MA: The, um, London Foundation called up the September 11 Tribute Centre, which is just across the street from Ground Zero in downtown New York.

CBL: Uhuh.

MA: When they called the Tribute Centre, the man who was the head of that organization was a fire-fighter and his name was Lee Ielpi, and Lee Ielpi just by coincidence, but by chance had been, had known of my work because of a public commission, a small public commission that I did for a non-denominational chapel in Brooklyn.

CBL: Yeh.

MA: So, he had known my name and although I was nowhere near establishment... Really, just in 2009, when the London people called him, y'know, I'm an emerging artist, so he said, "You may want to look at this young lady because she works with steel and she's from a Buddhist family and, y'know, she's from a steel family," and, and, um, so the London Foundation, I get a call from them. I got an email which is followed up by an immediate call, and they just said if you had the opportunity to work with World Trade Centre Steel what would you do? And I said I would leave it exactly the way that I found it, but I would sand it to a near finish, and would reveal something that was very, very refined inside of this rusty steel and I... It would be a meditation, and, um, they said, "OK – meet us at the Hangar 17, which is a giant hangar out at JFK Airport in New York, and, um, you can select a piece. You're our girl. You are our perfect artist. We can’t think of anyone else. We’re going to give you an opportunity to do this project." So they selected me, and then, y’know, it was a week later when I went to JFK, and I looked through all the 2,000 pieces of steel that they had saved there.

CBL: What were you... When you were selecting the piece of steel, what were you actually looking for? Did you have any kind of, em, sort of notion of what, what would work or, em...

MA: You see because I have been an artist who has been refining the surface of steel and metals and using them as [*lacuna*] works like a painting, but... I [*lacuna*] sanding and polishing, and working with fire and chemicals to create the very highly finished steel surfaces out of steel plates and steel sheets for several years, so when I saw the piece what I selected, it was three columns that were connected by a very big plate, and that plate folded over when it fell down and it fell about seventy stories – seven zero stories – from the World Trade Centre, but when I saw the plate, I thought that plate, I can polish that plate, I can treat that plate just like the other steel plates that I’ve been working on and sand it down and finish it so that it looks transparent, or it becomes a mirror, and it becomes very light and ethereal, and hopefully that will communicate an idea of transcendence and ascension in this tragedy, so I really, when I saw this, um, y'know, very tall... It's about thirty feet tall are the columns but as, y'know, the whole outside, the whole exoskeleton of the World Trade Centre was comprised of these columns and these big flat plates that connected the columns, and I didn't change the form. I just kept it exactly as I found it. All I did was polish it and sand it down. It didn't [*lacuna*] subtract anything from the form. So, I looked at it sort of as a continuation of my studio practice, just on a really huger scale, y’know.

CBL: Yeh. Em, also the Mayor Boris Johnson he was making a speech at the unveiling I think and he, em, he referred to, em, sort of conspiracy theories about 9-11 and how this foundation is trying to sort of counter that. I was wondering if there is any tie-in there, because your piece of work, it's sort of, em, reflecting like light in what can sometimes be a kind of murky area cos there are a lot of theories out there, and there's a lot of disbelief about what actually happened on 9-11.

MA: Yes, Yes, it's very, um, it's, it's very, um, very sensitive and complex, um. I thought that it was, um... Well, my intention was to put forth the steel at least as a relic of the tragedy, to put that object forth in a truthful manner, and, and that's the reason why I didn't want to unbend it or attach any other new materials. I really wanted to look within the material itself, to remove the rust and to try to create something that would put forth and redirect light to the viewers really in the hope that, um, that object would look transformed and would be a poem or metaphor for perhaps finding something within the tragedy that could become [*lacuna*] for peace, and this I did for the families and for those who perished in the tragedy, but also as, y'know, a symbol for this educational program. I don't know if it is, um, possible for a sculpture and the educational program to, um, counter any of these conspiracy theories, but I do, um, have hopes that this sculpture as an object, as a symbol for the educational program that teaches children about tolerance and about many different religions and many different views and how we can, em, get along with one another, that I think, ah, the reverberations of having education, uh, educational policy could very well promote peace and, um, understand… more, a deeper understanding of one another in the name of not letting something or this kind of tragedy occur again, so, I, I can't really, because...

CBL: So...

MA: I don't, y'know, I can't... I felt my, my role was really, um, to try to make something that did stand for peace, and my, my, my responsibility was to pay homage and respect those who had perished and not let those people pass in vain, and I wanted those memories to stand for something that would, um, promote, uh, this type of tragedy to not happen again.

CBL: Uhu.

MA: That was what... Y'know, I’m from a family that…of Buddhist priests and I very much respect, um, my particular heritage and my, my belief of, um, being respectful to the spirits of those and memories, ah, and, and approaching this project and this material with reverence.

CBL: Well, the way you've, em, tackled this project, you've kind of preserved, em, the character of the steel, which is this piece of gnarled metal from a, a cataclysmic event, and you've kind of... So, it contains the tragedy within it, but because of that it also has a very brutalist aspect, and I think some of the people in London were kind of a little bit negative about that. They thought it looked a bit too violent and brutal, so you did get some criticism and I mean probably that's also related to the, y'know, recent events in London because, y'know, those teriible riots very recently, and so, when you have something that looks broken or vandalized or, em, in some way a kind of a symbol of something violent that's happened, it sends out a kind of, em, the signal of negativity as well, doesn't it?

MA: Well, I think, yes, I, I, I completely understand and I felt very, very, um, both heartbroken and empathetic to the voices that opposed the sculpture and I wanted very much to put forth a message to those people who had, uh, an opposition to this artwork and the material and I, I wanted to say that, um, in leaving the form of this object in an unchanged form, I was, my hope was to... It... Even though it is very violent, it is very brutal, it is, it is the truth. It is a... It has the memory of this terrible tragedy, and to stand this object up after it has fallen, I hope it would give a message of a symbol of the resilience of humankind and our ability to stand up again and be tall and transcend this and to look to the future with this highly reflective, uh, surface, and to optimistically, um, stand again. That was my hope of taking something that, that was brutally gnawed and... To see the effect on, on such a object of materiality is a very intense, ah, looking object, but I also think that, um, as sort of, um, as difficult an object as it is, it is also quite powerful because it is undeniably a relic of a terrible tragedy.

CBL: Uhu.

MA: And I think sometimes that sort of, um, that an object of intensity could very much be put forth with the right intention, could symbolize especially to onlookers and young people that we cannot let something like this occur. I mean this is one-inch thick steel that has really, am, gone through this horrible event so I pose... I very much... I try to proceed with an intention of respect and reverence, especially for the victims' families and in my mind, um, they were... and the victims, the actual, the people who perished, am, it was most important to me to honour them with the piece.

CBL: Yeh, well, I hope it's understood in that way, but London being London I'm sure, eh, a lot of people will take it in different way, because it's such a diverse city, but anyway you’re mentioning your Buddhist background and, em, of course, this is going to be in CNNgo Tokyo, so I'd like to sort of delve a little bit into your Japanese background. First of all could you tell me a little bit about where you were born and grew up and when you moved to America and your family background and your ancestry?

MA: Yes, of course. Well, my mother is from Japan and is Japanese. My father is American of Russian... He's Russian American, ah, but I was, um, born in America and I went first time to Japan when I was an infant and spent some time...

CBL: Could I ask how old you were?

MA: I think I was months old. I can ask my mother.

CBL: Months?

MA: My mother is here. I can ask my mom. I know I was in diapers. [laughs] I was a little baby when I was in Japan but, um, and primarily, y'know, when I was a very little girl, um... My mother is, ah... The family lives in Okayama City.

CBL: Yeh.

MA: And Okayama City, my mother's father, so my grandfather was the head priest of a Nichiren Buddhist temple, so the Nichiren is a very, very old sect. It's [*lacuna*] a very old sect, the lotus [*lacuna*] and that...

CBL: Is he still around?

MA: No, he passed away, unfortunately, and his... Now the head priest of the temple is my cousin. My cousin, he, when my grandfather passed away a few years ago, em, my eldest male cousin became the new, ah, priest.

CBL: Yeh.

MA: And, um, that is the environment in which I was, in which I lived. Ah, it's a small temple in Okayama, and, uh, y'know, my aunts and uncles and my cousins and everyone sort of lives... My grandparents lived in the temple and my cousins and everyone lived next door, so that is the environment, um, that is, has had a great impact in my, well on many things in my life.

CBL: Umhu.

MA: I would [*lacuna*] that, um, y'know, I spent all of my summers, I spent time kind of going back and forth and bouncing back and forth. It's was basically when I was, uh, before, y'know, young, but high school, all of my, y'know, high school and college was in America. Um, as soon as I finished high school I went back to Japan...

CBL: So, was it, was it a kind of thing where you were living in America but then during the summer holidays, you'd come to Japan frequently
MA: Yes, exactly. Exactle. Um, and, y'know, I spend, y'know it was, y'know, there was some schedule but it was [*lacuna*] more high, y'know [*lacuna*] back and forth I would say, but a bit more...

CBL: Yeh.

[There is a silent pause]

CBL: Hello!

MA: Yes.

CBL: It went quiet for a moment. Sorry.

MA: No, in my [*lacuna*] I’m the sixteenth generation of the, my mom's side so that is the Ando family.

CBL: Yeh.

MA: And, but several generations before the, the family went into the Buddhist priesthood. There is, there were some ancestors who made katana swords, so this, uh...

CBL: How many generations ago is that?

MA: Well the most famous of these Ando sword makers is a person called Yoshiro Masakatsu Ando Yoshiro Masakatsu and that was in eighteen, early eighteen-hundreds, up until then.

CBL: Yeh.

MA: And I have some photos of his swords and things, and, and y’know [*lacuna*] visit his grave, uh, not last year, but [*lacuna*] the year before but he is sort of the most renowned of the, ah, Ando sword, ah, makers, and...

CBL: Do you have any of his swords in your possession?

MA: I don't personally. Um, my great uncle, who am... In my grandfather's generation, they have some and so they took a picture. They took a photograph of one and they emailed it to me not so long ago and they say [*lacuna*] just got a Japanese book, uh, like, talks about, uh, this person...

[The rest of this interview will be posted at some future date.]

Heidi Klum, model

2011-10-01T12:40:00.004+01:00

I interviewed supermodel Heidi Klum at the inaugural MTV Japan Awards on Friday the 24th of May, 2002, in the press conference room. There were about 30 other journalists, some of whom asked a couple of questions, but I have included here only the questions I asked her.

HK: It [MTV Japan Awards] is very exciting because it's the first time. I think MTV’s really big in Japan. MTV’s big all over the World but I think especially in Japan. I’ve never been in Japan so I love coming over here.

CBL: You said that MTV's very big in Japan, but you've never been in Japan before, you said.

HK: But I know it's very big over here.

CBL: How would you learn about this?

HK: Because I think that the Japanese people are really into fashion and they're really into music, and that it's known in the World that they're very fashionable.

CBL: So, do you think that fashion is an important component of MTV?

HK: I think so too. Yes, because the artists, the performers, they show the public, y'know, different hairstyles and they show them different clothes and I think that influences the designers too and that’s what we wear outside.

CBL: There are a lot of fashionable people here tonight and you're very fashionable as well, but you're not a musician. Do you feel a little bit out of place?

HK: No, not really because what I do is entertaining too. I've done movies and sitcoms so I feel that it all goes together a little bit.

CBL: It's all showbiz?

HK: Yeh, and Akebono [sumo wrestler] is not a musician. Y'know, I think that is what's very exciting . . .

CBL: It's Konishki [another sumo wrestler]

HK: Sorry.

CBL: Tonight, it's Konishki, I think.

HK: No, I was with Akebono.

CBL: OK, thank you very much.

Dr. NakaMats, inventor

2011-09-30T13:10:00.001+01:00

Yoshiro Nakamatsu, a.k.a. Doctor NakaMats, is Japan's best known inventor. In fact he is more famous for being an inventor than actually inventing something as most of his inventions seem to be novelty items or subtle modifications of existing technology. Nevertheless, he is a real celebrity in Japan.

In late 2010, I visited him at his Tokyo home and H.Q. for a prospective article that never saw the light of day. In this segment of our long conversation, the Doctor talks about how Japan can be revitalized through an emphasis on non-material factors, like education, politics, and the spiritual.

Mikiko Kumazawa, artist

2011-09-10T03:46:00.005+01:00

In June 2011, I interviewed the young Japanese artist Mikiko Kumazawa. The interview was at the Mizuma Art Gallery in Tokyo. The interview was conducted with the help of an interpreter, Antoine Perrin, a native of France. The interview proceeded at a leisurely pace and lasted well over an hour.

[The interpreter is absent, looking for some images. We start chatting in a mixture of English and Japanese.]

CBL: Do you know CNNgo?

MK: No.

CBL: Well, it's CNN, but it's a kind of website for cities.

MK: Tokyo?

CBL: Yes, yeh...So, usually I write for Metropolis.

MK: Metro...?

CBL: Metropolis. And Japan Times. Usually I'm writing articles for Japan Times and Metropolis. I want to write a new art column for CNNgo, introducing interesting artists like you.

MK: Thank you. Are you free writer?

CBL: Yeh, free writer. I have many jobs.

MK: Many jobs?

CBL: Yeh, many jobs.

[Interpreter comes back. I look at visual references]

CBL: Ah yeh, that's the ones I remember. It looks all so familiar. Going back, good...Careful with the recorder. Sometimes they go off for unexpected reasons. Right. Good, good. We've got plenty of references there. OK, so let's maybe just start at the end first. This is the latest, and, uh..."Erosion"...

MK: This is not the latest.

CBL: Not the very latest, but it's being displayed now anyway, yeh?

[We look at "Popcorn," a picture featuring several naked girls that was shown in Taipei last year]

CBL: Well, OK. We'll get into that one a bit later, but we'll start with this one because it's out there. So, it's called "Erosion." Erosion usually means something is being worn away. Em, what is being worn away in this picture?

MK: All the elements I have in the painting are like old elements that are broken or worn away or with stickers posted on it, like the broken traffic cone or the post box.

CBL: And mixed in with the old elements which have been eroded, there's lots of high school girls.

MK: Schoolgirls are in society the most exploited individuals.

CBL: In what way are they exploited?

MK: For example, enjo-kosai (compensated dating) with older men.

CBL: But is that typical of schoolgirls?

MK: In Japan there is this image...

CBL: It's just that I also teach in a girls' high school and most of my students are incredibly innocent, I like to think.

MK: I think that's very scary because you can't trust their appearance.

CBL: They lead a double life, maybe. So exploitation is a kind of erosion.

MK: Yes.

CBL: So what are they losing?

MK: I don't know. When I was drawing this work I was in a very down phase and I was thinking of adults like mean individuals, so I was maybe thinking that these girls were becoming adults by this way, by losing their purity.

CBL: Some people might see it differently as, y'know, they're learning how to manipulate the world, using their appearance and so on, playing off their image.

MK: In this one ["Panic," a picture featuring pregnant women] the women are all very strong.

CBL: In this one [revolving sushi shop] too, you look at those three works together there's a kind of theme of the position of women in Japanese society. Is there a kind of feminist agenda to...

MK: Not especially.

CBL: Looking at "Panic" you say the women here are very strong and I can see that they have a kind of demonic scary energy, but also they are very ludicrous and comic, so it's not so respectful. It's more satirical I feel.

MK: I'm not saying they're bad but maybe there is something scary about them, like the pregnant woman who is scary for me.

CBL: Why do you feel like that? Most people would think it's a beautiful natural thing, and sometimes we even give up our seat on the train to them.

MK: Of course I'm giving my seat on the train to them, but the shape is scary.

CBL: Do you mean it's scary because you're a woman and you feel, 'I don't want to be like that'?

MK: Not like that.

CBL: It looks scary...? I can't understand why it's scary.

MK: It's the shape. Just the shape.

CBL: The shape? So fat people are scary?

MK: Maybe I'm very impressed by the power of the women to make children – of course it's a fantastic thing – but at the same time it's something very strange and very scary. I was in a positive mood when I was drawing this picture so the fear is not the main theme of this painting but there is always this kind of strange awful picture.

CBL: Now you mention that you were in a different kind of mood, for example, with the "Erosion" you were little bit negative mood, and then with "Panic" you were in a positive mood, um, but these pictures take a long time to do I think, so does your mood stay the same throughout?

MK: I just have to draw the sketches, the draft, and when I've finished that I have nothing else to do but fill in with all the details.

CBL: So there's that initial moment of big creation which is very closely connected to your mood and then there is the more meticulous kind of, sort of sketching all the details, yeh, and the mood is not so important in that case?

MK: Yes.

[The interpreter disappears for several minutes after a phone call. We look at a catalogue of the Zipangu exhibition, a group show in which Kumazawa's "Erosion" is featured. I look at "Fortoken" by Manabu Ikeda. We chat mainly in Japanese.]

CBL: This looks a little like your art. Again, it's, em, very detailed and everything is mixed up, so...interesting. Is this exhibition still on?

[Kumazawa nods]

CBL: Maybe I'll go soon.

MK: Are you from America?

CBL: No, no, I’m from Scotland.

MK: Scotland?

CBL: Yeh, so in Summer, Summer holiday, I will go to Scotland.

MK: Is that in England?

CBL: Scotland is the Northern part of Britain.

MK: Is it cold?

CBL: In the summer it is perfect and healthy, because Japan is too hot.

[The interpreter returns]

CBL: Now, the most obvious characteristic of your art is there's so many things all together, heaped together in a big mountain, and of course people who come to Japan from foreign countries sometimes they have that impression of very dense city, and why do you want to show Japan like that? Is it also your impression that Japan is a very dense, crowded and maybe chaotic place? And in a way, it's like your impression of Japan is similar to foreign people who come to Japan and are a little bit culture shocked by the density of the city and how many things are crammed together and the number of people flowing through the city.

MK: I like when everything mixes together.

CBL: Why do you like it?

MK: When I go to a museums and when I see paintings I often feel a little bit uncomfortable not knowing really what I have to see and what I have to understand in the paintings, so, when I draw my own paintings, I just make it with as many elements as possible to make the viewer relax and just accept seeing and linking things.

CBL: So you deconstruct the idea of the painting?

MK: I don't especially really like art as such, for example, so I probably don't have this precise image of what painting should be and shouldn't be, so it's more like a natural feeling.

CBL: So, anybody can look at this picture in their own way. They can start anywhere. They can see some of it. They can ignore some of it. It's all very random how people respond. Is that true?

MK: What should I say?

CBL: With this kind of picture there is always something you can see and something you can't see because the eye and the mind can only take in a limited amount. Different things come into focus at different times, and that means the picture is always refreshing itself. But also you feel that you never finish looking at the picture and then you leave it unfinished. It's like... Often when you go on an exhibition you'll have a good look at a painting and you'll have got it, you'll understand it and then you'll move on. With this kind of painting you're never satisfied.

MK: This is one of the perspectives that I want to work on maintaining.

CBL: And not produce something very simple. For example, Kumi Machida's "A Perch" [We look at "Tsumarigi" by Machida in the Zipangu catalogue], I mean you see that and, OK, I got it, so it's very different. But in the picture there are always elements that don't make sense. For example, you're thinking what are these mysterious ridges on their backs and, wow, that's unusual, and where is the rope? What is holding the rope so there is that kind of element of mystery. Visually, your mind is satisfied but maybe your mind is a little bit confused when you walk away. And then if we compare that back to your picture, the eye is confused, but the idea are familiar and commonplace, because schoolgirls, Gachapin , 7-11, post boxes...

MK: Well, I couldn't say.

CBL: OK, let's go further back into the past. Have you always drawn lots of pictures since you were a child?

MK: Since I was a child I've been drawing manga characters. Since going to the university I started thinking of manga stories.

CBL: So, when you were in elementary school you were always drawing?

MK: Not particularly. I always had bad marks in my art lessons.

CBL: Is that because you didn't listen to the teacher and you drew things your own way?

MK: When there was a theme we had to draw, I didn't know how to react.

CBL: I guess that's a characteristic of good artists. They're very stubborn and they're driven by something inside. I saw some earlier examples of your work.

[We look at prints of her early colour paintings]

CBL: These are a little more painterly. These works – this one's 2004 and this one's 2007 – and "Taberareru" (Being Eaten) and "Kaihoh" (Liberation) with the Tokyo Tower there. From these I get the feeling that you're trying to do a painting and you want to use paint like a normal artist has to use paint. And that's a kind of expectation - a serious artist is an artist who uses paint - but that you're not satisfied with this medium, and then you find this medium – pencil – and you find pencil is much better for your art. So do you remember about the moment that you changed from paint and you decided you would use pencil?

MK: This is the first one I used pencil.

[She indicates "Maru Maru Goko" (2007)]

CBL: The basic theme is quite similar. You have these strange giant figures mixed together with the city like a kind of King Kong effect, but because the mediums are different, everything feels very different. It becomes much more detailed.

MK: At first I was thinking of making colours with this painting, but this black and white was a lot more impressive and looked good, I thought at the time.

CBL: When you were using paint, did you feel frustrated by paint, because you can’t really get so much detail so easily?

MK: I don't really understand what colours will look good at this place and what colours will look good at that place.

CBL: So, paint was too complicated?

MK: I just can't manage to put everything together and have a good balance when I'm using colour.

CBL: And everything, the tones, all fit together easily because it's basically just pencil, a bit darker a bit lighter. It all blends together very, very easily...em, but also it makes everything look a bit grey. Do you think that's suitable for Tokyo? Is Tokyo a kind of grey city?

MK: I've never thought about that.

[We look at another picture showing what appears to be a train crash.]

CBL: What's the title here?

MK: "Dassen" – derailment.

CBL: Your art represents the very everyday elements of life, and in particular, one of the things that comes up again and again are trains. Are you a densha onna (train woman - the female equivalent of a male trainspotter or otaku)?

MK: Not particularly, but as I ride the trains it is something that is hitting me everyday.

CBL: Do you suffer from claustrophobia? You're quite a small lady, so it must be quite terrifying sometimes to get into a very busy train like this.

MK: Yes, probably.

CBL: In this picture, "Doko ikko kana?" [Where Shall I go?] everything looks very orderly. You have this perfect interconnecting railway system, but in "Dassen" and "Nidome"[Second Sleep] here you have chaos. In your art there is a relationship between order and chaos.

MK: I guess so, but I'm not really conscious of this opposition. Usually I like chaos.

CBL: You like chaos. What kind of chaos do you like?

MK: As in everybody's free.

CBL: So, nobody has to work.

MK: Only those who would like to work should work.

CBL: Another example of chaos is the big earthquake in Tohoku. That's another kind of chaos. What do you think about that chaos? Is it all negative or are there also some positive things?

MK: That's difficult, not really. This is a little bit special.

CBL: So, by chaos you just mean like a student lifestyle?

MK: It's maybe a little bit different.

CBL: So it sounds a bit more like people dreaming, y'know. Everybody does what they have to do and they do... They do their job and they have appointments and they catch the train, but while they're riding the train they have some wild thoughts, and when they have a bit of free time they have some kind of fantasy about chaos. So it's like chaos only exists in the mind as a kind of abstract feeling, so it's a bit like a salaryman going to a punk rock concert.

MK: For "Dassen" the idea came when I was riding on the train and it was overcrowded so I decided to get off the train. And with "Nidome"... So in the train when you're going to work and you still have some time on the train, Japanese people just have the rest of their night on the train.

CBL: This woman here, is that you?

MK: The bodies are different.

CBL: Yes, I know, but it's a woman getting off the train quite dramatically. I get the feeling that there is a kind of aggression in your art. You yourself are a very gentle person but in your art sometimes there is a kind of aggression, an outburst of some sort of slightly scary feeling there. So, what do you think? Do you sometimes have an angry feeling?

MK: Yes.

CBL: When you're angry, how to you express your anger? Do you shout, do you break things?

MK: I just talk and complain to my friends.

CBL: Then you feel better?

MK: I regret it.

CBL: But sometimes you have some angry feelings left over and sometimes there's a little bit of violence in here, yeh, I feel. Sometimes very mixed feelings from these. Sometimes I feel you're angry against high school girls sometimes.

MK: Not at all.

CBL: Just my impression. As for "Revolving Sushi Shop," it looks more like a comedy, I feel. Yeh? It's not some sort of strong message is it?

MK: This was just a funny idea I had and this ["Doko ikko kana?"] is the same kind of feeling I had.

CBL: So, this is a bit like Escher.

MK: I love Escher.

CBL: Escher, you like Escher? Yes, very Escher this one. Now let's go to this one. What's the title of this one?

MK: "Popcorn."

CBL: Popcorn? Is this actually popcorn?

MK: Yes, you have corn and you have popcorn and your have mushrooms.

CBL: OK, so there are lots of different things, here. You need to look very closely, em, so there's some fruit as well, yeh, fruit and popcorn, and corn and mushrooms, and who are these mysterious ladies?

MK: My friends.

CBL: Ah, do you often use your friends as a model?

MK: Mmh.

CBL: So, in all of these pictures we can see your friends?

MK: And family.

CBL: So these are all friends of the same age as you?

MK: Mmmh.

CBL: Why are they all naked?

MK: Maybe there's no special reason. I just wanted to try something like that once.

CBL: They're eating. Is that right?

MK: When I have a new idea for an artwork, I often start by trying a few sketches before doing the real one. This is the kind of process of painting.

CBL: I'm just wondering how people are going to react to this, I mean some people will see it as slightly pornographic. Sexy art usually sells quite well. But also it has a kind of comedic elements. So this was shown in Taipei. How was the reaction in Taipei?

MK: I wasn't there.

CBL: So, no feedback. And of course high schools are very popular.

MK: Probably.

CBL: Because you seemed to have moved. I noticed that you've moved from, looks like housewives and mothers, and you've moved to high school girls and naked women. What's going on here?

MK: This is just random.

CBL: It's just the random creative process? There's no agenda there? OK. Now back to the Zipangu exhibition, because there are lots of artists brought together. Do you feel you belong to some sort of group?

MK: As I said earlier I don’t really understand art and the system and everything, so I don't have a real consciousness of belonging to a special movement or a group.

CBL: Aha, just that you've kind of been lumped in together with a other artists for this show, and I kind of feel there is a Japanese-ness about all this art, and your art, of course, because of the subject matter, also has this Japanese-ness, so how closely related is your art to the subject matter? Could you go to another city like Paris, New York and do the same thing?

MK: This one is New York.

[She indictates "Maru Maru Goko."]

CBL: Yes, that's the Chrysler Building. But they are all Japanese mothers and children.

MK: This is simply because I couldn't find any non-Japanese models.

CBL: OK, you can use me as a model.

MK: I am interested in knowing more about foreign cultures and making works.

CBL: You could use Nina [Kouprianova] as a model.

MK: Beautiful!

CBL: OK, right, I think we'll finish there because if I have some questions later, I can probably email in.

Jean Claude Wouters, artist

2011-07-26T15:28:00.006+01:00

On the 2nd of December, 2009, I interviewed the Belgian artist, Jean-Claude Wouters, at the Maranouchi Gallery in Tokyo. We spoke English for around 20 minutes. This transcription covers 18 minutes of the interview..

CBL: So, the first thing that you notice, of course, is how faint the images are. Now, a lot of people would find that a sort of difficult thing because, ah, eh, it’s maybe too low-key for a lot of people. Uh, why did you sort of turn the contrast down so much?

JCW: I don’t, uh… It has nothing to do with turning the contrast down or whatever. It’s own process. I take photography then I re-photograpy, re-photograpy, and, uh, when I re-photograpy because it’s kind of micro photography, I use lenses, I do it close to a window and I have the reflection of the sky and this is what in a way erases the appearance of the images.

CBL: So the most important thing then is the process not the end product?

JCW: For me the process is important because it’s my life. It takes like nearly two months to make it. Of course, in two months I can make ten pieces or fifteen pieces, but, of course, the process itself is quite long. Also, because when I have what I think a good negative, I go to my… I don’t print them myself. And everything is organic. There is no computers or whatever and this is really black and white paper like 19th century with ‘argassy’[?] tones, which is also the best quality for preservation of all what exists in the world for photography.

CBL: How long will that last then?

JCW: The oldest ones that we have treated with selenium are still 100%.

CBL: Uhuh. JCW: This is the best…

CBL: Because if it faded any more it would be a problem, yeh?

JCW: Not for no, because there would always remain a trace and what interests me is the trace. The idea… Basically it starts… Maybe you should see what there is in the other room because it starts…

[We go through to the other room]

JCW: This is really the work. This is a portrait. And the work on Buddha is something different that Mr. Hoshi from the Marunouchi Gallery asked me, but normally this is the most relevant thing I do. I do portraits on commission. So it’s not a question of fading or not fading. What I wanted to do is to give to the people a image that provoke a kind of human warmness when you discover the image and, uh, feeling of spirituality on one hand, and, secondly, I wanted it to be very discreet because when you have a flashy painting on the wall, after two days, your subconscious erase it and you don’t see it anymore, so this is like the wall and if you want… I mean I don’t know if you don’t feel well or whatever. You just sit in front of your portrait and it’s like a long corridor, tunnel, you go inside of yourself, something like that, and third, as I said before, I wanted it to be low technology and very simple. So that’s all, and, uh, in a way, it’s the opposite to, to what is photography now, because as the Japanese say, they say ‘shashin,’ which is copy of reality. In English or French we say photography which means to design with light or to draw with light. What I do is drawing with light.

CBL: Yeh.

JCW: But most of the people what they do is they copy, they try to copy the reality.

CBL: So you see this as in a way more real than…uh…?

JCW: Closer to the reality. Also, because like for example – no it’s okay because you film me – but if you take just a picture it will be just a piece of one sixtieth of a second of me and I will be like that [makes a funny face] or like that, and there’s no reality in there. Uh, I did the portrait of that young woman, I think two years ago. If I make her portrait in five years it will look quite the same in a way.

CBL: Yeh?

JCW: And on the other hand, it was also like… If you, if you think of someone you know, we always visualize in our brain and, eh, but for example you will remember me in tomorrow or one week. You will mix maybe five or ten impression that you had of me here in the gallery. If you think about your mother, you mix instantly one hundred thousand times you met her, and even it will be all mixed even when you are three or five years old, which also that impression for you your mother will always look younger for you than for me that would discover her today. Y’know what I mean. In a way…

CBL: Which means that the older you get the more you become yourself in other people’s minds too because it’s an accumulation of different things seen at different times and the person in the moment is not the total person.

JCW: Yes, of course. CBL: You’re going more for the essence of the person. This style of photography gets at the essence of the person more than a more direct form of photography. Yeh?

JCW: Yeh.

CBL: Um, now, then, yeh, it’s kind of there but not there as well, and, uh, that makes it more real to the mind, ah, because you’re constantly switching between seeing it and not seeing it and this process of constantly switching makes it feel more there. Once you see a picture very clearly, you tend to like, uh, put it in a box, and…

JCW: Exactly.

CBL: Y’know that’s why I thought this would be a very interesting exhibition, but, of course, a lot of people will see this and think ‘What the hell is this?’ and, y’know, ‘this is a painting I can hardly see’ and ‘Why would people buy this?’ and this kind of thing. There’s going to be, of course, a reaction against it.

JCW: It’s not easy to sell, but the people when they have it at home, they send me email they are really… Even after two or three years, they still enjoy it, because it’s like what I do is a slight trace and you having the piece at home is the image build in your head, and day after day week after week its still alive. It’s like here you have only 30% of the image and the 70% is in your head, in reality. You do it, I don’t. I just propose.

CBL: So, yeh, it’s a collaboration between the viewer and the artist and the subject. It’s like the picture exists in a sort of middle point between the artist, the subject, and the viewer, whoever that viewer may be. Now, you were asked to apply this very interesting technique to, em, Buddhist sculptures and statues and, uh… so can you tell me a little bit more about that? Whose idea was that originally?

JCW: Mr. Hoshi because in reality I have another part of my work. I work on old images from book that I scratch and repaint and rephotography. At the time I was living in Brussels and working with a lot of black and, uh, I had found an Italian book of Chinese, uhh, antiques…

[a visitor comes into the room/ Wouters acknowledges him and then we walk through to the other room]

JCW: And in there, there were some Buddhas, and so I did one and twos, and thing is that since I’m twelve I’ve been always very interested by Zen. It’s something quite natural for me. It’s not exotic in itself and …

CBL: How would you define Zen though?

JCW: You ask me that question. I have an easy answer I would not, but I live with this kind of philosophy let’s say, Shinto also…

CBL: Some people would say that Zen is a lack of focusing, not to focus on things too much, to keep an open-ended attitude to everything at the same time…

JCW: Yeh, I think there are many ways to describe Zen.

CBL: I mentioned that particular way because obviously you’re going for a very soft fuzzy…

JCW: People talk about wabi-sabi when they talk about my work, which is quite true, yes. It is quite wabi and sabi. Yes, about the Buddha you were mentioning. Yes, so I was doing those [mumbles] between photography and painting, and when Mr. Hoshi saw that – he was not exactly interested to exhibit but he said, “I would like, if you accept, to go to Kyoto and Nara with you for you to photography the real pieces, real Buddhas and to apply the technique you use for your portraits.”

CBL: Mmhu.

JCW: In the beginning I was quite reluctant because one is not just a trick that I photography everything with, but… Well, it’s just pieces of wood. For me the real name of those Buddhas is ‘Burnt Buddha Floating in the Water,’ and that refers to a Zen story, and maybe I will tell that later, and, eh, so in a way it works well because those Buddhas are from the ninth or tenth centuries. Some have the pieces missing. [The artist indicates one of his works] JCW: If you come here you can see it.

CBL: Just from the side, the head starts to appear. That also suggests a kind of light around the head, a kind of halo effect, so that maybe works to the advantage.

JCW: So the idea of… Well of course the Buddha is not this piece of wood, is not any kind of subject. It’s not like flowers or chair, and for ten centuries people did pray in front of it and something like that, and you can imagine with this kind of image you feel all that spirit, y’know what I mean. There are charge that if you see an old Buddha like that and in a shrine and go and maybe there is something special about it. I don’t know; I’m not a believer. Eh, but in a way it reveal that, eh, being treated that way.

CBL: So the way that people have touched it emotionally is that what you mean?

JCW: Yeh. It’s like people praying in front of an object then this object is charged with something from all those people.

CBL: It’s like old religious statues. People touch them for good luck and that kind of creates a patina so in a way you’re, uh, trying to photograph the patina of devotion?

JCW: I… What you say is really too precise. Maybe it has to do with it but it is too precise. I would not put things in words like that

CBL: That’s the job of art journalists to do that, to exaggerate, and clarify, and simplify. Well, they’re very interesting works, and they do have a strange atmosphere that normal paintings don’t have and, uh, I guess that’s because it’s forcing the brain to work more than it’s used to.

JCW: I would say no, it’s the opposite. It force you to relax. If you want to see you really have to withdraw and relax. If you are too concentrate you will… I‘m referring to the portraits now, and, uh, well, also for me… It’s not a question of to see or not to see. It’s just I know that I have – what do you call that? – I know with a print the less readable it can be the more readable it can be. For example, this is the more, this is the less, and for me in that range it’s all fine. I don’t control it because as I said I work close to the window so in the wintertime, in the summertime if it’s sunny rainy, all that changes. And I don’t control it 100% and that’s of course what I like. And that what make the work better because I think if you control everything you are… The result would be quite poor because life and nature is so much stronger than we are. Just y’know what I mean.

CBL: Oh yeh.

JCW: Right now with a computer you can control everything and then that is quite a poor image because you did not take advantage of accidents and what people influence or god or whatever.

CBL: And you try to clarify too much and grasp an image that you thought was there rather than an image that was naturally occurring.

JCW: And I say that because I did work for several years as a commercial photographer and by making film and photography, when you work with, eh, advertising company, you’re looking for, they make a layout of what they want. The client has his idea the agency has the idea and especially now with the digital they see immediately the result. For sure they are losing a lot for when they see what they have in mind, that’s it. And all that will not look like that, they will say no. We don’t want. But before when they were working with, uhh, traditional photography, the photographer was shooting, shooting, shooting and then like one week later or three days later he’s going to the agency and the agency choose the photograph like what they had in mind and then they say, “But, aw, this is interesting too. Maybe we can propose that to the client also.” And all this doesn’t exist anymore. And like scientists they say, they complain that, before, if you were going to the – I don’t know – to the place where all those scientists were working, you had a couch and they were taking a nap quite often but now because of the computer it’s impossible. You spend all your time in front of your computer and they’re saying that during the nap they often had the right ideas.

CBL: Yeh, yeh, yeh, that’s when the brain does a lot of its work, and that’s no longer available. Em, but just to clarify, when you say you work next to the window, that means you’re developing the film, eh, not in a dark room but with light?

JCW: No, no, no, no. I’m a photography and because I don’t want to use artificial light because I want to take advantage the most of the existing light which is the light of the sky. It’s like when I do the portrait the first image I do, I place the person in front of the window and me I’m back the window and so you don’t have too much shadows and it’s always daylight.

CBL: So how does the picture become in a way brighter and also less contrasted?

JCW: Because, because as I say when I rephotography I use… So I have my image like that, and I use lenses [gestures with his hand to indicate flatness and layers] and the reflection of the sky [gestures with hand in strongly downward motion] and you have the reflection of the sky. CBL: On the glass?

JCW: On the glass, so in a way the kind of light grade you see. It’s like a superimposition of the face and the sky, but I do it two or three times.

CBL: So that evens out. You don’t get clouds or other things from the sky.

JCW: Yeh.

CBL: By doing it many times it evens out the background texture?

JCW: And also because I’m scanning macro photography, y’know, so it’s so far it out of focus.

CBL: OK, yeh, yeh, em so you’re allowing the natural light to do the work...

Fumio Nanjo, curator

2011-04-10T04:28:00.003+01:00

On the 20th of February, 2011, I interviewed Fumio Nanjo by telephone. He is a well-known curator and the Director of the Mori Art Museum. I talked to him for about 25 minutes about Roppongi Art Night, which was scheduled to take place on the night of the 26th to 27th of March, but was cancelled thanks to the Great Tohoku Earthquake that struck Japan on the 11th of March. Mr. Nanjo is a very good English speaker for a Japanese and showed particular skill and mastery in use of y'knows, using an enormous number of them as verbal ballast.

FN: Hai?

CBL: Hello.

FN: Yes?

CBL: Is that Mr Nanjo?

FN: Yes.

CBL: This is Colin Liddell from Metropolis magazine.

FN: Oh, I see.

CBL: And, well, basically I want to get a much fuller picture of what people can expect at this year's Roppongi Art Night.

FN: Yeh, yeh, OK.

CBL: OK, so first of all, can I ask you how will this year's Roppongi Art Night differ from last year's Roppongi Art Night? What similarities and what differences will there be?

FN: Since last time we try to expand art in the town and we spread many small works in the town of Roppongi between Midtown and Roppongi Hills but this time we cannot spread so many...

CBL: Why not?

FN: ...so we make a rather bigger scale works. I mean, y'know, that's a little bit difference but, how can I describe? Um, similarity and what difference? Mmm, main artist is different of course.

CBL: Yes.

FN: And also, em, what can I say? Artists are all different y'know.

CBL: Well, the interesting point is that you can't spread the artworks around anymore. Why did that change?

FN: Well, we do, we do it, but not [coughs] Sorry! – not so many in many spots in the town. We focus on certain [coughs] …sorry…

CBL: You have a cold I think?

FN: This is cedar something, y'know.

CBL: Hayfever maybe.

FN: Yeh.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: Uh, because the small works in the town were not so effective for many people, last time, so we focus on a fewer spot and bring bigger work.

CBL: So, it's becoming more like a show than it was before.

FN: What do you mean by show?

CBL: Like a performance, like in a theatre that kind of style.

FN: Uh, I don’t understand.

CBL: Well, I mean, well, ur, um, Roppongi Art Night, it's concentrated in terms of time – it happens over one weekend – and now it's becoming more concentrated in terms of space, so if you concentrate something in space and time it becomes like a performance.

FN: But it's only for one night. It's same thing.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: Even if it's fewer spots with a little big bigger works, still it's same thing I think.

CBL: Moving on to the artists this time, how do you think, eh, the artists this year will differ from last year? What, what kind of themes or, eh, insights will they bring compared to the previous year's artists?

FN: The main artist is Yayoi Kusama and she made a… She's going to make a huge, um, image of, ur, little girl, which is actually her, herself of the childhood.

CBL: Umhu.

FN: So…And with some dogs.

CBL: Yes.

FN: So, the idea is that she goes back to her childhood and walking around in Roppongi with her dog, her pet dog, so this is like, uh, walking in Roppongi with Yayoi Kusama.

CBL: So it's a kind of nostalgic note?

FN: Uhhh, her strong message is, uh, how can I say it in English, the, um, "Tomorrow is Mine," something like that, so she's really looking forward to tomorrow, I mean the future, a very positive message she brings, so she's not looking back her past. She's trying to capture the moment of children who are always, y'know, expecting the, uh, positive future soon.

CBL: Uhuh.

FN: So she, she said tomorrow is important…

CBL: Isn't that very ironic because y'know she;s obviously very old now?
[NOTE: Yayoi Kusama was born in 1929.]

FN: Ah, you think so?

CBL: I mean physically.

FN: I think that's why she wants to bring… Still she wants to say that still there's the future for her and also for many Japanese who always listen to… who always are talking about, uhrr, the kind of recession and going down, sinking Japan.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: But she wants to say, "no but you have to think positively."

CBL: So it's a kind of symbol of rebirth through a kind of return to nostalgic innocence?

FN: Return? But you have to think about the children, a lot of children now, it's not only her past. She's talking about children, y'know children have a future and tomorrow... They are looking for... at tomorrow, so people should look at tomorrow as a positive image. Y'know, It's not only her own matter, She wants to extend it to many people.

CBL: Yeh. So she want's to kind of live on in the, em, future generations, through her art... The reason I mention this, em, kind of, em, return to innocence and almost naivety is also because of the other, one of the other important artists, Antenna, strikes quite a similar note with his, I think it's called Jappy, caricature.

FN: That's also talking about a kind of utopia, you mean?

CBL: Yes.

FN: Mmm.

CBL: So that's, that's a similar thing. I mean a lot of people will see, ehh, Kusama's art as, nhnn, having a mood of childish innocence and also Antenna's art would have a similar kind of, em, almost manga-esque quality.

FN: Mmm, I don't know if it's nostalgia but both of them are talking about trying to create something positive, I think.

CBL: Mmhh.

FN: Um, last year and the year before, two characters, main characters were somehow monsters, y'know. It’s like a boy's toys.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: One was a robot and the other one was like a huge em how can I say inflated, inflatable balloon, as how do you say [unclear], so this [unclear] boylike image we shifted to a little bit more soft feminine image as well.

CBL: Uhu.
FN: [unclear]...look so much images children and soft and pink and y'know more human and, urh, how can I say, more, as you said, nostalgic maybe but more human.

CBL: More feelings?

FN: Yeh, feelings maybe, and another one is a, mem, of course the story of the character is like that but actually it is very how you say it's kind of mikoshi. Mikoshi dakara sono... How can you say? This kind of chai… This kind of shrine they go round.

CBL: Oh yes. The omikoshi, yes?

FN: Omikoshi dessho, so it's it's really try to make society genki.

CBL: Yeh, the omikoshi's carried round to kind of purify spiritually the area involved isn't it?

FN: Originally yes, but people don't think that it's purifying. I think people just uh… It's like a festivity. People enjoy and participate.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: So we try to design the things for people to participate.

CBL: Yeh, now in Japan, uh, the, the audience that goes to exhibitions tends to be usually a bit older, middle aged people...

FN: Exhibition, I mean, uh…

CBL: Yes, yeh, I'm talking about the, the major exhibitions in Japan because Japan often ranks very high in the biggest exhibitions per, eh, y'know, visitor every year, and so the main audience tends to be a much older audience, but I notice with Roppongi Art Night, because it's set late – or it's a all might event, it basically excludes older people and it, it draws in younger people.

FN: It does not exlude. They just go back. [laughs]

CBL: Uhm?

FN: They just go back because if it's late they want to sleep

CBL: Yes.

FN: Y'know, it's their choice.

CBL: Yeh, it's their choice but of course…

FN: If it's chosen, it's not discrimination or whatever.

CBL: I'm not saying you're trying to exclude them but the result of the timing…

FN: If we choose young people then it's discrimination but we are open to anybody.

CBL: Yeh, I'm just wondering…

FN: It's their choice, y'know.

CBL: Yeh, I know, but I'm just wondering about how young people think because a lot of young people don't want to, heh, go to exhibitions because maybe they see it as a kinda older people's culture.

FN: Oh, but are you talking about… What kind of exhibition y'know. Did you go to the media art exhibition in National Art Center? S'full of young people.

CBL: Mmhh.

FN: It all depends on the contents.

CBL: Yeh, yeh, that's the point I'm making. There are a lot of, em, exhibitions that draw a specific audience so that sometimes, y'know, I feel like a… Also with um, a lot of museums now have very late…

FN: What kind of exhibition you talking about? If it's traditional Japanese art, of course there are many old people.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: If it's Impressionism mainly ladies.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: It's all different.

CBL: Well, look, just for example, now at NACT there's a Surrealism. Now surrealism has got appeal across the board – a lot of older people like it, a lot of younger people like it.

FN: Still, those who have a dream on European art, right?

CBL: Yeh.

FN: So there are maybe that's the majority of the audience but, I don't think we cannot generalize. It all depends on the contents.

CBL: But…

FN: If we design the contents for young people, young people will come

CBL: But, yeh, there are some, em… There is art which is, uh, across the board and y'know, something like Yayoi Kusama could, could be seen in those terms, as something which has a lot of appeal for different generations because she's a very old artist herself but she also has an appeal to young people.

FN: Uh.

CBL: But, but, y'know the exhibition of Surrealism, ewh, the older people tend to go earlier in the day and then a lot of museums have late Fridays now and that tends to be... I think that's an attempt to try to bring younger people into the exhibitions and, y'know, sometimes Roppongi Art Night seems like an extension of "Late Fridays."

FN: Oh, of course.

CBL: Which means, "young people, come here and there won't be any older people around." That is the kind of note I feel that is being sounded.

FN: I don't know if it's only for young people because if older people want to stay they can stay, but usually they want to sleep.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: But we're not designed for, for that purpose. We're trying to be open as much as possible.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: Right. And also there are many restaurants and bars are going to open until late, so if they want to stay they can stay. If... The Mori stay until five o’clock last time.

CBL: That leads me to another question. How conscious are you of the Roppongi Art Night competing with the existing nightlife in Roppongi, because Roppongi's already got a very high profile entertainment nightlife of its own.

FN: Yeh.

CBL: How does that effect the Art Night?

FN: But the contents is different isn't it? So we brought art into the night life of Roppongi. Before there was nothing like that, so your… It is actually, how can I say, Roppongi Art Night core time is from the sunset to the next morning, sunrise, but actually other event, which is good for children or old people or whatever, is also going on in the daytime.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: So it’s actually 24-hour event, not only 12 hours.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: So, ur, if they want to enjoy those things, like workshops with children, they can join. Old people can maybe go for some shopping or whatever.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: We can, we can, em, they can do that, so the point is, I think, urh, Rop… We are trying to open the museum very late at 10 in the evening all day usually.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: But together with other museums, the... Y'know [unclear] were open till the next morning, but the others are just till ten or 11 o'clock, but we open the museum then, ahh, also we ask many shops and restaurants to open it until late.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: So they follow. So, it's only one night. We should get together and enjoy the night life of Roppongi. Uh, it just the beginning of spring time

CBL: Yeh.
FN: ...just the cherry blossom is blooming, so they have, they have been inside, inside the house for long time in the winter...

CBL: Yeh.

FN: ...but now the message, now you can go out, y'know, you come out and stay outside. Enjoy cherry blossom, enjoy art. If you want you can go to some bar to drink with your friends, chat, and stay very late.

CBL: Umh.

FN: So that's a message, y'know.

CBL: So...

FN: If you want to join it, you can join it.

CBL: So, umh, can I ask you personally what are you looking forward to the most and also what are you most worried about?

FN: Worried about?

CBL: Yeh, positives and negatives, so what are you looking forward to the most and what are you also most worried about?

FN: Looking forward is that kind of to view the image of Roppongi not only for drinking place but a place for enjoying art and culture, right? So it's not just drunk people at night. There are young people old people enjoying art, chatting, talking, walking together, even family can walk around.

CBL: So, kind of area rebranding?

FN: I think so.

CBL: So, do you think Kabukicho could use an art night in that case?

FN: Kabukicho should have a different strategy.

CBL: Any suggestions?

FN: The worry of... I think... I guess the people in Roppongi used to live here was worrying about Roppongi becoming Kabukicho.

CBL: Mmh.

FN: But now we have a different business, y'know, office, uh, café, uh, shops and even museums, galleries now, y'know four galleries just opened last week.

CBL: Uhuh.

FN: In the Piramide Building and one gallery in our museum shop opened so five galleries.

CBL: Are those galleries moving from Ginza or somewhere?

FN: Different places. Ginza and also from Shinjuku. They open a new gallery here so now we have business of daytime, y'know, uh, very light café and then dinner spot and then drinking place, bar, but also we have those different things so Roppongi became not only a town for night but also for day – people enjoy – so 24-hours city, so the Roppongi Art Night symbolizes Roppongi changed and you can enjoy daytime to night time and also with the family with your friends, y'know, not, you don’t kick the drunk guys and make a conflict as made before y'know. It used to be only that image but now we have to change.

CBL: Yeh. Yes, so it's moving from a kind of monoculture to a more kind of multiculture?

FN: Multiculture, yeh.

CBL: And of course that can sometimes cause problems because you might have drunk people, eh, fighting with artists for example.

FN: Yeh, yeh. If those people come up to the museum it's a big problem.

CBL: Umhu.

FN: Y'know then we have to shut them out.

CBL: Yeh, sounds like something you have to worry about.

FN: Yeh, we have to, we have to be aware of [unclear] to protect artworks too.

CBL: So, what, what are you most worried about because you've obviously had a lot to think about and to arrange and to organize.

FN: Uh, the logistics, I mean the management of the people like, y'know, if too many people come to one spot it's dangerous so I'm hoping that all the events become, make the things even, the time and the place, y'know, I hope people spread in a wide area and an even way.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: Otherwise dangerous, y’know.

CBL: But, em, the centrepiece will be Kusama's, eh, sculpture. That's going to be very very large.

FN: Yeh.

CBL: How about, well, well, how is it being constructed, what sort materials are being...

FN: It's inflatable.

CBL: Mm?

FN: Inflatable.

CBL: Inflatable?

FN: So easy to carry but it becomes big.

CBL: yeh, uhu, well that makes sense. Very easy to do, No problems there, unless of course it has a puncture.

FN: Well some people might do it but I hope it doesn't happen.

CBL: Yeh.

FN: Yeh.

CBL: Well, that's a lot of information so I'll thank you for that.

FN: Yeh.

CBL: And, ah, well, we'll send you a copy of the article when it appears. Thank you very much.

FN: OK, thank you.

CBL: Bye bye!

FN: Bye.

Yayoi Kusama, artist

2011-03-17T10:07:00.002Z

In February 2011, I sent some questions by email to Yayoi Kusama, the 'headline' artist for Roppongi Art Night 2011, in order to get some unique quotes for an article I was writing about the event. My questions were then translated into Japanese, answered, and then the answers were translated into English. Later, because of the Great Tohoku Earthquake of March 11th, 2011, and the subsequent accidents at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations, Roppongi Art Night was cancelled.

CBL: Why do you think you were invited to join Roppongi Art Night this year?

YK: I think that is because everyone loves my creation, and many people want to see my creation.

CBL: How do you feel about joining to Roppongi Art Night 2011?

YK: I will see everyone with love at Roppongi Art Night 2011.

CBL: What are you planning at this year's Roppongi Art Night?　

YK: This is secret until the day I will bring out my new work.

CBL: Do you see any similarities between Roppongi Art Night and the "Happenings" that you were involved with in New York back in the 1960s?

YK: All expression of my creation is always same.

CBL: Roppongi Art Night is a very energetic event mainly for young people and you would be the first to admit that you are an art veteran. How do you find the great amount of energy needed for this event?

YK: I am an avant-garde artist, and my art creations are just like the way of my life, that is, for my life, which is enormously energetic and obsessive.

CBL: What do you think of the present generation of young Japanese artists?

YK: I want them to keep creating more great creations.

CBL: Which young artists at Roppongi Art Night do you particularly admire? Why?

YK: I hope every artist will create great work, and bring a lot of excitement to Roppongi Art Night 2011

Janick Gers [Iron Maiden]

2011-02-20T08:41:00.005Z

In February, 2011, I interviewed Janick Gers, one of Iron Maiden's three guitarists. The band was in Singapore on their The Final Frontier World Tour. The telephone conversation lasted about 15 minutes with the Maiden axeman managing to get off 39 "y'knows," at a very respectable rate of 2.6 per minute.
Iron Maiden arrived in Japan on the same day as the Great Tohoku Earthquake, with the result that both their gigs were cancelled.

JG: Hi Colin

CBL: Hello Janick

JG: How ya doing?

CBL: So, how’s the tour going?

JG: Tour's going great. We just started. Em, The Final Frontier tour started back in June before the album came out, so this is an extension since the album come out, setting off around the world so, yeh, we started in Moscow, which was about minus seventeen and now we're in Singapore for a gig tonight, but, yeh, it's going great.

CBL: So how does, em, switching from sort of sub arctic temperatures to kind of tropical climate affect the way you perform?

JG: Well, it doesn't effect the way you perform, it effects the way you… Well, obviously you're travelling – it took us about 15 hours to get here. There's a kind of… You've got to get yourself used to the jetlag and get yourself twisted round again, and obviously, y'know, if you're out walking in minus fifteen, and you're out walking in snow [garbled] near eighties or early nineties [Fahrenheit]. It is different but you've just got to get used to it. It doesn't really affect how you perform, which I think is we try and give best show that we can every night to whatever, wherever country we're in. We give the best we can.

CBL: Yeh, um, speaking of the, em, speaking of the long flights and time and everything, this is also, um, the longest Iron Maiden album ever.

JG: I think it is, yeh, I mean, we've got so many ideas. There's six writers in the band and we're all bringing ideas in, so we never run dry of ideas. And the stuff we left off, y'know, that we didn't record, I mean, I brought in an hour's worth of stuff and everybody brought lots of stuff in, and not all of it gets used, so there’s just so many ideas within the band, and, um, there's no… It's like a piece of string, there's no set length. You play until you feel you have a complete album there, and then you put it all together and see what you have, and we kind of write around the songs and put things in, and, y'know, it just came out like that, and I'm very proud of it. It was a great album. It went to number one in twenty-eight countries, which is the most successful Maiden album chartwise we ever…that we've had to date really so, um, we must be doing something right, y'know. Really happy with it!

CBL: Yeh? Yeh. It’s just it reminded me a little bit of the, y'know, Harry Potter books, y'know, because they started out quite short and they kept getting longer and longer…

JG: No, I think…

CBL: …so…

JG: …originally at the beginning, y'know, y-you couldn't put more than about forty minutes on an album anyhow.

CBL: Yeh.

JG: Um, if you look back to the Beatles, they probably have thirty minutes, sometimes only twenty. You were limited by the technology. Well, the technology's changed now. If you look at everybody's albums, you'll find, y'know, they're at leas…round about well over sixty minutes, wherever you go, so the technology's changed a lot and it enables you to do more music and to expand themes and, ur, try different tapestries within the framework of what we do.

CBL: One of the things about Maiden is there's a lot of, uh, creative input from you. You were just saying you brought along an hour of stuff and, em, only a couple of songs from you were used. What happens to all the stuff that you bring in that doesn't get onto the Maiden albums?

JG: It kind of goes in your room box, it, it, y'know, sometimes it's not full songs, it's just basic ideas, y'know, and everybody brings them in. Everybody brought loads of stuff in. Steve had boxes of stuff. Y'know, you bring ideas in and what works gets on it. Sometimes you think this is really good and it doesn't quite fit in with what we’re doing, y'know, it might be in a different strain. It doesn’t quite work.

CBL: Yeh.

JG: And so you have bits and pieces lying around all the time. You, you'll often have hundreds of ideas and songs kicking about, some of 'em complete – you might have twenty or thirty completed. Some of them in bits and bobs and you put them together, y'know, at various times in your career. That’s music, y'know, you're constantly… It, it's kind of organic. You're constantly having ideas and having… Eh, we do a lot of travelling, we travel to different countries, y'know, we go… We're coming to Japan. We're in Singapore now. You take all those cultures in and you regurgitate them in the music. You can't really help it. It effects how you play. It effects how you visualize your music, so all of those things help you play.

CBL: Well, that, that's very interesting. Could you maybe give me a bit of an example of, of how some of the cultural influences you pick up along the way, eh, feed into, eh, your music?

JG: I think it just does. Y'know, I'm a human being, y'know, everything I see and touch feeds me personally in some… And then I like, y'know, every book I read, every piece of information that I gleam from wherever I am in the World enabled me to write a certain way and it doesn't… You can't put a finger on it and say, like… I suppose you could. You could pick certain riffs out and say, "Well that’s got an Eastern flavour, that's got this flavour," um, but often you'll just have… It's a thought, y'know, you'll have a thought about something and you want… Say we go to Brasilia later on in the tour. We spent a good time in Brasilia last time we were there, and some of the archi-architectural stuff that's going on there, which was built between the fifties and sixties, is incredible. Y'know, just looking at that stuff makes you think in a different way and that, that kind of… You interpret things in the music. Even sometimes without knowing it. It's kind of poetic licence.

CBL: Yeh, that's kinda… Brasilia's very kind of modernist architecture, Le Corbusier, that sort of thing, isn’t it?

JG: Yeh, I mean it's incredible. Y'know, things like that are going to influence you musically, so that's just the kind of thing.

CBL: We're talking about the songs you've had the most input on, on this album, I mean, I was listening to The Talisman, which is a song I really like. Could you tell me a little bit about how that got going?

JG: It was one of the things I brought in [unclear] a real rock n' roll edge kind of song, and Steve came in with some ideas for vocals, for a story about the talisman and it just went on from there. These things build and build, and we ended up smoothing things around that didn't coming out. We've been doing it live for this part of the tour, so hopefully you'll get a chance to hear it.

CBL: Yeh. How has it changed live from what's on the album?

JG: It should be exactly the same. When we do the album, we tend to go in live and play together. Y'know, we don’t layer it off, like a lot of bands do.

CBL: Yeh.

JG: We actually go in and we play it together. We might overdub and put little bits on extra, and I might, y'know, have three guitars going at once in certain sections, but the, the actual immediate song as we play it is played live, so, when we come to play them live, they're not that much different really. In fact, I wouldn't have thought they'd be any different.

CBL: Yeh, from what you've said, though, it sounds like you define yourself essentially as a live band. Would that be right?

JG: Yeh, I do, and I think a lot of bands, they go in the studio and, y'know, and they use click tracks and they layer the things off, and what comes out isn't what the band sounds like. What comes out is what the producer makes the band sound like, so when they go out live they don't have the impact maybe that they have in the studio. I think it's quite the opposite with us. When we play live… We're a live band, and one of the…probably the most exciting live band it's possible to see. Got an incredible live show, and that involves lights and the things, and the various production things we bring with us too, but it also involves the six of us on stage, and we try to get that. That's what we're after when we do an album. We try to capture that live essence, and put that onto the digital domain, and that's a very hard thing to do. Not that many people can do it, and, um, I think what happens, when we go out and play live, the songs do change slightly, but because we played them live… On the album, y'know, they're probably a bit more laid back, but when we tend to play live they tend to be a little bit more, em, biting, probably because the crowd is there, and there's all these other things that are happening, which makes the song, sometime, take a different twist.

CBL: Yeh. Now, em, with, eh, with like three guitarists, eh, y'know, and a lot going on at the same time. Don’t you sometimes kinda tread on each other's toes? I mean, like, you might wanna play something and somebody else might wanna play something, and stuff like that, because most bands don't have three guitarists. That must throw up its own, eh, selection of problems from time to time.

JG: Well, firstly, y'know, I played with the Gillan band for many years and I was just the only guitarist, y'know, and I know I can play just by myself in any band, and I know that Adrian can do that too, and I know that Dave would fit into any band as the main guitarist, so the first thing you do is throw your ego away, and then you start looking at how can we make Iron Maiden sound bigger and better, and it's a case of being very subtle, a way of playing between ourselves, and being able to step back and let other people move forward, and having like, just creating tapestries within the songs and trying to make songs sound better for having the three guitarists, but on the other side of the coin as well, when I did stuff like Tattooed Millionaire with Bruce which is the solo album we did…

CBL: Yeh.

JG: …that very first track had eight guitars on it. Y'know, when you play, I'm playing highs and playing lows, and dropping themes in there, I'm playing, em, lots of different inversions of chords, and when you come to do it live and there's only you, you have to pick which one you're going to do and you can't create that sound you had on the album. You have to create a different sound, and, y'know, if you listen to Jimmy Page with the Zeppelin stuff, he did the same. He would have to look for, y'know, the harmony to use that would make the song sound right, but with us we have the three guitarists, so, as I said about Talisman, y'know, I put about six guitars on the middle section.

CBL: Yeh.

JG: There's plenty to choose from between us three which one plays what, and we never tread on anyone's toes because there's just room for all of us. We make the room by playing different themes and we all have such different styles, it makes the band sound bigger, it doesn't squash it, y'know. That’s the feeling we get on stage, whether that comes across in the mix is another thing. It depends on the guy on front.

CBL: Yeh.

JG: But, no, I never feel, y'know, squashed. I’m quite happy to take a step back and push other people forward to make the band sound better, and that’s the trick – it’s not guitar frenzy. We’re not trying to be the three best guitarists in the world. We’re trying to make Iron Maiden sound better than any other band.

CBL: So talking about this kind of idea of a collective and, like, throwing away your egos and, uh, a kind of talisman for the whole group…

JG: I never said we threw it away. It's still there…

CBL: Well, just push it to one side, yeh?

JG: Yeh.

CBL: But, em, to talk about a kind of collective thing and a talisman for the whole band, that, like, raises the issue of Eddie, and I’m quite looking for a bit of a Japanese angle here, and I was reading that he was inspired by a head hanging on the side of a Japanese tank, Is there…Well, would you be able to comment on that, or kind of fill in the details on his origins?

JG: No. All it was about a joke. I mean I wasn't hee…I've been with the band for twenty years now, but it…There was a joke going around about the guy having a big head, y'know. It was just about the joke and I think they used the joke as a head on stage. And then it became… It grew bigger and they used to throw stuff through his mouth onto the drummer, and Ed became bigger and bigger and took on its own identity really. And it's fantastic really, because we don’t have to be on the album covers. We can use Eddie, differently every time, and it means we can kinda get out and about and not be bothered too much by it and, em, it's a great thing to have. Y'know, we can change the imagery throughout the band with each album.

CBL: Yeh, but without losing the identity, yeh?

JG: Exactly, exactly, and also we, y'know, we don't have to stick our faces. We're not a cabaret band. We don't want our faces on the cover of everything, and it's a great way… It's an identity for the band. Y'know, it was brought about by a joke that was going around England at the time, way, way back. But you'd probably have to ask Steve or Dave. They might be able to be more informative.

CBL: Yeh, I was just…The thing I heard was about the, the illustrator, Derek Riggs, and he was inspired by a head he saw in a documentary, which was sort of hanging on the side of a Japanese tank.

JG: Well, you'd have to ask Derek about that.

CBL: Yeh, just wondered if you knew about that.

JG: I mean before he was involved, it was, y'know, the Eddie Head was used by the band.

CBL: Yeh.

JG: I think they used it way, way before they had an album out. It actually came from a joke about a head that was kicking about London at the time.

CBL: Yeh.

JG: Just [unclear] another thing.

MANAGEMENT: Hey Colin, I’m going have to ask you to wrap up.

CBL: Oh, OK, right. Eh, just one question?

MANAGEMENT: Yup. Do it.

CBL: Now the album title, Final Frontier, em, it's sort of got a kind of science fiction space connotation.

JG: Yeh, that's right.

CBL: Can you sort of tell me where you're aiming at with this concept?

JG: Well, no, it was just the title track, the first track on the album, y'know, the… There was that kind of space concept and it gave us the idea to use for the tour, and it just kind of fits in with the album. It felt good. It felt good with the, em, title. It gives us a lot of imagery. Um, it’s a great song. We're doing it on the tour and, y'know, it all came from there.

CBL: But going on tour is a bit like going on a tour across the universe, isn't it?

JG: Well, it certainly is. Yeh. [laughs] We're heading out for the final frontier! We're doing a lot of different dates on this tour. We're in Singapore now, which we've never done before. We're going to Jakarta, which we've never played before, and Bali.

CBL: Yeh, you're number one in India and places like that. It's just like all these new markets.

JG: Well, it's fantastic. And it's such a thrill to play to new people, so we're very, very excited and we're looking forward to coming to Japan.

CBL: yeh, I'm looking forward to it too. Thanks a lot, Janick.

JG: Thank you very much. Cheers.

El Anatsui, artist

2011-02-17T10:36:00.004Z

On the 6th of February, 2011, I interviewed the Ghanaian artist El Anatsui at the Museum of Modern Art Hayama. He mainly makes wood scuptures of various kinds and large tapestries from bits of garbage, like bottle tops, aluminium foil, etc. The interview lasted around 17 minutes and was conducted as an "exhibition walk-through." Because of the need for visual reference, I recorded it on video.

CBL: It's running...Could you tell me a little bit about this? [indicating a large garbage tapestry called Gravity and Grace at the enttrance to the exhibition] Why have you chosen this work as the, eh, entrance piece?

EA: Oh yes, because it's about, the space where it best fits in, y'know it's very long, very tall. It could go horizontal or vertical but we decided to put it here because this is the kind of space it can best fit in.

CBL: Em, so this was… You made this obviously before the exhibition and you brought it over?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: I see. Um, how old is it? When did you make it?

EA: 2009, I think. Yeh.

CBL: Mh?

EA: 2009.

CBL: So, quite a recent work…

EA: No, 2010, I think.

CBL: Uhu. OK, let's go into the exhibition now.

[We enter the exhibition]

CBL: It's called Gravity and Grace?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: Any special meaning there?

EA: It's after, it's after the book entitled Gravity and Grace…I've forgotten the author, by, uh, a philosopher.

CBL: Well, I can always find out later, I'm sure. [Note: The book was written by the Jewish French philosopher and mystic Simone Weil.]

EA: Yeh, yeh.

CBL: Now, em, is the exhibition chronological? Does it start with earlier works or is there…?

EA: In a sense, yeh, because these [mumbles]. I work in wood for some time, yeh, before going on to the metal and these are some of the wood pieces. I worked with the found wood and the wood from the sawmills, one of which is this one.

[He indicates One Kobo (1988)]

CBL: And this one here is a thumb?

EA: Yeh, like a thumb and [goes to the other side] here's all the fingers.

CBL: I see, so it's one big hand altogether?

EA: A big hand holding a coin.

CBL: I see, uhu, yeh, so the need for money...

EA: [laughs] Yeh, then I working with found wooden objects which had seen the human use.

[We approach Man With Offspring (1991)]

EA: It's one of them from the mortar, the longitudinal mortar that is used...[unclear].

CBL: This looks, em, very phallic.

EA: Yeh.

CBL: On purpose, yeh? That's your intention?

EA: Yeh, that's the intention. It's called Man and Offspring.

[Next we come to The Seers (1993/2000)]

CBL: I notice that here you use a lot of wood, you use a lot of, em, planks side by side, so with this one also, these are set side by side.

EA: Yeh, these are actually from old mortars that I split. Y'know if you put it together it'll form a round… Yeh. As you can see that’s the inside.

CBL: So, what was the mortar used for making?

EA: Eh, what?

CBL: What was the mortar used for?

EA: For pounding, for pounding all kinds of things, grains and some roots for eating, food and other thing…
[Next, looking at Currents (undated)]

CBL: Uhu, now with these works you used planks set side by side. Why don't you just use one large piece of wood? Why do you have to use lots of em, y'know, thin pieces set side by side?

EA: Yeh, but it gives the opportunity for easy packing and also they are independent. They could be rearranged.

CBL: Aha!

EA: Yeh, the whole idea, you can rearrange them. In the catalogue you'll see we tried to… I put numbers behind them.

CBL: Mmm.

EA: Yeh, we tried to arrange them according to the numbers, and after that we show another picture with the whole thing jumbled up.

CBL: Yeh?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: OK, that makes sense.

EA: And a good example of that in the catalogue is tell you what I mean, so the idea of having them in strips is you can expand, you can even rearrange and change, y'know, raise these, lower these, y’know…

CBL: So you can put them out of synch?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: and you can create more, well, sort of [visual] rhythms and melodies?

EA: So it gives more scope for playing around with it.

CBL: Yeh, easy to pack?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: Is it always vertical, never horizontal?

EA: Eh, they could be horizontal…[unclear]…oh you mean like this way

[moves fingers in horizontal fashion]

CBL: Yes, like that.

EA: It is more…It's easier to arrange because we have just one, er, stick on which we can lay…

CBL: I see, so there's a stick behind that?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: On which they’re all hanging?

EA: [garbled] you have stick for each.

CBL: OK, let me just get the stick.

[films the stick]

CBL: There's the stick. OK, that clarifies that. There's a reason for everything.

[move to On Their Fateful Journey Nowhere (1995)]

CBL: And these are, eh, these are some of the mortars?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: Why are mortars so important to you?

EA: Mortars are important to me because they…to me they represent, y'know, man or the human being.

CBL: In what way?

EA: In the sense that when they are new and young, they are put to a lot of uses, but when they are old and, uh, kinda broken they are discarded. Y'know, when I find them in the broken state and discarded I kind of raise them up to… I give them a new lease of life, yeh.

CBL: So this is like their retirement home for, uh, broken mortars? So you identify with the old mortars?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: More and more?

EA: More identify with things that have seen human use.

CBL: Yeh?

EA: And, uh, have been give a lot of touching and manipulation.

CBL: Uhu.

EA: Y'know I believe that when a human hand touches something it leaves a charge, it leaves an energy…

CBL: A spiritual energy?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: Not just a stain or fingers or stickiness?

EA: No. [laughs]

CBL: That also maybe.

EA: Yeh, that also.
[We are now in the next room, which is occupied by Waste Paper Bags (2004-2010)]

CBL: And these are just…

EA: These are from old printing plates.

CBL: Uhu.

EA: printing plates that I got from a printer in and around a village where I live in Nigeria. Initially I saw that a lot of them were about obituary, like, y’know, you can see...[unclear]...y'know because in my part of the World funerals are very public things.

CBL: Yeh?

EA: And they do a lot of publicity about them, y'know, therefore there is a lot of printing of funeral notices.

CBL: Yeh.

EA: Y'know…I…

CBL: These ones, these ones are funeral notices?

EA: Mostly.

CBL: But not everything?

EA: Not everything. Some are newspaper printing plates. Y'know, what I'm playing around with is the idea of ephemerality of life.

CBL: Yeh?

EA: Y'know because most of the lives that [unclear] are very short, maybe 50 years or 40 years, y'know.

CBL: And also it looks like newspaper even though it's metal. Yeh. It looks like newspaper, especially the way you've crumpled it makes it look more like paper.

EA: And paper too is very ephemeral.

CBL: Yeh.

EA: Yeh.

CBL: Like, the newspaper article which I write about you is probably very ephemeral.

EA: [laughs] One day news, One day literature...

CBL: Yeh, we say tomorrow's fish and chip paper.

EA: [laughs]

CBL: Now, you've made these into bags with handles.

EA: Yeh.

CBL: Why did you put the handles on?

EA: Wastepaper bag, they are the wastage of lives.

CBL: To make them look more papery, more ephemeral?

EA: Yeh.

[we come to the next room, which is decorated with several large tapestries made from garbage]

CBL: We're coming to the noisy part of the exhibition

EA: The fans blowing there.

CBL: Now I notice… The thing that strikes me as a professional art critic is the scale. You tend to work in this size with these kind of works, which are made from bottle tops or small silver strips or bits of tin. Em, why do you choose this scale?

EA: On the smaller scale they look very ineffectual.

CBL: Mm.

EA: Yeh.

CBL: Why is that?

EA: Eh, I don’t know. Because they are not very, um, precious items. Bottlecaps are… And also they are very light. They are made of aluminium, therefore very light, therefore give scope for want to on the large scale still be able to manipulate them.

CBL: Yes I guess also if you make on a smaller scale, you're still left with the original function.

EA: Yeh.

CBL: And by making it big like this the original function is lost.

EA: Yeh, yeh, it’s overpowered.

CBL: And it makes it more transcendent and more um sort of subsumed to something else.

EA: Yes….and they pack easily. Y'know, you fold them, they're very light, like you fold dresses.

CBL: Packing things easily seems to be very important to you.

EA: Eh?

CBL: Packing things easily seems to be very important to you.

EA: Yeh, because these days as artists your work needs to move around to all places and, ah, so packing is very crucial.

CBL: So, yeh, do you think your work – basically you recycle a lot of things – do you think one of the reasons your work has caught on is because it has this kind of ecological message?

EA: Mmm, yeh. I don't think that that is at the back of my mind but that's what I do. Anyway, it's a fact, but then my idea is to transform, y'know to give a new lease of life to this, uh, this kind of thing.

CBL: Yeh?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: That's very typical of African society in general isn't it? This need to use something and not just throw it away like we do in, em, more developed societies.

EA: Yeh, yeh, you recycle [laughs] you recycle and bring it back to the same use again.

CBL: Yeh.

EA: Yeh, but we send it to something else.

CBL: Yeh, so, so it becomes a different thing?

EA: Mhm.

CBL: Yeh, so can you think of some examples of that in African culture, where you recycle and you make something into something else?

EA: For example?

CBL: Yeh, what sort of things do you make into something else in African society when you recycle?

EA: Uh…

CBL: So, for example, if there's lots of old tin cans, what would somebody do with old tin cans?

EA: Well, tin cans can be used in making a, say, toys for children.

CBL: Mmm.

EA: In fact an African child will make his own toys.

CBL: Yeh?

EA: From tin cans and such things.

CBL: I once saw an exhibit I think at the British museum, and they got Kalashnikov machine guns and they were made into a chair. Do you know this work? [Note: This is Chair of the African King, by Goncalo Armando Mabunda.]

EA: Oh yeh, yeh, made in a Mozambique. I know about dat.

CBL: That was a classic case of, uh, recycling something, with a very strong message. Your message is more gentle than that, not so obvious, more artistic.

EA: [silent walking]

CBL: I feel your work is not so political. It's more aesthetic. It's driven by…

EA: I think I'm more, more of an aesthetic than a political artist.

[We are now looking at Gli (Wall) (2009)]

CBL: Now, here you've gone for a transparent effect.

EA: Yep, made out of the same bottlecaps, but then the rings, the rings that lock...[unclear]...that's what I intended to do.

CBL: Now, look…

EA: Playing around with the idea of transparency, the wall, the wall as more a transparent thing than something which blocks, because I believe that when you come across a wall, the tendency is for your imagination to spring beyond it, to start imagining what is on the other end, y'know.

CBL: Which is not a bad thing, is it? This [indicating Gli (Wall)] stops the imagination.

EA: This doesn't stop it…

CBL: Because you can see.

EA: …provokes it.

CBL: Aha. But I mean if you couldn't see, it would provoke it, but here you can see through so it doesn't ah…

EA: Ah, OK, it doesn't provoke it. [laughs]

CBL: So this is a kind of wall to the imagination, if you want to… But that sounds a bit negative. Uh, the other thing that really strikes people when they stand up close to your works is how many pieces go into making each one.

EA: Oh yeh, making each one. I...[unclear]...I think the whole thing has something to do with consumerism…

CBL: Yeh, but could I just...

EA: If you think that each of these [indicates bottle rings] represents a bottle of…hard drink...

CBL: Yeh.

EA: Then it gives you some idea of how many drink bottles are here.

CBL: So it gives you some notion of how much alcohol has been consumed.

EA: Yeh.

CBL: On a mass scale…Also, how do you make these? Do you… You must have people helping you cos these…

EA: I have, I have lots of, lots of assistants who...

CBL: Yeh.

EA: Numbering at times thirty or therabouts.

CBL: So, it's like a factory basically…in a way?

EA: Ehhh, not factory. Factory would be something the same thing. Yeh, but we do different things.

CBL: So it's like an artist's workshop but on a large scale?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: OK, right, good. I think that's lots of interesting material. So you have to go somewhere from now?

EA: Yeh.

CBL: I believe you're going to the other exhibition. [Note: This was the exhibition of Shindo Tsuji]

EA: The other museum.

CBL: Which I've just been to today.

EA: Oh, OK.

CBL: Yeh.

EA: The ceramic…

CBL: The ceramic... Wood sculpture also. So I think you'll find a lot of affinities with your own work.

END

Tadasu Takamine, conceptual artist

2011-01-31T12:21:00.004Z

In January 2011, I met and interviewed Tadasu Takamine at the Yokohama Museum of Art. Due to a technical glitch, our conversation was not recorded. I therefore emailed him some additional questions. Although his English ability is rather good, he emailed me back with answers in Japanese, which I then translated into English.

CBL: Do you have mixed feelings about exhibiting at the Yokohama Art Museum considering the history? I am of course referring to what happened with your video work Kimura-san some years ago.

TT: Concerning the exhibition of Kimura-san in 2004, wasn't there rather a degree of courage from the Yokohama Museum of Art in trying to display the work? Compared with other art museums not even accepting the original offer, this was very good. Concerning not being able to display, yes there was a feeling of "after all it was useless," but rather than bad feelings remaining, more important than that, there was a good feeling with regard to the Yokohama Museum of Art.

CBL: By my definition, your art is concept art. It is not concerned with aesthetics, but with ideas and concepts and making people think. The ideas generated are paramount. But the problem with conceptual art is that unless the ideas are great and the revelations revolutionary, people are likely to be disappointed. At the same time conceptual artists feel reluctant to make their concepts too clear. Do you generally try to work on the audience's mind indirectly or just make them a little confused in the hope that something good will come out of it?

TT: This is the first time my art had been called conceptual art, so it is not a bad feeling, but I don't think a conceptual artist would call a work like Baby Insa-dong conceptual art. Kimura-san and works like these, I think, are rather closer to literature than fine arts.

CBL: God Bless America is said by some to be a criticism of America. But I am not convinced. Any song could be used without changing the nature of the work. What do you think?

TT: If we imagine there is a tune other than God Bless America, it is the Japanese national anthem. I think God Bless America is suitable simply because the number of people who sing the Japanese national anthem with tears flowing are few.

CBL: Freud gave every human action a sexual connotation. With A Big Blow Job you seem to be trying to give a sexual action a non-sexual connotation. You said you had some problems with this piece when I saw it, but as you explained at the time, the basic idea is to desexualize the act of the blow job and to turn it into an analogy of our relationship with the Earth. Isn't this just stretching an analogy to the point where it becomes meaningless? What use is such an idea? Won't people just say, "Oh, I see," then shrug their shoulders and forget about it?

TT: When you say A Big Blow Job here, I think you mean Too Far to See. Blow jobs are included in sex, but the piece concerns something different from our usual way of thinking about it. Furthermore, concerning the possibility of connotation, the object of the work is to explore the possibility of images. The Japanese kanji title of Too Far to See means "exhibits in the room for after a meeting."

CBL: If an art work contains a strongly sexual element – from the point of view of ordinary people – then the sexual element tends to drown out any other element. From Kimura-san people will remember its sexual nature more than its charitable nature. From God Bless America people remember the sex between you and your partner rather than any other concepts, and from Too Far to See people are likely to remember it in a sexual way, too. For this very reason, shouldn't a conceptual artist avoid sex like the plague?

TT: Concerning what you call "people"... For example, those looking at God Bless America, if the general reaction is that they only remember the sex action and if that's the way people are, I think it's very stupid. Concerning Kimura-san it is the same. But as I have a lot of experience showing these two works to university classes, I think a further polite explanation is not necessary.

CBL: I have been reading the exhibition catalogue. I got the impression from the short essays On Not Becoming a Leader, A Hands Off Approach, and Towards Human Existence that you are very self-disparaging. But I also got the impression for some reason that this self-disparaging nature was actually hiding ambition. I got the feeling that you are very ambitious but that you think ambition is a dirty word. What was your motive for writing these pieces?

TT: I'm not certain if it's an error of the bilingual text or a difference of culture, but I think there are many cases of affirming while denying and in addition denying while affirming.

Chick Corea, musician (II)

2010-12-01T23:24:00.007Z

In Novermber 2010, I interviewed the jazz pianist Chick Corea by telephone for the Japan Times. Chick was in a hotel in Los Angeles. This is the first 13 or 14 minutes of a 20-minute interview.

CC: Hello.

CBL: Uh, hullo, is that Chick?

CC: It is.

CBL: Hi. This is Colin Liddell, uh, phoning from Tokyo…

CC: Yes.

CBL: …on behalf of the Japan Times, coz, uh, you'll be coming here pretty soon.

CC: That's right.

CBL: Em, yeh, I, uh, heard you, you've just sort of woken up or would be sleeping at around this time.

CC: No, no, that's, that's… I've been up for about five hours.

CBL: Oh, OK, that was, uh, a misunderstanding then.

CC: Yeh.

CBL: It sounded like you'd been very busy.

CC: No, it's the busy part. I was busy all morning.

CBL: Uhu. Could I, could I ask you what you were busy doing?

CC: Yeh, I'm busy setting up my composing, uh, uh, keyboards here in my hotel room, so that I can, uh, so that I can meet…eh, y'know, do some composing that I need to do.

CBL: Uhu, em, what sort of shape or direction is that taking?

CC: Well, uh, many different things. I have, uh-hu, projects… Well, first of all, I'm writing, uh, and arranging some music for the trio coming to Japan, and, uh, I have a project with Return to Forever, coming up next year that I'm, uh, rearranging some music and writing some new music. I have, uh, several projects that I'm, um, working on.

CBL: Uhu. Em… Whenever you show up on my radar, I always notice you’re doing some, something with, eh, someone else, eh, y'know, sometimes it's duets with, like Hiromi Uehara, or I saw you recently doing fourhand with Herbie Hancock, and then there’s, eh, there’s all these projects and collaborations – Five Peace Band… Last time you came to Tokyo it was with, eh, Lenny and Stanley. Now you've got a different trio coming and, um…

CC: Are you getting dizzy?

CBL: Mm?

CC: Is it making you dizzy?

CBL: No, no, no. I’m not saying it's weird or anything, but it just, like, raises… It raises the question, for me, like, eh, with jazz, where, like, personality is really to the fore in the music, em, how do you manage to be so easy to get along with all these different people and personalities in there?

CC: Well, y'know, it might seem, uh, uh, a lot more, uhm, hurried, when you view it from the Internet, uh… For me it’s, it’s more or less one project at a time, and I, uh, pull myself into whatever the current project is. Hhh, right now it's, uh, preparing music for the tour to Japan with, uh, Christian [McBride] and, and Brian [Blade], and basically I have a, a… I’m rich in musician friends and the collaborations have been, uh, ones with musicians that I’ve known for many, many years, uh, and, uh, it’s all, uh, very inspiring to me to, to be able to, uh, work with, er, with these different, different great musicians, and I get inspired and it’s a lot of fun. There’s a lot of pluses to it.

CBL: Yeh, but, m-m-my main point is, eh, y'know in jazz, personality's very much to the fore in the music, and you work with so many different people, so it just, like, suggests you’re, like, a really easy guy to get on with musically…and maybe personally.

CC: Well, you should ask them. I, I think, y'know, I have fun with my friends and, uh, I don't…uh…I don't have problems with people.

CBL: So problems never show up with collaborators?

CC: Er-r, are you searching for a problem, man?

CBL: Hehehe, well, I’m just searching for how people solve problems, y'know. That could teach us all something I guess.

CC: Ah, y'know, I, I, ah, I have, uh, I have certain principles that I live by. I, I, uh, try to treat people well. Not just other musicians but just people in general and that generally brings back good feelings to me from others, y'know, so what is it, the Golden Rule.

CBL: Mm?

CC: The Golden Rule. Don’t you remember the Golden Rule. Your grandmother never taught you the Golden Rule?

CBL: Do unto others…

CC: The Golden Rule is, uh, uh, you, you treat others well and you will be treated well back.

CBL: Yeh.

CC: Something like that.

CBL: Do unto others as you would have done to yourself.

CC: well, that’s another way of phrasing it, but if… I find that if I treat others well, I, I…the kindness is returned to me.

CBL: Uhu, but has that always been the case, though?

CC: What’s that?

CBL: Has that always been the case?

CC: Pretty much.

CBL: Yeh? There's no situations where it hasn't been the case?

CC: Are you searching for problems, man? Let’s talk about music. [laughs] Why you searching for problems?

CBL: So, basica… Well that is my answer, coz, cuz, cuz, there, you're avoiding the difficulty. You just go round it.

CC: I'm not avoiding anything. It's just not something I wanna talk about.

CBL: Yeh.

CC: Yeh. Let’s talk about music.

CBL: OK. Well, well, last time…

CC: So what, what… This is for the Japan tour that we’re gonna do, right?

CBL: Yes, Japan Times. Yeh, so, with Brian and Christian…

CC: Yeh.

CBL: And, like, I think that last year you were here with Lenny and Stanley.

CC: That's right.

CBL: And, so, what kind of differences can the audiences expect there?

CC: Well, it's a different band, different music, different band, different personalities, ah, um, last year with Stanley and Lenny, we, we, uh, we played mostly standards, and, uh, just things that were familiar to us, from, from our jazz past. This time we're doing a bit of that with Christian and Brian, except that, ah, a lot of new music has been written for the Trio, and, uh, well, y'know, different personalities is what's going to make the music sound quite different.

CBL: Uhu. Ah, how would you describe Brian and Christian’s musical personalities?

CC: Ah, well, I… They’re amazing genius musicians first of all and they have, uh, each one has a complete mastery of his instrument. They're just a joy to play with.

CBL: Mmm. Aren't you a bit worried that they might put you in the shade a bit?

CC: Uh, no, I'm not worried.

CBL: You'd welcome that?

CC: You're looking for problems again, man.

CBL: Hehehehe

CC: Worry, worry, problems…

CBL: I’m a journalist. I’m looking for a story, but I’m, y'know, very sympathetic to…

CC: You're looking for a story? Well invent one. You're, you’re a writer, well invent a story. That's what writers do, say, say…Take a thing, say, look this is the fiction part of this…

CBL: Um…

CC: …and then invent some problems. Chick hit Brian in the mouth, y'know, Brian fell down… I don’t know what you’re looking for.

CBL: Right, now, um, so, em, wh-when you, em… Well you’ve had this long distinguished career and doesn't that always put a little bit of pressure on you, when you do shows, that people kinda want you to encompass your whole career and they wanna hear stuff, like from way back with Miles, and like the jazz fusion stuff you did in the 70s…

CC: I don't find that at all. Yeh, I don’t find it that way at all. I find that audiences are pretty open and receptive to whatever I bring on stage, whether it's nostalgia or not. I think the audiences are just looking for creativity, a bright feeling, and, coming from stage, something to make them feel good.

CBL: Yeh, and, uh, so they, um, really are, uh, looking to the same things you're looking to – to create spontaneity and flow?

CC: That's what it seems like to me. They, they seem happy with, uh, with, uh, whatever seems to be going on and that's the thing I like to do, I like to bring a lot of different, uh, a variety of, um, programs and, uh, ideas to the audience.

CBL: Uhu. Mm, how do you prepare yourself for spontaneity?

CC: You don't. There's no preparation.

CBL: Yeh.

CC: Because that woudn't be very spontaneous would it?

CBL: So the preparation is not to prepare?

CC: Huh?

CBL: The preparation is not to prepare.

CC: No, the preparation is you don't think about it.

CBL: Uhu. It just happens.

CC: Well, that’s the kind of the way life is, y'know, I mean the preparation really is of the music is writing music, rehearsing it, uh, getting it the way you want, getting the instruments to sound well. It's a, it's all, uh, y'know… That's, that's the, that's the real life. But as far as walking on stage to play, that's, that's… You just do that.

CBL: Umh. Ah, also, like with jazz…

CC: I know one thing that I do to prepare actually.

CBL: Yeh?

CC: Is, is that I have this Castile Soap that I bring with me. I wash my hands before I go on – heh!

CBL: Sorry, can you repeat that?

CC: Hehehehe

CBL: Sorry, could you repeat that please?

CC: I wash my hands with Castile Soap before I go on stage.

CBL: Uhu, so, why do you recommend Castile?

CC: Uh?

CBL: Why that particular soap?

CC: I don't know. I was just as joke, kinda.

CBL: Hahaha

CC: That's what I do to prepare for a concert.

CBL: Right.

CC: Yeh.

CBL: Yeh, it's as simple as that. Right, now, when you're coming over here, I notice that you play on the third and fourth, and then there's a little bit of a gap, then you're back on the 9th to the 12th.

CC: Yeh.

CBL: What happens in between?

CC: We do some other gigs. We're, we're travelling, we're travelling around Japan.

CBL: Uhu, so go, em, to some other venues in Japan?

CC: Yes.

CBL: So, right, em, all together, it's quite a, uh, large number of gigs.

CC: Ah, yeh, well it depends on what you compare it to. It, it’s a nice tour. It's about a, it's about a three week job. I’m putting my calendar up to tell you where we’re going here. Yeh. Let’s see… We’re going to, ah… After Tokyo we're gonna play the Nagoya Blue Note on the 6th, and then we're playing the Sapporo Blue Note and then we're back to the Tokyo...

(to be added to later...)

Sousuke Fujimoto, architect

2010-11-04T12:57:00.004Z

In October, 2010, I intereviewed the architect Sousuke Fujimoto about his exhibition at the Watarium Museum in Tokyo.

CBL: First of all, I'd like to say that it is a great exhibition at the Watarium, especially because you use the space so well. As you know, the space at the Watarium is quite narrow and difficult. What was your first thought when you were asked to design an exhibition here? What did you see as the main difficulties?

SF: First of all, I wanted other people besides architects to enjoy the exhibition. And I wanted to physically express the fun of having an architectural idea rather than just exhibiting lots of architectural plans and models in the conventional way. The Watarium Museum has a characteristic space, so I didn't think it was difficult. It was an inspiration in making the exhibition.

CBL: You have created a kind of sandwich. The second floor creates a sensual soft cave from plastic cylinders. The fourth floor is also a sense experience. We experience both the 2nd floor and the fourth floor with our feelings rather than our mind. But the 3rd floor is where all the detail and information is. This is more cerebral. How did you decide on such an effective arrangement?

SF: Thank you, but I didn't think like that. [laughs] On the second floor, the exhibition is 1:1 scale, on the third it is the scale of the various architectural models, and on the fourth floor it is 'city scale.' I was thinking of making each floor different in that way. On the other hand, after it was made, the third floor became a kind of experience because you can walk around between the exhibits freely, and from those models you can get more detailed information, so I think it became quite an interesting place full of architectural models where people can get information but also have an experience.

CBL: You ask the questions: What kind of place will people be living in 10 years, 50 years, and 100 years? What is your own best answer to these questions?

SF: Like a man-made forest, perhaps. [laughs]

CBL: Don't you think the imagination of architects like yourself tends to go much further than people actually want to? Aren't people basically conservative when it comes to architecture?

SF: Rather than 'going much further,' I think architects give clear shape to something that is submerged in the wider collective consciousness. Once revealed it is not so far from people's image. I think architecture is something that effects people strongly the same way when it appears in front of them.

CBL: I sometimes get the impression that Japanese architecture is something of a lie, because Japanese architects (for example Terunobu Fujimori; the architects behind Tokyo Sky Tree; and the so-called Nagoya Eco Expo of 2005) are good at referencing nature, but the reality is more crowded, tall buildings that are the antithesis of nature, and more overdevelopment to maximize profits of developers, etc. In the same way your referencing of "Cloud City," "Forests in the Sky," "Mountain-like Tokyo" makes me suspect that the referencing of nature is just a way to give a good image to development (sugarcoat the pill). Doesn’t the use of such "nature" terminology suggest that modern architecture is actually ashamed, apologetic, guilty, and defensive about what it is doing? Why is this?

SF: Although Tokyo is full of artificial things, I feel the same way about it as the forest in Hokkaido where I was brought up. It's not as simple as man-made versus nature. I think that there's definitely something new that comes into being between nature and manmade things. It's not disengenuous for architects to reference nature. Contemporary architecture is a man-made thing, but even though it is artificial it can become connected to nature. What we need these days is not to divide nature and the man-made but to look for connections and fusions between the two. I think architecture is never all bad, but also nature is never entirely good. I think the best way of living is to avoid the extremes of artificial and natural.

CBL: You once described your art as "Primitive Future." Is your work a rejection of modernism or just an attempt to reflect the post-modern sensibility of present-day people? What are the key defining points or your style?

SF: I'm not denying modernism and I'm not trying to create post-modernism either. I'm loooking for a new architecture of the present. Basically architects want to be as creative as possible and are not so concerned with movements. But I do respect modernism. It made the modern period very vivid. That can't be denied.

CBL: Your design 'Tokyo Apartment' looks like lots of little houses stacked one on top of the other. This strikes me as a very humorous or ironic design. How important is humor in your designs? Or are you completely earnest and serious in your designs?

SF: Humour is very important because it is a joy, but it shouldn't just be humour by itself, but rather connected to the joy of living in a place and making a life there. Of course I'm designing very seriously. The character of my architecture is to make humour and joy seriously.

CBL: Your concepts are always intriguing and entertaining, but I always wonder if I would really like to live in such a building as 'Spiral House' or 'Atelier/ House in Hokkaido.' It might be quite disconcerting and confusing. What are the advantages of living in such buildings, and what kind of house do you personally live in now and how do you feel about it?

SF: Certainly if someones hates 'disconcerting and confusing' they can't live in those buildings, but when people are confused they will unconsciously find out who they are and what is the connection between then and the space, and in this there is a joy. This is the opposite of living in a machine. As for me, I'm living in a normal apartment. [laughs] It's so-so, but it's wonderful that I can see the cherry trees from my apartment windows.

CBL: In a nutshell what is your philosophy of architecture?

SF: It is 'between' - between nature and man-made, between inside and outside, between cities and house - that is my architecture.

Hiroshi Nakamura, architect

2010-09-05T11:08:00.004+01:00

In 2009 I contacted the office of rising architect Hiroshi Nakamura regarding an interview. I sent English questions to his secretary and received answers back in Japanese, which I then translated.

CBL: As a young architect, how has the architectural environment changed since the Bubble?

HN: Young architects got lots of benefits from commercial clients and developers. That has rather disappeared. But, on the plus side the kind of restless, temporary consciousness of architecture also disappeared, and has been replaced by a tendency towards a more human-friendly and longer-lasting style of architecture.

CBL: The period before the Bubble seemed to create a lot of flashy, showy architecture. Even Kenzo Tange's buildings – like the National Gymnasium in Yoyogi – seemed designed to gain attention for the architect rather than to serve their purpose. How do young Japanese architects now feel about the generation of architects of the Post-war to Bubble period – Tange, Kurokawa, Isozaki, Ando, etc.?

HN: At the time when the main client of construction was public construction, architects found it necessary to gain justification for public investment by creating works with prominent characteristics. But the main clients in Japan these days are from the commercial sector and for residences. This means that more emphasis in put on creativity as a saleable commodity or service, and the ideal is architecture that can avoid problems and disturbances.

CBL: Who do you regard as the leading architects of the post-Bubble period? Why are they important?

HN: Anyone who can convey the charm to the world while utilizing local factors.

CBL: The recent generation of architects seems to be more interested in a kind of faceless architecture that focuses on the functions of buildings, their location and site, rather than trying to make something artistic that stands out. The characteristic architect of the post-Bubble era is someone like Kengo Kuma, who once talked about "erasing architecture." What do you think about this notion?

HN: I think the era of 2-D construction by taking photographs and making outdoor sketches to advance the design is over. It is now necessary to design in 3-D, from shape related characteristics.

CBL: Do you think your architecture has any Japanese characteristics?

HN: Yes, I think my way of approaching things naturally is Japanese. I don't accept the binomial opposition between nature and construction. We must cooperate with nature.

CBL: Your designs can seemingly be split into two: eye-catching designs that stand out, like House SH and some of your retail projects, and designs that blend in or merge with the site, like House C, Green Carpet, or Dancing Trees Singing Birds. Would it be true to say you have two different architectural personalities?

HN: I think any apparent differences stem from responding to different sites. If the design is motivated by the environment and we are not perplexed by the characteristics of the place, then the design will develop in many different ways.

CBL: Could we say that one half of your style is pre-Bubble in style and the other half post-Bubble?

HN: My architecture has absolutely no relationship to the Bubble.

CBL: What things inspire you?

HN: The mechanism of recognition of people’s cognitive psychology. It's not like the eighties, when architects studied shape quoting philosophy. The living aspect of humanity is the pivot point of all design.

CBL: What influenced your approach to architecture?

HN: The small secret house I made from cardboard when I was a child. This gave me an early sense of a kind construction that is close to humans and similar to clothes. If the hand reaches out and touches something, we get the feeling for construction. I think the idea of communication between building and body can be seen in House SH, while Dancing Trees Singing Birds shows a building interacting with the surrounding trees.

CBL: Architects can think only of the building, or they can also think of the town or city where the building exists.

HN: I think that we should always consider the wider scope.

CBL: Do you believe that architecture can create not only beautiful buildings but also a beautiful and well-designed cityscape?

HN: Architecture isn't only about beautiful construction. I also believe in well-designed city views wherever possible.

CBL: What is necessary to make this happen?

HN: If we use the building materials of the local market positively and give it our best efforts, then it may be possible to build well.

CBL: You work in both the city and the country. How different is it working in the city and the country? What are the different challenges?

HN: Local factors become important, like various materials and craftsmen, and this leads to an increase in cooperative working.

Yuki Onodera, photographic artist

2010-08-31T16:40:00.006+01:00

On 20th August, 2010, I interviewed the artist/photographer Yuki Onodera about her exhibition at the Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography. As she was in Paris, we spoke by telephone for a little under half an hour. I have preserved her heavily-accented and often ungrammatical English both because that's what we do here and because it has a certain charm.

YO: 'Allo.

CBL: Hello.

YO: Hallo.

CBL: Is that Ms. Onodera?

YO: Yes, yeh. I heard from Tokyo Metropolitan Museum. Thank you for calling.

CBL: Yes, I'm, uh, going to write about you for the Japan Times.

YO: Uhu, yes I'm very pl… We’re glad to appear in your journal. Thank you.

CBL: Yes, eh, anyway I found the exhibition, ah, ver… quite interesting.

YO: Uh, thank you.

CBL: And, uh, could I ask you, were you, were you, um, in Japan to help arrange the exhibition?

YO: Eh, sorry. I didn't understand. Why, why…

CBL: Did you come to Japan to organize the exhibition?

YO: Uhu.

CBL: You did? Yeh? Now, you're based in Paris?

YO: Yeh.

CBL: And you've lived there for how many years?

YO: Ah, yeh, how many years? I, eh, I moved in Paris in nineteen ninety, eh, three.

CBL: 1993? So, it's been a very, very long…

YO: Already, eh, one, 17 years.

CBL: Long time.

YO: Yeh, long time, but I always keep the show in Japan one times in the year or one times in the 2 years so from, from 17 years ago I continue the relationship also in [nejer?] and I activity in Europe.

CBL: Uh, can I ask you why did you decide to, to move to France. What’s the advantage for you?

YO: Yeh…and sorry my English is bad.

CBL: Oh no that's OK. Don’t worry about it.

YO: So, please, please corrected my [farb?] and my word is not good so the sense of…

CBL: Yes, don't worry. I always do.

YO: Yeh, yeh, because of I'm, uh…That's why I went to France because of I'm interested in Europe. Yeh. Because of I think Europe is many different countries, the culture, so I'm more interested in all the different culture in Europe and I think the Paris is like a "enflent en carrefours."

CBL: Mmh?

YO: It means like a corner. No, it’s not corner. What do you say?

CBL: It's like a crossroads?

YO: Many people in Europe pass Paris and we can contact many different countries person, yeh, so I chose Paris. Firstly Europe and secondly Paris.

CBL: So, Japan is NOT a crossroads?

YO: Yeh, Japan is, uh, qui, far from the, yeh, from the Europe, the Occidental culture. Yeh, we have a culture but I'd like to activity… For me… It's very important for me to life and work in another country that I born. So I would like to try to work and life the foreign country.

CBL: So, then, I'm wondering if you're trying to escape from Japanese society and Japanese rules.

YO: No, I don’t know. I don't think so because I'm born in Tokyo and I grow up in Japanese culture, so, uh, I think even if I try to something different in the culture I stay always my grow up culture. Sorry, you understand?

CBL: So, you keep your original culture?

YO: Yeh, yeh, so for me it's interesting the mix and see the viewpoint also. After I think after I live in Paris I think different because now I have a distance with my country and looking for with the distance looking my country, then but I’m not in the French people Even if I stay a long time in the France I think I never become French real French people – it's different – so I'm very interested in being foreigner, like I'm not maybe Ja…not too much Japanese but I’m not too much French, so for me it's interesting this situation.

CBL: So it means that by living in Paris…

YO: Like "étranger."

CBL: Mmh?

YO: Like "étranger."

CBL: Sorry, what's that word?

YO: "Etranger," it means foreigner.

CBL: Aha. I see.

YO: Etranger, français, yeh. I think it's important for the artist for be a étranger.

CBL: So, because you live in France you are not in the category of French and you are not in the category of Japanese.

YO: Uhu.

CBL: And so you are escaping from the category.

YO: Uhu.

CBL: Is that right?

YO: Yes, yeh, we can, we can explain it maybe, so my work also some little bit escape of the category usually. For example, my works, what we say, the genre... When we say the genre there is the category of photography and there is the category of art. My works always middle between two categories. So, I, I, that is, I think, my situation: maybe photography or art. Some my works, it's difficult to categorize, maybe. It's something floa… something suspend. The image are suspend, maybe in my category also. Suspend?

CBL: Yes.

YO: Yeh.

CBL: You mean suspended between. Yes.

YO: Yeh.

CBL: Well, I think the fact about photography, first of all… Photography is, compared to painting and other artistic media… Photography is naturally very clear and, uh, scientific. Yeh?

YO: Yeh.

CBL: So to make photography into an art you have to try to do something different.

YO: Yeh.

CBL: And so basically photography is very good for cataloging and recording information, but your, eh, your photographs, they always try to strip away the context, and so who the person is, is not important, when is not important, eh, where is not so important. More important is just the artistic elements, like the composition or the shapes or the kind of poetic feeling of the light.

YO: Yeh.

CBL: So, eh, in a way you're, uh… The fact that you live in Paris and you are outside your context is similar to your photography, which is trying to avoid the context of the photographs. Is that right?

YO: Yes, uh, yes. It's difficult for me to explain in English, sorry. Yeh, but I'm very interested in the what is photography, because now we are too much images and photography in our life so we life like air the images and photography, but for me the photography is very mysterious things because between… What you say the discovery photography we say, the nineteen…

CBL: The nineteen century?

YO: Yeh, yeh. Before the discovery photography… After is very different, qui? I think our experience is very different, so, but when I thinking about photography, uh, I always attach this point of view – what is the photography? If we have not the photo in our life, if we have never seen, eh, ourselves in the self-portrait, for example – no the portrait of ourselves – eh, our experience I think different. So I'm always… My interest is always in the photography, so that is why I try to something very difficult, not the standard photography. Sorry! Are you understand?
CBL: Well, I think you’re trying to create the feeling of wonder and mystery, and photography because it’s so clear, it usually lacks wonder and mystery.

YO: Yeh.

CBL: So you have to lots of, um, things to make it mysterious again.

YO: Yes, thank you.

CBL: Yeh, so it's, uh, so it's a very artistic kind of photography?

YO: Yes, yeh, I see.

CBL: So it’s very personal. It's very ambiguous. It's very, y'know, em, it's not… Lots of things are not clear.

YO: Uhum.

CBL: So we use imagination more.

YO: Sometimes people say maybe anti-photographic but I think it's not anti. It's also the interesting thing for photography, I thinK.

CBL: Now then, in the exhibition in Tokyo, I think they have about nine series.

YO: Yes.

CBL: And, um, I'd like to ask you about some of the series. Let's see, em, I guess the, um… "Below Orpheus," it's a very strange thing.

YO: Yes.

CBL: Um… Now, the the images were... You went to this hotel?

YO: Yes.

CBL: The room which was connected to a missing person case?

YO: Yes.

CBL: Can you tell me a little bit, why were you, why were you interested in this missing person case?

YO: Yeh. In this series, the more interesting thing for me, it's… There is the two place…

CBL: Sorry?

YO: There are two place.

CBL: Uhu, two places.

YO: Yeh, two places. And the two place, the relationship and two place are most far from this place.

CBL: Yeh.

YO: So in the other side of the world.

CBL: Uhu.

YO: So, after I found out the history and the legend, uh, after… So in this series, something in the fiction, also something ith the non-fiction, so non-fiction and… Sorry, something non- fiction and something is fiction. It’s mixed like roman.

CBL: Uhu.

YO: Yeh, so most, more interested for me, it’s a imaginated one place, the most far from here – the most below side of the world. That, that means in the down, uh, below from here.

CBL: Yes, so later, later you imagine the person went down and into the ground and you followed it to its limit, but why did you choose this room and this case of this person? Why was this person attractive to you?

YO: Mmhu, because of that I, ooh, I choosed history. No. The event and legend, it's maybe not relationship. It means that the relationship and for me something disappear and lost the people it’s explained… No. It's, it’s born as a story for me I think.

CBL: So this was a real case, wasn't it?

YO: Yes, that is a real case, but…

CBL: S-so, did you read about this in a newspaper, or, or, or was it on…

YO: Yeh. Yeh, I, I, I took, uh… I saw in the newspaper, but if I talk to…until the detail, because of some point is non-fiction and some point is fiction, but it is, it is real event that in the hotel and other side also a really legend also of 200, 300 years ago.

CBL: Uhu, well, Orpheus is maybe three thousand years ago.

YO: Yeh, yeh, two hundred eighty years.

CBL: Well, Orpheus the ancient Greek legend…

YO: Yeh, Orpheus is, I took this name because of [garbled] the history. I'd like to adjustment a little bit like, uh, how to say. Sorry, I can’t explain. The Greek is very large history. I’d like to this name for this…

CBL: But what kind of person was the missing person? Was it a man or a woman, young or old?

YO: Yeh, yeh, this is a man, but I, I don’t want to very clearly because of, I think, the people who look at the picture they imaginate something, so I did not many detail, real detail in there.

CBL: Uhu.

YO: Yeh.

CBL: And you can’t tell me the details?

YO: Yes, because of like, for me, like novel. So when the novel is mixed fiction and non-fiction…

CBL: Yes.

YO: So this, this is a little bit the same style.

CBL: Uhi, it's just like a newspaper cos sometime they also mix fiction and non-fiction.

YO: Yes.

CBL: OK, now your other series, "Portrait of Second-hand Clothes"…

YO: Oui, yeh.

CBL: Now these clothes all came from an exhibition. Is that right?

YO: OK? Sorry, OK exhibition?

CBL: The second-hand clothes, they came from another exhibition?

YO: Yes, yes. It means the clothez?

CBL: Yes.

YO: I took out, I took out them from the other exhibition of the Christian Boltanski.

CBL: Umhu. What kind of exhibition was that? Was that about the Holocaust or something like that?

YO: Uh, I think not directly the Holocaust but Christian Boltanski use many clothez second-hand clothez for something, maybe something symbolic. When I visit his show in I think 1993, it's just like big volume of the clothez and people, visitors we can buy the bag, just plastic bag, and we can took out like want so I think sometimes yes, sometimes he symbolic like Holocaust but not always he.... I would like I wanted to each… Because he use always with a mass volume so I wanted to pick up one by one with like a person, a character and a history.

CBL: More individual?

YO: Yeh.

CBL: Yeh. And can I ask you? The clothes are photographed against the window of your apartment in Paris at the time, yeh?

YO: Yes.

CBL: How did you stick them onto the window?

YO: So, there are two metal, metal, how do you say, metal stick inside, inside the clothez. So I just, uh, what say, just the installation on the, in the, on the metal stick.

CBL: So there's two metal poles inside?

YO: Yeh.

CBL: One on each shoulder.

YO: Uhu.

CBL: Uh, OK.

YO: It's not a superposition. It’s real, real clothes, clothez in the sky.

CBL: Uhu.

YO: Did you get my catalogue, English version?

CBL: Yes, I did. I've been reading it.

YO: OK. Thank you.

CBL: It's very helpful. Thank you for arranging that. Em, now, also, I guess I should ask you a little bit about the, em, quite a recent series… Um, I'm just searching the catalogue now. Um… "Angular Eclipse"…

YO: The silk screen print.

CBL: Yes.

YO: I realized in Shanghai, in China.

CBL: This is very similar to "Transvests."

YO: Uhu, yes.

CBL: Is it the same technique to create the image?

YO: Yes this is same technique and I made this series for silk screen print but very large format.

CBL: Sorry?

YO: I made it from start for silk screen print, not for photography, so I manipulated all the color, I imaginate silk screen, technique of silk screen print. So finish is very different. That is almost collaboration with the printer because I think 20 times of the passage of the [unclear] and they are very technically difficult.

CBL: Yeh.

YO: Yeh.

CBL: Well, can I just ask you about the basic image? For example, in one of the works there's a bear and a girl. How did you create the image of the bear?

YO: It's the same technique of "Transvest." "Transvest" is not real person but I took like silhouette. I use the, the, the photo already exist and I cut out the silhouette, then I made a small stage and I lighting with a back light so the identification it disappear. For the bear also the same. I use the photo already exist I cut out, and I made one stage and took the picture. The technique is same, exactly the same.

CBL: Yeh, but some people might disbelieve that because the cutting is very detailed. For example, y'know, in the picture with the chicken, eh, the feathers are… It's very detailed. So that's all been hand-cut from a magazine. Is that right?

YO: Yeh, handcut or the picture that I took myself, so many different image – my pictures or cut out in the magazine or, or in the book, and I made…

CBL: So you create a silhouette and then you create a small stage…
YO: Yes.

CBL: …and then you photograph it again?

YO: Yes. And I not create silhouette because silhouette is already exist.

CBL: Yes, but you cut it out very, very carefully.

YO: Yeh, yes. I just use… Yes. Like recycle. Yes.

CBL: So, you're using a knife to cut?

YO: Yeh, I, I use scissor. No, scissor.

CBL: Scissors?

YO: Yeh, so I mix many technique different technique like computer and also I use very old technique like photo-collage Something very complex. For me, its important the technique mixed for get the profounder, something not flat, to get the…

CBL: Depth?

YO: Yeh, more deeper. Yeh.

CBL: But a key stage in each of these works and in "Transvest" is you, you actually have a, a silhouette which you have cut out or created and you put that onto a small stage and then you photograph it?

YO: Yes…yes.

CBL: OK, because I have to describe very clearly sometimes.

YO: "Transvest" I printed myself and all other print also. Even the two-meter large format I printing myself. But only this silk screen print and other pink image of the still life is it’s not me that print it. But always myself until finish.

CBL: Uhuh.

YO: Yeh. I think it's very… There is no artist photographer who printing oneself until very large format. I think in Paris only me that continues printing myself.

CBL: Uhu.

YO: Yes.

CBL: So, it's very important to create a final artifact that has some kind of appeal, yes?

YO: Yes.

CBL: So, this is connected, I guess in a way, to the rise of digital photography. It’s very easy to manipulate images now. Almost anybody can make strange or exotic images, so the final print becomes more important in a way.

YO: Uhu, yes, yeh, in digital the machine who, who printing. Very different. I try to… Of course, now it’s difficult. I don’t know which I can continue until the authentic print because now almost people to turn for the digital, but I continue to try to, uh, always gelatin silver print.

CBL: Umhu. It's a similar problem that newspapers have as well.

YO: Ah yeh [garbled] something digital. I like something exists not in data because for me images is nothing exists. Images is images, so not exist. But photo is exists like material so I like paper, so I like newspaper, and I like books, but I think the images digital different to exist.

CBL: So you don’t like… The data by itself is nothing?

YO: Yeh. I think something with the internet because we have many interests, new things…

[the line cut off suddenly because my telephone card ran out]

Minoru Miki, musician

2010-05-16T02:34:00.002+01:00

In late 2009, I interviewed Minoru Miki, a modern classical composer, conductor, musician, and musicologist. The interview was by email. Although Miki's English is rather good, he answered my English questions in Japanese. These were then translated into English by my good friend Leanne Ogasawara.

CBL: You have made some excellent music inspired by the Silk Road. How did that develop?

MM: In 1993, I became one of the founding members of the musicalensemble, Orchestra Asia. The first three years of the group we worked solely on putting together arrangements of traditional Chinese, Korean and Japanese folk songs, using the traditional instruments of those three countries. From the fourth year, we started the second phase of our activities by moving away from arrangements and taking up new compositions of music. The first theme we chose to explore was that of the Silk Road. This was the most convenient symbol to unite these three countries of Northeast Asia, which are united by a common culture and script. I composed a Silk Road-inspired piece called Loulan as a Dream, however due to differences in the late modernization of Korean instruments and great differences in skill levels among the Chinese musicians this piece has not been performed enough.

CBL: To many Japanese of your generation – I am thinking here in particular of the painter Hirayama Ikuo — the Silk Road is an important symbol. On the one side, Japan has reached out and embraced many things from the West, and as a corollary to this – or possibly as a reaction — there has been a similar urge to embrace or re-embrace Asian culture. Would it be correct to say that the Silk Road represents an important side of the Japanese urge to reach out?

MM: The great East-West cultural exchange that took place along the Silk Road also became the aim behind the foundation of the Yatsugatake, Hokuto International Music Festival (HIMF). In this age of scarce artistic funding, this festival is a great opportunity to see larger audiences come together every year to hear music composed around this theme of East-West exchange. However, I am not a scholar and hence do not have the time nor the funds to do research into Silk Road history. For me, the Silk Road is a symbol for East-West relations from recent times till today, as well as a symbol for contemporary North-South issues. In addition to my operas, I think my current life's work has come to be taken up with the production of work which harmoniously brings together the cultural developments of the West and the little-known but fascinating cultural riches of Southeast Asia, together with the musical traditions of East Asia, in order to create something completely new in terms of music. This is something that needs to be done in a place where group collaboration between musicians can occur, with the fruits of this collaboration being the musical performances themselves. This is something I feel a great urge to work toward, and it is my belief that only through this kind of collaborative effort between people that genuine peace and harmonious relations can be established.

CBL: Although it is now obviously peaceful, historically this Japanese urge to embrace Asia seems to have its roots partly in Imperialistic Japan’s attempt to define itself by rejecting over-Westernization and seeking expansion in Asia. Isn’t it true therefore to say that the seed of the idea of "the Silk Road" for the Japanese contains an element of Asian pride and assertiveness as well as an element of Imperialism towards Asia?

MM: The imbalance in power between various countries during different historical periods is one of the great causes of evil in the world. The enormous wrongs that occurred during the Age of Discovery, for example, or America’s unilateral activities today generate an infinite amount of hatred and, indeed, we now find ourselves in the pitiful position of just waiting for the destruction of the world itself. The Silk Road was a uniquely peaceful trade route connecting Rome with Chang'an. It served to promote peaceful exchanges and mutual cooperation between Eastern and Western countries. It is interesting that, while in Asia the Silk Road is a subject of fascination, in the West it seems to be mainly of interest to archaeologists. As a person who fundamentally rejects the current Westernization of the world towards a sort of a monoculture, what I can do in my own projects is to choose artists whose own sense of "internationality" is rooted in their own cultural identity. Having said that, in my Japanese or Asian music projects, there are countless cases in which we utilize technologies or know-how produced by the West. Also, Japan's own history of waves of influence from China means that within my own identity as a Japanese person, there is this great East Asian cultural flowering. Recognizing this has been essential to my co-artistic flourishing, which has nothing to do with the wartime Imperial Japanese government’s concept of an East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. In the Western musical heritage, there is the ideal medium of the orchestra. This assembled know-how is something lacking in many of the musical traditions coming from Eastern countries. The EU was set up as a cooperative economic and cultural sphere, as a system that seeks to allow the individual flourishing of all its members — in the same way that individual musicians in an orchestra come together and each creatively flourish. After the re-establishing of ties between China and Korea, I immediately sought to establish a creative musical ensemble with other musicians in Northeast Asia and in 1993 started Orchestra Asia.

CBL: How do you feel about the totality of your work? Is all your music in some way part of a whole or do the pieces exist separately and represent particular interests, obsessions, and challenges of the time they were written?

MM: My numbered musical compositions number some 145 pieces. This opus includes my eight-part Operatic Cycle on Japanese History, amounting to over 20 hours of music written over 37 years. My Eurasian Trilogy and Ballades for Koto comprising around 20 compositions for the koto, Nohara Uta, 21 songs with violin and piano, and 14 compositions for my piece Hana Monogatari. I have also created a rather unique three-part Pine Concerto for Japanese traditional instruments. In addition, my anti-war/anti-nuclear and ecological consciousness-raising pieces number some 20 works. Another area in which I have made continuous effort is in musical activities for large ensembles of traditional Japanese and Asian instruments, such as my Pro Musica Nipponica and my Orchestra Asia, both which are unique in the history of world music. I have also composed music for the new koto and 21-string koto. Working on and off over several decades I have compiled a repertoire of music for traditional East Asian instruments which is both unique and composed around a variety of themes. Of course, many of my musical compositions were made for specific projects and motivations. However, no matter what project, I have always strived in my work to both consider various periods of history as well as to transcend those periods to create music which will never grow old or have an old-fashioned or stale to feel to it.

CBL: After a very long career, is there a sense of seeking completion with your latest compositions? I ask this because you have been working on Happy Pagoda, an operatic piece that reflects the 20th century.

MM: My eight-part Operatic Cycle on Japanese History is a series of operas composed to reflect the particular spirit of various periods of Japanese history. At the same time, it is a study of the artistic and cultural high points of those historic periods. The Happy Pagoda was not originally intended to be part of the series. The piece came about when I was asked by the governor of my home prefecture of Tokushima to serve as artistic director for the Grand Finale of the Tokushima National Cultural Festival in 2007. Due to the small budget and unfavorable conditions of the hall, which didn’t allow for any adaptations to the stage and lacked an orchestra pit, I composed a one-hour, smaller-scale folk opera. However, the libretto for the piece, written by Tatsuji Iwata, takes over one hour just to read! Iwata comes from a temple family. His father served as a Buddhist priest but was killed during the Kobe Earthquake. He composed his libretto as a kind of requiem, and therefore the piece is both heavy and long. Because of this, it was performed with only four musicians who played stage right to accompany the unsung libretto, which accounted for about half the opera. For me, the piece remained incomplete. And, yet, at the same time, I was very interested in the piece, and so, after the performance, I talked to Iwata about radically cutting the libretto and turning the piece into a full-scale opera. Therefore, we are adapting the music to be performed as an orchestral piece with singing, with the second act being rewritten to contain a play-within-a-play. The entire thing has become an exploration from various angles of the meaning of World War II. I am hoping when the piece is completed it will serve as an appropriate ninth Opera for my Operatic Cycle on Japanese History. Basically, the piece is complete and I am waiting on Iwata's libretto for the play-within-a-play part.

CBL: The 20th century must be particularly difficult to represent or embody musically. What challenges have you faced? What musical, lyrical, and narrative themes are you using?

MM: I was 15 years old when the War ended in defeat for Japan. So, while my generation had no responsibility for those events, still, the sense of guilt or need for atonement felt by our generation for the great suffering caused by Japan's effort to follow Western examples of imperialism and militarization is a feeling that has not disappeared. This is a theme, in fact, that accounts for over 20 percent of the opera. From a musical, lyrical and narrative perspective, I feel I have brought this to life in language which transcends time and place.

CBL: How important is it for a musician to root his creativity in his own culture and to preserve traditional elements, including old instruments?

MM: In my case, in many ways, I served as a kind of trailblazer in my work — both my solo compositions as well as my ensembles — to modernize and internationalize Japanese traditional musical instruments. Being aware of this, I wanted to approach my projects with a sense of responsibility and authenticity, and so I made great efforts to study the ancient instruments. For example, at one stage I strove very hard to develop a historically authentic tonal quality and period instrument performance technique in my work. However, there came a time when I realized that, even if I didn’t give such matters any thought whatsoever, these traditional elements would come out anyway in music played on traditional instruments, even if they were played in new ways or caused to emit new sounds. I wrote about this experience in my book, The Theory of Composing for Japanese Instruments (published in English in 2008 by Rochester University Press and in Chinese in 2000). In the 1980s, many young composers wrote pieces utilizing Japanese traditional instruments, and the effect was rather dry in its overbearing tonality and use of the instruments. However, nowadays, in part thanks to my book and various compositions, there are many new choices available for the free and creative utilization of Japanese instruments.

Ian Astbury, musician

2010-05-09T07:45:00.003+01:00

On the 26th of March, 2010, I did a telephone interview with Ian Astbury, the singer of the legendary rock band The Cult. He was in the USA (East coast I think). He was very happy to talk, and the interview could easily have been extended well beyond the one hour that it lasted. This is the first 28 minutes of the interview. When I have time I will carefully transcribe the rest of our fascinating conversation and post it here.

IA: Hello

CBL: Eh, hello. Is that Ian Astbury?

IA: Yes.

CBL: Hi. This is Colin Liddell. I’m phoning from Japan on behalf of the International Herald Tribune Asahi Shimbun, eh, and I’m going to talk to you about, ah, your forthcoming stop in Japan.

IA: OK.

CBL: Right, so, right now, you’re doing the, the Love Album Tour.

IA: Yes.

CBL: How far into that are you? How many, em, how long have you been doing it, and how long is it going to continue?

IA: Um, it started last, let's see, we did UK in the fall, North America in the late summer, um, we're doing dates in New Zealand, Australia, and one in Tokyo, which will probably wind it up actually. I don’t think… We're not taking South America. We'll see. We're looking at dates in South America right now, so possibly it will go on for a little while longer. But we're not actively… We came off the road and went back in the studio again, so, um [garbled]

CBL: Yeh, so, uh, so, you've done maybe about twenty or so shows?

IA: No. we've done probably more than that, more like fifty.

CBL: Fifty, aha, so how does it feel doing the same kind of set list like that again and again every night? How do you keep it fresh?

IA: Well, every night's different. Every venue's different. The audience are different, um, y'know, everyday's different. You get up differently everyday, I mean… It’s interesting coz, um… You know when you sort of think about it, y'know, think about the performance all day. When you're actually in the performance, you're kind of very present and, em, I think that’s how you keep it fresh – not to carry it around with you all day long, y'know.

CBL: Yeh.

IA: There's something about music. I mean one of the things that, y'know, that you never [garbled] see written – I mean a lot of what we know of music is, y'know, communicated by language or, em, in the written word, and people read a lot of reviews and things. These are communicated verbally, but [garbled] it's an intuitive form, so It's really more about the emotive quality and that can be…you really can't explain with language so a lot of the work is done… Y'know, when you step on that stage you enter a sort of place where it becomes more of an emotive process and you have to be in the right kind of emotional place to form songs, and the songs are really a framework that you hang your emotions, y'know, on. That's… I think that's how you keep it fresh, is being in tune with the emotive aspects of what it is you’re conveying, y'know. I mean the song writing I can access that whenever I need to.

CBL: Yeh.

IA: I've been at it so long.

CBL: So, it sounds like, then, that the, em, the show, each show depends on how you feel that particular day and what's going on, eh, around you.

IA: That's where the environment's key. The environment's actually key.

CBL: Uh, OK, well, sort of zooming in on that point then, eh, well, you’ve been to Tokyo before and, uh, so what sort of stimulus do you think Tokyo will give you?

IA: Well, for me, personally, I mean I...that going to Tokyo a lot… I have friends in Tokyo so for the past ten years I've been going, y'know, I was going at one point several times a year, three, four, five times a year, travelling to Tokyo, and, uh, what to do about art and fashion, as opposed to music, um, and though recently I've become friends with the band Boøwy [garbled] a Tokyo band who I admire greatly, um, but we played two shows in 1985. In Tokyo, we played, uh… Sorry, we played Osaka and we played Tokyo.

CBL: Yeh.

IA: Different venues, but…so I've had a long love affair with Japan, y'know, since 1985, I mean that's, what, 25 years?

CBL: Yeh.

IA: Um, I mean coming from sort of, y'know, growing up in the North of Britain, um, Scotland and England, and, ah, I think Japan was probably the most exotic, otherworldly – especially Tokyo – place we'd ever been to.

CBL: That's one of the reasons I ended up here, I guess, but, yeh, keep going.

IA: Yeh. It's like science fiction instantly, y'know. [Garbled] everything [garbled] about the East, was kind of…I mean, I wasn't prepared for, for, ah, I mean everything, oh my god, the architecture, the language, uh, food, em, culture, y'know, hospitality, the level of intelligence, em, I mean, I use to [garbled] in Japanese culture, and, um…

CBL: What sort of things in particular about Japanese culture intrigue you the most? I mean, is like the kind of Shintoism, the, ah, different mindset, the kind of technological aspects?

IA: I think it's, like, this idea that there’s no separateness from the nature, I mean, Japanese believe in a culture that really is in harmony with its environment. I know that there’s a lot of problems with modern Japan and the stress and everything, but…

CBL: Hopefully you’re not talking about bonsai trees.

IA: No. Em, what’s that, um, reclusive…

CBL: Reclusive people?

IA: Yeh.

CBL: The hikkikomori, who stay in their rooms.

IA: Hikikomori, yeh.

CBL: Who stay in their rooms, cut off from society, yeh.

IA: Yeh, yeh, and that’s a kind of interesting element, but, um, I don't know, certainly from an outsider's perspective, I mean like going to Kyoto and seeing the temples and the parks and… Japan feels just so much more integrated. Um, I was blown away by the fact that I never saw people eating on the streets. You don't see people, y'know… Like, even the transients, the area's completely orderly.

CBL: Yeh.

IA: I mean I saw these two kids walking down the street – I remember very distinctly – and one guy threw a cigarette but on the ground and his friend hit him in the shoulder and he's like "yeh, of course."

CBL: Well, yeh. The thing that gets me is the red lights, the red lights, when there's a red light, and there's nothing, there's no car in sight, and they all stand there waiting for the red lights to change.

IA: I'm not… It's just [garbled] I just love that in their culture, but, I mean, getting deeply into it, y'know, I’m a major fan of Japanese fashion, especially street fashion and, uh, from [garbled], Undercover and, must be Bathing Ape, and those guys, I must have known those guys for probably ten years, and the way of [garbled] the culture, the work ethic, their production values, what they actually create is just so immersed in the world of creativity and I just think they have an incredible work ethic and an appreciation for, for, um, craft, craftsmanship, um, real, incredible aesthetic, um, y'know, just incredibly gifted at putting things together and this, um, wonderful, um, way of putting things together.

CBL: But how about their music, eh, coz I always think one of the areas where Japan kinda lags behind a bit is musically, and they're very reliant upon the West for, y'know, a lot of their models?

IA: I mean I love Ryuichi Sakamoto, um, certainly to me, I grew up with Japan, definitely like being a huge Bowie fan, and I know that Bowie was like a major Japanophile. Uh, like I said, I like Boøwy, the band Boøwy, I think they're excellent. [garbled], I admire greatly, but, yeh, I can definitely see the influence of whatever Japanese [garbled: cult] Western music…

CBL: It must have been like…When you arrived in Japan, eh, originally, there must have been like a real reaction to you, coz this was like such great music coming from the UK, and so, y'know, like, people must have been jumping on that.

IA: It was that first wave. I think it was like the first wave of bands coming over to Japan was just beginning, in the mid 80s, and we were definitely one of the first bands to come over. Um, there was so much more orderly. I remember that there was like a red rope. It was like the velvet rope in front of the stage.

CBL: Yeh.

IA: And ushers, white-gloved ushers standing in front of that rope, and the kids, the kids wouldn’t jump around at all, y'know. And after every song, they’d give this pause of about five, six seconds, and then they'd burst into applause, then the applause would die down, and we'd start again. [garbled] "Whaaat!" It's just amazing how orderly the audiences were, and all the kids were immaculately dressed. I mean you could definitely tell who their role models were from the West that they'd studied, and their, their costumes, the clothes they were wearing were pristine and incredibly well researched and, uh, y'know, y'd see kids dressed head to toe in Vivienne Westwood. Immaculate!

CBL: Yeh.

IA: Incredible! I mean you would never see kids like that… You might see the one or two, but never the way the Japanese kids put it together. I was blown away by how those kids looked.

CBL: Well, y’'now, the good thing about Japan is, is that you don’t get beat up walking down the street for wearing funny fashions, y'know, so there’s a lot more…Eh, it’s a lot more tolerant environment about fashion compared to the UK, y'know what I mean, because dressing in certain way is asking for a fight in a lot of towns.

IA: I think that's one of the things, y'know, about the UK, I mean, like, we came out of pretty much, y'know, for want of a better label, a working class environment. We did, we came out of the industrial North West and Scotland, and, uh, we had a very humble view of the world, y'know. We used… Everything we learnt it came from either radio, TV, or newspapers, and word of mouth, y’know. If somebody had been to London and came back with an incredible pair of shoes or that album that we didn't get… And obviously, if there's somebody, y'know, be coming back from London, especially on a punk rock basis, and, uh, y'know… So for… Walking through the streets was like – in Liverpool or Glasgow – dressed as a punk rocker in 1978 or 79 when the Clash performed, you were taking your life in your hands.

CBL: Yeh.

IA: Um, we're just incredibly violent, and, y'know, going to Tokyo, by the time… I don't know if you've seen how we looked in 85, but I had shoulder length hair. I was, like… I was really, really into, like, Brian Jones, psychedelic rock, I loved Jimi Hendrix. I was into Morrison and the Doors, so the look that I kind of affected was like y’know straight from 68, y’know, I used to get a [garbled] accepted, so when I arrived in Tokyo, it was amazing, because kids would come up to me and talk to me about my clothes. They were so into my haircut and my clothes, and they were like in a way how fascinated they were…

CBL: So, so, around that time, like, you were, sort of like wearing frilly shirts and, em, bandanas, or what sort of look did you have?

IA: Ah, more kinda like [garbled] I used to seek out, kind of, um…y'know, I mean I used to have, like "granny takes a trip" original velvet hipsters with that, y'know, 28 waist [garbled] I mean, this is what people in England didn't want anymore: an old Salvation Army jacket from the late 1800s. Um, I mean I really studied kinda like what the kids were into in 67, 68, 69 – that look was just amazing to me and it just seemed sort of Dandyism and kind of Romantic attitude to the kind of Symbolist poets and like Byron and Shelley, that kind of Romanticism.

CBL: Well, it's sort of invoking a lot of stuff, wasn't it? And that, probably, kind of fed into the music as well, I’m sure.

IA: Yeh, absolutely, I means it was escapism if you go back to that period, y'know, being young and growing up in that period, and basically year zero, it's like punk rock had finished, um, the major rock stars, the Stones and the Beatles, and all those guys, either as individuals or groups, become unobtainable. They no longer spoke to individuals on the street really, except through their music from when they were younger, but… There’s not…We didn't really have that many, that music for ourselves. It's like the fans had picked up, the fans had become the musicians, I mean the fans of the Pistols and the Clash had become actual musicians so, y'know, most of our heroes had kinda disbanded and we were almost abandoned in some ways, I mean, I think Ian Curtis would have been very important had he stayed alive but, um… [garbled] I was in a band at 19, so maybe I had a different perspective, y'know, maybe, I'm… Thinking from an audience… I still have Bowie. I still love Bowie immensely, Iggy and Bowie, and I still have those guys and they're still making. I mean I love "Serious Moonlight" whatever…

CBL: Sorry, what's that?

IA: "Serious Moonlight" - David Bowie

CBL: Oh yes.

IA: I mean I love that record, amazing. I love "Scary Monsters," um, an incredible record, um, for me I went back to, like, I was just discovering music from late 60s and early 70s, then going deep into things like psychedelic rock, Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Chocolate Watch Band, Music Machine, all that kind of stuff, and then like early Floyd, Syd Barrett Floyd, and then stuff like, y'know, Krautrock.

CBL: Yeh.

IA: [garbled] uh, [garbled], y'know, just…

CBL: This is all stuff that really made it into the "Love" album, then, in one form or another?

IA: Yeh, I mean, [garbled] rock is that car crash between, y'know, like, late-60s sort of type influenced rock, I mean, the amateurish-ism I love to kind of develop that aspect of being punk rock kids using three chords and very limited language to express ourselves. I mean [garbled] it always amazes me when critics go, "Well, the lyrics are always very waspish." Absolutely, [laugh] y'know, where do you think we went to school? I didn't go to Eton. I didn’t go to Eton, y'know. I was, like, my father worked in a refrigeration factory, and my mum was a nurse. I grew up, like, a blue collar kid. I didn’t have the benefits of that kind of education. I mean, what I’ve learnt over the years, I taught myself, I mean, pretty much, but my vocabulary was pretty poor. I was quite well educated I would say, but I mean…

CBL: But that can be an advantage because if you’re overeducated, to sort of p-put it that way, y'know, that can get in the way, and, y'know, when you’ve got less words, y'sort of make them count for more.

IA: I think again, y'know, like on paper you can pull things apart, but, again, seems to me, what makes a great performance, a great piece of music, even a great [garbled] is, em, the emotive quality, that truth, that kind of like authenticity from the performer. That’s what I really respond to. I don't care how flowery or prosaic or whatever the words are, or, y’know, well thought out, unless there's that emotive quality. That's what I really connect with. And I think that the language is so limited anyway. And I think it’s really harsh right now, I mean you've got such… Some of the critiques I’ve seen of bands now, you're going like "really unbelievable" [garbled] you're taking, you're taking off [garbled] of something that should be treated more with kid gloves and, y'know, really harsh critiques from college and university educated 'experts'…

CBL: It’s all ego-driven sneering, a lot of it, isn’t it? A lot of music criticism, I have to say…

IA: [garbled] feeling's better for your head and the sad thing is there's so much space out there. There's room for everybody, and there's plenty for everyone to go round, and this idea of coveting something like it's yours, y'know, intellectual bourgeoisie kind of coveting this what, coveting like the language, coveting, I don’t know, the intelligentsia, fashionistas, all that kind of stuff. I hate that kind of snobbery, and that, in a lot of ways, has killed the arts to a great degree and that’s why we have a…

CBL: I tell you, that's something that's very typical of Britain, especially, I mean British culture's very geared that way. Probably it’s a bit different as you travel round the world though, I should imagine.

IA: I don’t live there [laughs].

CBL: You're living where now?

IA: I live in New York.

CBL: Aha, and, uh, Duffy's in Los Angeles. Is that right?

IA: Yeh, he’s in Los Angeles, yeh.

CBL: Aha, doesn't that make it a bit hard to sort of work together sometimes? How close is your working relationship at the moment?

IA: Well, we just came out the studio cuz we just did four songs with Chris Goss [garbled] and I would say that it's our most….together, harmonious work that we've done for… I couldn’t even put a time-line on it. The thing is we went in with the intention of creating… I was letting the songs dictate, following the songs, serving the songs. Er, we have no agenda in terms of career. We have no agenda in terms of fulfilling record company contracts, fulfilling expectations, or [garbled]. It's become irrelevant for us, y'know, it [garbled] the state of the music industry is. I'm sure it’s that. So, we went in and make a record that, y’know, was essentially Cult 2010, 2011, and I'm really, I'm really excited about…

CBL: Is it a full album?

IA: No, I mean this is one thing where I have personally have looked back and I've thought, if you have a whole album worth of work in you, I mean, I can only speak for myself, I feel that if I have an album in me and I wanna go and record that, I'll do it. Right now I don’t. I mean I could put an album together out of all the material that I've got, but the Cult don't. What I think the Cult do have is we write great songs on the spot. So, instead of, like, you write two or three great songs and then put another seven songs around it and dress it up as an album, why not put those two or three great songs out, y'know, and then go away and have experience and have some other things come into your life, where you fill up again, and then when you've got something to say, release it again? And that’s the whole idea of working with the idea of what I call a capsule, [garbled]. Not an EP, it's a capsule, the idea that it's a capsule collection, which I borrowed from fashion, which is when I used to do a collaboration, y'know, through companies like, say, Jun Watanabe [garbled] and Comme des Garcons'll do it. Collaboration together and do, like, four or five pieces and a pair of shoes and a négligée some perfume and call it a capsule collection. I thought that was brilliant, but some of the idea, like two new songs, a rerecorded version of an older song, maybe mixed differently or a song with different lyrics or carved differently, arranged differently, then a cinematic version of a song, a song that's mixed with all the vocals out of it, maybe putting strings and piano, whatever, make it sound more like a film soundtrack, and then, along with that, a short film. Not a video. This is film, an actual film.

CBL: Yeh.

IA: A film that has its own… Y'know, the songs’ll be used as a part of the soundtrack but the film [garbled] integrity of the film is the piece itself…

CBL: This is very reminiscent of the cinematic ideas behind some of the Doors music as well.

IA: Absolutely and that's something that's really… Honestly how can I be with Ray and Robbie, y'know, for nearly four years of my life and then not be influenced by, y'know… I mean, one of the most profound moments when I was a kid was going to "Apocalypse Now." When I seen it, I was up in Glasgow, and a bottle of wine, into it, y'know, about halfway through… I mean when "The End" came on at the…y'know, the destruction of Kurtz's camp at the end – a religious, it was a religious experience for me.

CBL: Just for the record, was that a bottle of Buckfast wine?

IA: Was it Buckfast?

CBL: Yes.

IA: Oh, God, no! [laughs] Buckie, no, I’ll stay away from there. It was probably like something really crap, like "Olde England Sherry" stagecoach or something like that, y'know. Some real 99p, y'know, three cans of larger job, em, that's what it was, y'know, the carry out, eh, in the plastic bag, or actually stuck in a schoolbag [laughs], y'know, stuck it in the schoolbag, uh, Sauchiehall Street ABC, or whatever it was, um. That was a religious experience, seeing that. I was [garbled] there, saying, "What was that?" and then I was just so transformed after that moment. I never saw the Sex Pistols but I saw "Apocalypse Now" when it was put on general release in the UK.

CBL: Was that the first time you heard a Doors song, though?

IA: No, I mean, see I grew up in North America as well, I grew up in Canada. I spent 5 years in Canada, and, um, the thing about America and Canada, they have the FM radio.

CBL: Uhu.

IA: So, FM radio's this incredible... You get like this beautiful stereo mix. I remember this station in Toronto called Q107 maybe, and on the weekends they would play the entire album, the entire album. They'd go like, y’know, "And that was the first side of 'Dark Side of the Moon' and now I’m going to play the other side." No commercials, completely uninterrupted, y'know, and they'd play, like, they'd play Roxy Music, and I remember hearing entire Bowie albums, Roxy Music albums, T. Rex, Floyd, Zeppelin, I mean, just the whole record! I mean it was just unbelievable to sit there as a kid with the radio and just sit... I was really drawn into that, really like reclusive, in my bedroom [garbled] I just wanted to go home, wanted to go back to Britain. I missed it so desperately. My parents decided to emigrate, so the music really kept me, y'know, I had a passion for that as a kid. Film and music, strangely enough, since I was a kid, since I was young very, very young.

CBL: About your time in Canada, how old were you at that time?

IA: I moved to Canada when I was about 11 and a half and I left when I was 16.

CBL: Uhu, and was like somewhere in the middle of nowhere or one of the big cities or what?

IA: It was Hamilton Ontario, which is, um...

CBL: Oh yeh.

IA: ...just South of Toronto and it's [garbled] steelworks, the steelworks, [garbled] Stelco, and all the steel that they used to make there used to go down the Great Lakes to Detroit and the automotive industry, and that’s where my father worked in that kind of industrial area, and both my mother and father contracted cancer in that city and both subsequently died of their cancers, so...

CBL: Yeh, sorry to hear that.

IA: [garbled] y'know, talk about some industrial, ur, some industrial communities, and then I’ve experienced that, y'know, first hand, because my family was decimated, y'know, by the industrial society and the consumerist society, so, at that age it was all grooming me to become, y'know, I guess a voice, to express myself in that way. I mean I had a lot of pain because of what we went through. We all seemed to be just above the breadline. I mean... Sure we had a roof over our heads and everything and we had a car that worked but... Y'know we had the basics, the bare minimum to keep us going. Not a Dickensian
[garbled] by any stretch of the imagination, but [garbled] heartbreak...

CBL: I'm, I'm just thinking a lot of the things you’re talking about there, a lot of people of the same generation, eh, were obviously going through that too, and a lot of that kind of fed into what happened in the 80s, really, musically. There was a bit of escapism, eh, there was a lot of grit, y'know, there was a lot of interesting things in the 80s, wasn’t there? I mean, mean, I think personally I think it was a very under-estimated or under-regarded musical decade.

IA: Yeh, actually, I think a lot of those kids, those kids in those bands, post-punk bands. I mean, starting off with Joy Division and several lead bass guitar bands, certainly what Factory were doing and [garbled] and then you’re going to things like Public Image, people were like refugees from, y’know... We were like... I mean I was born 17 years after World War Two. We were still in this kinda like refugee Britain and so, y'know, they had the Summer of Love, but that had all fallen away and y'know it was Pistols'd became just a total dystopia. And it was basically people saying there’s nothing bound for you. There’s no work. There's no future. It's year zero, 1984, George Orwell, Thatcher. There it is. Banned, you’re going nowhere, you're nothing don’t even think about being anything colourful VIC. Everything was just, y’know, what did we have, like, the Socialist Workers Party and the NF, all those people on the streets being active and violent, really vile. It was horrible, and, yeh [laughs].

Transcribed up to here.

Trevor Brown, artist (II)

2010-04-11T09:55:00.007+01:00

"Humpty" by Trevor Brown

Following the opening of Trevor Brown’s "Alice" show at the Bunkamura Gallery, I visited the exhibition on Friday 2nd of April, 2010 and met the artist. Later I interviewed him by email (apparently his preferred means of communication) for Culturekiosque, an on-line, US-based culture "magazine."

CBL: Was Alice as rich a seam to mine as you expected? Have you exhausted that seam or do you think you will return to it in future?

TB: From the start I set a target of thirty paintings – I used a few old works which sorta fit the theme to meet my secondary target of completing it by the end of 2009 - but, yes, I think I could in fact have carried on a bit longer – boredom hadn't set in – and the stories are so rich with imagery and ideas to draw from.

CBL: Alice is a cultural area that's very mapped out and iconographically established. Did you feel a constant pressure (a) to veer towards and/or (b) to veer away from the pre-existing imagery? If so, which works display these tendencies the most? Plus, do you think you did a better job dealing with these pressures than Tim Burton (cue to rant on about Burton's long-toothed Alice)?

TB: Haha! - as I said, I really hate the fact Tim Burton used a woman to play Alice then, in my cynical view, realising no one would believe she was a ten year old girl, concocted a story about Alice returning to Wonderland ten years later (or whatever) – and of course it was always going to be a "Johnny Depp in Wonderland" film and highly commercial Disney fodder - despite that, I still look forward to seeing it, his (tripped out) visual sense is always very good, even if he is selling out. For my Alice of course I felt no onus of any kind - I did what I felt like doing – the first painting most faithful to the traditional iconography - I suppose I did feel an obligation to do the Mad Hatter's tea party and, perhaps inevitably, I'm a bit unhappy with that painting because I was pandering too much – not Trevor Brown enough! - "Dumpty" and "Impotent" are a couple of my favourites - they take ideas from Alice but have become totally Trevor Brown.

CBL: I noticed some of the works had a "frozen splash" – the paint in "Red Painted Rose," the green tea in "Green Tea Part," the blood in "Chapter 13"... This kind of reminded me of Takashi Murakami's works "Lonesome Cowboy" and "Hiropon." Is this just one of those random subjective (on my part) coincidences or is there something in it?

TB: Probably was inspired by/ pinched from Takashi Murakami actually. I used eyeball flowers as another reoccurring motif in Alice – eyeball butterflies, an eyeball tree for "Cosmic Kitty" etc. - and lots of mushrooms - I should have done an eyeball mushroom as a more knowing reference to Murakami.

CBL: What do the numbers in "Cosmic Kitty" refer to?

TB: Just put in so people would ask what the numbers mean and I can say "fucked if I know!" - (the guy who bought the painting on Saturday asked too) - 9 and 4 are unlucky numbers in Japan and 6 is my wife's favourite number – they spell out ku-ro-shi, meaning suffocation – but I dunno! – they probably did have a highly significant meaning when I was doing the painting but I've now forgotten...!

CBL: As you said in a previous interview, you said you like to create ambiguity. Which piece are you most satisfied with in this regard?

TB: Perhaps "Humpty" – kinda innocuous and cute looking – the gallery evidently thought it was inoffensive enough to use for the post card – but it's one of the more perverse images in the book with the grotesque lecherous Humpty leering at Alice, with the hint of a bulge down his trousers.

CBL: You said "Which Dreamed It?" was your personal favourite [when I met Brown earlier at the gallery]. Why?

TB: She's cutest – and the colours (reproduced awfully in the book) and simple composition.

CBL: What is the most interesting feedback or reactions you have received so far?

TB: I related the story of a pair of little girls viewing my exhibition on my blog – I suspect that's going to remain the most memorable for me.

copy/paste:
spent a few hours at the gallery prior to camera shopping (so still no exhibition photos just yet) - no squealing tb-obsessed girls today and (so) not so much excitement - except for the entrance of a few little girls (9 or 10 year olds) accompanied by their mothers - obviously oblivious to the dangers of trevor brown art and sucked in by the cute humpty dumpty poster outside? - in particular there’s one painting of alice gingerly (sleep?)walking on a landscape of erect penises (titled "malice in wonderland") - i thoughtfully placed it toward the far end of the gallery, with some of the other more "adult" images, so that anyone who had wandered into the gallery "by mistake" would have had time to leave - but the first pair of little girls who arrived were racing far ahead of their mothers viewing the paintings and dolls - and they stopped at the one painting before "malice in wonderland" - which was "dumpty" and in which they appeared to take an especial surreptitious delight in, pointing to dumpty's face and giggling - i was anxious to see how they’d react to the next painting - but, as their parents caught up with them, they walked straight past it with no discernible reaction …from either the girls or their mothers!

CBL: Which is your favourite Tweedle?

TB: My Tweedles? - I can't choose - I was thinking of them as a pair of irritating little brats.

Anton Kannemeyer, artist

2010-03-29T13:11:00.005+01:00

Between February 19th and March 19th 2010, I interviewed the "controversial" South African artist Anton Kannemeyer by email. I intermittently sent him one - sometimes more - questions every few days and waited for his answers before pressing on. Kannemeyer is a cartoonist and printmaker. His art is very "racial" and political, dealing with the tensions, contradictions, and stereotypes of post-Apartheid South Africa. A couple of weeks after the main interview, Eugene Terre'blanche, the leader of the White separatist AWB party was murdered, so I contacted Kannemeyer again with some additional questions.

CBL: I assume that like any artistically gifted person, you tried a wide variety of ways of expressing yourself when you were younger. Could you tell me a little about that, and why you came to focus on print art as your main means of artistic expression?

AK: My father is a South African writer (mainly Afrikaans literary criticism), so from a young age I had this idea that I want to publish, or at least make books. I remember when I was about 11 years old, I made a set of books that was supposedly my "complete works"; divided into categories like poetry, short and longer fiction, plays, etc. Unfortunately I lost that set of books (not that I think it would have been much good today, except maybe for a few laughs: I remember there was an "erotic fiction" section there somewhere and I made up this story of a nurse that seduced me!). I'm sure you did not mean THAT young in your question: AS a student I started an art magazine in our department (it only ran 2 issues: 1990 & '91), but my main aim was to publish a comic magazine. My friend Conrad Botes (who I met as a first year art student in 1988) and I started drawing comics in 1989 together, and in 1992 we published our collected work in a magazine called Bitterkomix 1. As we knew a black & white magazine wouldn't make much of an impact on its own, we made large silkscreen prints (in color) of many of the images in the comic. They were quite popular and often exhibited, it also gave the magazine a point of sale (we struggled initially to get the magazine in bookshops, but when sales were consistent that was not such a big problem anymore). Eventually we would also screenprint book covers (never more than 150), but these were always limited and i guess more like an "art object" than anything else.

CBL: So, you never really wanted to be a painter in the traditional sense of a guy with his thumb stuck through a palette? It was always driven by the idea of publishing?

AK: Yes, to me a book was the ultimate "art form." And even now, painting to me (at this stage at least) is something which brings an idea across firstly - what I like about painting is size. But more about this later, maybe.

CBL: “Eroticism” serves as a kind of unguarded window into a culture. Looking at Bittercomix, one of the things that stands out is the way you constantly poke fun at the old sexually-repressed presbyterian Afrikaaner morality, but also mix in a load of racial issues with scenes of interracial sex - almost always a Black man with a White woman. In Bittercomix, Blacks seem to represent an idea of sexual power and liberation, but this is also mixed with a heavy dose of irony that creates a sense of degradation. It seems as if you are equating sexual repression with Apartheid and equating the New South Africa with a certain degrading sense of "openess." I feel there is an ambivalence, or even an am-TRI-valence, as the critical voice in the works doesn't embrace Apartheid or the New South Africa. In view of this, what role does eroticism play in your art?

AK: I'm firstly not sure that the explicit sexual situations in Bitterkomix are erotic - in fact, most white men find them rather off-putting (which is good - it means it challenges them). But I agree with your "unguarded window" opinion: it serves as a view into both someone else's and your own back yard, I guess. The use (or repeated use of Black men as sexually potent) was mainly to piss off white men. I guess in most instances our work was directed at the white Afrikaner (the language was also mostly Afrikaans, albeit a kind of crude slang), and in this sense and context iconoclastic. And yes, things have changed. I like your comment about the "irony that creates a sense of degradation": you're probably right, but you need to be more specific: which works are you talking about? Generally I would not equate the "new South Africa" with a sexual openness (even though now I may say what I want without being persecuted). Sex is still very much a taboo, especially in the Black communities. And to finally get to your question: I see myself as a satirist and therefore mostly critical of those in power (both political and economical power). My use of explicit sexual situations in the comics like in GIF: Afrikaner Sekskomix; 1994) were mostly metaphorical (yeah, I know this is vague), criticizing conservative Afrikaans values. The impact of that work, however, made me understand how you can grab an audience's attention visually, and simultaneously undermine that initial visual impact with either language, juxtaposition or other devices. I often draw pornographic images (some pages from my sketchbooks have been published), and therefore not all my "erotic" imagery function on the same level. I must also say that in South Africa my name has become a bit synonymous with crude pornographic depictions: this is/was sometimes beneficial, but often a bit irritating, as people used to comment on that aspect of the work mostly. Lately there has been a shift in my work (the last 3 years or so) - and I have been focusing mainly on politics and race. But here I also sometimes use sexually explicit images! ps: best would be if you can comment on specific work - the time during which I made a work would probably indicate a specific strategy.

CBL: Speaking of specific examples, how true are the true stories in Joe Dog? I was looking at "Whatever you do, stay out of prison in South Africa" and, yes, it's attacking the prison authorities and the prison gangs, but even the White victim of the prison gang rape is mocked I felt by the inverted commas around 'Mr.' I get the feeling that the sexual content of your work (for some reason I don't think I want to call this strip erotic) is - as femininsts like to say - all about power, a metaphor for changing power relations, namely the 'feminization' of the former 'masculine' White ruling class. Maybe it's because your work is actually so political in this way (using a perfect metaphor in sex) that you unfairly got dismissed by some as a purveyor of "crude pornographic depictions." Does any of this ring true?

AK: My 'true stories' are normally quite accurate. In the case of "Prison in Africa" the incidents are based on info found in local newspapers. The 'mr' in inverted commas referred to something that I now realize would not be picked up by an international audience: if the victim would have been a black man, the press would not have placed 'mr' before his name. As the press is not allowed anymore to identify people by race, there are other subtleties in the text one relies on to in fact determine race. The 'mr' is supposed to dignify the victim as well. But you're right, as a child I felt a huge resentment towards white patriarchs, and in the new South Africa these men have been despised by all for quite a while now (and they're the least likely to be employed as well in government institutions) - this of course gave me many reasons to celebrate (the irony, of course, being that I'm also just a white male.) And I'm not too concerned about being dismissed "unfairly as a conveyer of porn" - I've had a lot of support in the media, especially from women! And your comment about the 'sexual content of the work being about power' is quite correct.

CBL: As you indicate, your position in the new South Africa has strong ambiguities - resentment against the Afrikaaner patriarchs from whom you stem. I get the impression that a lot of your creative drive comes from (a) an almost Oedipal resentment of your father and (b) the heavily ironic position "rejecting one's roots" places anyone in, especially as - despite the official propaganda that we are fed about SA by the international media - racial and ethnic identity must be more important than ever in South Africa. Where is your identity at? Are you like Obama 'post-racial' or is your identity based on sexuality, politics, or just pure humanism and/or individualism?

AK: I think that I sort of got over the "bitter" in "Bitterkomix", meaning that I (probably) managed to exorcise most of my personal demons through comic art drawing. The resentment of my father in my work resulted in a complete breakdown of any kind of communication between us (more or less 15 years ago) - which was great (and I would like to recommend it to others: family is overrated, people!) and made me realize that I could get on with other stuff, not just the more autobiographical comics that I focused on for so long. And roots: I'm not sure about this. I lived in Germany for 2 years when I was 18 years old (my mother, who is Dutch, remarried a German) and I was desperately unhappy there. Back in South Africa (I returned to study) I felt at home, happy and driven because of the turmoil on political and social levels, I guess. Life here is/was meaningful because I felt my work had an impact. But lately I enjoy working in other countries (I have a lot of professional connections in Germany and France especially), but my partner is pretty tied up with her family here. I'm not sure that I'm 'post-racial' (it sounds like such a grand statement). When I was teaching though, especially in Johannesburg (where there were about 70% Black students), I felt 'post-racial': I was just trying to get a good job done. The moment I came back to the Cape (I taught at Stellenbosch University) where Black students only constituted about 12-15% of the student body, I started feeling weird again. And everybody in my department was SO painfully politically correct, it almost crippled their logic or behaviour. Lots of hypocrisy among liberals, but I'm sure you are aware of that. But, in the end, I guess I don't see myself as an Afrikaner anymore - I still prefer writing in Afrikaans, but most of my friends are, and virtually all my work is in English. Also, I don't read Afrikaans or watch Afrikaans tv or anything Afrikaans (I don't go to Afrikaans cultural festivals anymore - my God, they are annoying!). I really don't know what constitutes a South African to be honest: and in that sense I guess some South Africans are a bit "post-racial". I do sometimes watch cricket: whether it's a black, Indian, white or 'coloured' (mixed race) sportsman, there are no differences. They just need to perform. That's the only way I get a sense of nationality - through sports.

CBL: Your answer to question almost reads like an ad for the movie "Invictus" or for this year's World cup, which is not to knock it, as there is much to be said for the meritocracy of sport (although it has to be added that sport isn't immune to "affirmative action" and other social and political pressures).

AK: yes, I'm a dork, I know it... Thomas Bernard (one of my favourite authors said: "...and nothing is more ridiculous than sport, the most popular alibi so far devised to account for the utter futility of the individual." (from Gathering Evidence, probably his best book.

CBL: One way to gauge someone's true identity is by the kind of people they associate with in their free time. In your case what kind of picture does this give?

AK: Yes, my partner (or girlfriend) and I have two very young children now and I sort of feel that I do not associate with anyone anymore - it's just work and children. But my best friends are all very close to and interested in all sorts of alternative culture. Are you trying to determine whether my friends are black, white or coloured?

CBL: Of course, the answer is "yes" because the real test of a multiracial society is the degree to which race is "forgotten." My experience living in South Africa and then moving back to a Scotland where I felt relatively alienated by the culture, made me into a relatively post-racial kind of person. But from my understanding of history, most multiracial states lead to a rise in racial consciousness and effective (if not official) apartheid - step forward America – and only the power of a very strong supranational body, like the Catholic Church, the Communist Party, etc. can partially override the human group instinct (outside the purely economic imperatives that make different kinds of people work together). Your generation is living the experiment of “multiracial harmony.” How is it going? And, yes, at your own level of who you feel comfortable associating with, are you effectively post racial? Or do things like work and family enable you to avoid facing this issue too directly?

AK: No, in one way or another one has to face this issue. I have some black friends - two guys who are quite close in regards to their taste in music and interests in visual arts etc. The one guy, who died recently drowning, was my brother's best friend. But that's not a lot (I must admit I know a lot of people but have few close friends). What has occurred, from a very different angle however, is that our daughter has made some black friends at school, and now we do see their parents socially. One of her friends' mother turned out to be my partner's gynaecologist which is quite funny: a while ago I made a painting called "Black Gynaecologist" which was quite popular: unthinkable that a white woman should have a black gynaecologist, but there you have it: our reality! The thing is that our Black gynaecologist and her Nigerian husband are looking to emigrate to Australia or somewhere - who knows, maybe we'll end up with a white gynaecologist again.

CBL: Coming back to sport, the World Cup is interesting because it raises the possibility of a clash between image and reality. Lot's of people who have the slightly rosy view of SA presented in the media will come face-to-face with the real SA. Do you have any world cup predictions, and I don't mean the football?

AK: People who come here won't necessarily come face to face with the "real SA". I'm in two minds about this: on the one hand the media in other countries are very negative about SA (not rosy!-which newspapers do you read?) and this creates an image that isn't always correct. I remember a French friend of mine visited the Ukraine for 3 months and then SA for 2 months - he felt that people here were extremely happy and positive about the future as opposed to the Ukraine, where people were depressed and mostly alcoholic (his words). And I have experienced that negative media image of (South) Africa first hand living for periods in Europe, sometimes dreading to come back (as you must have, maybe?). But then again, I'm also aware that ideology and appearances are just smokescreens; I don't think most visitors will experience corruption first hand during the soccer world cup, but it certainly exists on a grand scale both here and in the rest of Africa. Yes, that's depressing, let me pour myself another brandy and coke....

CBL: Moving onto another subject, I'd like to ask about the alphabet series. With its deadpan humor, it's one of the things you're best known for. Some of the pieces, like "N is for Nightmare" (house with decapitation). remind me of Herge's Tin Tin cartoons - nice clean draughtsmanship, sterotypical Blacks. The feeling this creates is of a mismatch between image and reality. Why did you choose this Tin Tin-esque style for several of the pieces, but a more realistic style for works like, say, "J is for Jack Russell," which I feel is a whole lot less ironic and more sympathetic?

AK: Hmmm, this may take a while to answer.... The stylistic reference to Herge's Tintin can be traced back to my Bitterkomix work - I started using it when I made comics of myself at a very young age. At the time (as a young child before I turned 12) Tintin was the only comic I knew, and the style just seemed perfect to open that window back into (especially) my pre-pubescent years. I used the clarity of his style, but added a dark shadow-like atmosphere which seemed quite truthful to me, quite depressing. The use of the stereotypical Black has several functions, one being that I did see all black people (who I didn't know) at that age as looking the same. In the case of the "N is for nightmare" series (there are in fact 7 pieces in the series, part of the "bigger" Alphabet series), I wanted to accentuate this fear of hordes of faceless "Blacks" attacking White dwellings (and maybe affluent Black houses) - always situated in typical South African middle class suburbs. IN the Alphabet series I used many different styles and media, in order to create diversity. I also thought that that would accentuate the "democratic aspect". In the first series (which was sold in South Africa) I also used frames that I collected from various 2nd hand shops in the Cape Town area. So there were different sizes, different media, different kinds of frames (some elaborate, some very simple, some kitsch, etc), different styles, some works in colour, some in black and white, some pencil or charcoal with a monochromatic use of liquid acrylic, printmaking in between, etc. Maybe "J is for Jack Russell" is more sympathetic ... some of these images are more ambiguous. My idea initially was also to work with juxtaposition: that's why I'm glad that both sets sold to one person on each occasion (the 2nd set sold to a Canadian through my New York gallery). They would therefore always be exhibited together, not as separate artworks.

CBL: You mentioned "this fear of hordes of faceless ‘Blacks’ attacking White dwellings (and maybe affluent Black houses) - always situated in typical South African middle class suburbs." Why did you use quotation marks for "Blacks"?

AK: You know, I'm not quite sure why I did it, but it was probably because of my scepticism of the correct way of speaking or writing of "the other" (I find a lot of this politically correct talk bullshit): I think I'm quite inconsistent in my answers - sometimes I say Blacks with a capital 'B', sometimes without the capital 'b'.

CBL: By accentuating this fear - and also by the way you draw the cartoons (N is for Nightmare) - I feel that you are mocking the fear as slightly ridiculous and exaggerated. But isn't fear, by its very nature an exaggerated state? Also, in view of the disparities in
wealth and the social and racial divisions in South Africa, and the experience of much of late 20th century Africa - from the Mau Mau, the expulsion of the Ugandan Asians, the massacres in the Belgian Congo, the campaigns against the White farmers in Zimbabwe, and of course the genocide in Rwanada, etc., etc., might not these fears of "faceless mobs" be completely rational?

AK: Sure, these fears are perfectly grounded. IN fact we had a series of very violent break-ins in the street where I live a year ago: these gangs would simply smash the front door in and steal as much as they can before the armed response would reply. And in both cases (in our street) the families were held at gunpoint until the guys left. I was very afraid of waking up in the middle of the night with a front door being smashed down. But I think one problem is that white people think they're the only victims in South Africa (oh God they feel really sorry for themselves). The other thing has to do with ownership and entitlement: many white people think they've worked really hard for what they've got and that it's really unfair that they're being victimized. And yes, it's a complex issue: in a "normal" first world country the government will protect you - in South Africa (when white people complain - especially about "service delivery") you're branded a racist. It's a very interesting time (but it has been since I started studying). You must remember that I comment (often rather ambiguously) on things I see around me, it's almost as if real life is something different. I had an exhibition recently in Joburg and towards the end of the opening about 4 Black students started having this long discussion with me about the future of South Africa and where things went wrong (in the new SA). What do I think should be done? God, I don't know, I'm just an artist. I read a lot about African history, it's devastating. It's a history of greed and horrible people. And it's still happening right now. What should be done? I made a painting recently of a white woman about to be raped by four Black guys; she shouts at her husband: "These historically disadvantaged men want to rape me!" Now once again there are real situations like this out there - but the issue I'm addressing is something else though. I use this fear to address something else. Regarding this, I found an excellent quote by Tony Hoagland: "To really get at the subject of race, chances are, is going to require some unattractive, tricky self-expression, something adequate to the paradoxical complexities of privilege, shame, and resentment. To speak in a voice equal to reality in this case will mean the loss of observer-immunity status, will mean admitting that one is not on the sidelines of our racial realities, but actually in the tangled middle of them. Nobody is going to look good." (from Real Sofistikashun: Essays on Poetry and Craft, 2006.) I know that I approach the subject from a satirical perspective, but your question (a good one, by the way) tries to get behind/underneath the "visual" figure of speech. In retrospect I guess my answers are sometimes a bit mixed-up: you're welcome to edit or resend questions if things are unclear (I know that's what you've been doing to an extent),

CBL: I'd also like to ask about the sale of your work. How much is sold in South Africa and how much is sold overseas as a percentage? Also what differences do you notice between the art sold to South Africans and that sold abroad?

AK: This is a relief - a factual question! I always had a following in South Africa - at one point I realized that the people who are buying my work are people who studied with me (as lawyers, doctors and economists - not artists!) But lately my bigger pieces got more expensive and now there's a whole range of people buying - a lot through the New York gallery (Jack Shainman). But last year apparently I sold to British and Russian collectors, but I don't always know who bought the work. But drawings and prints sell to collectors in South Africa.

FOLLOWING THE MURDER OF EUGENE TERRE'BLANCHE I SENT THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS

CBL: Sorry to disturb you with additional questions, but I am forced to do this following the dramatic murder of Eugene Terre'blanche, whose death touches upon so many of the areas appraoched in your art. Terre'blanche is the kind of patriarchal Afrikanaar figure that you grew up despising. How do you feel about his death? Any theories or views?

AK: I don't have much sympathy with Terre'blanche - he was a violent man and yes, pretty much the embodiment of everything I despised as a kid and a young grown-up (and, I guess, a "proper grown-up"). I do think the murder was political in nature (even though the media says it was about money) and a result of Julius Malema's endorsement of the "Kill the Boer" song. To a lesser extent it reminds one of the murder of Chris Hani, who, according to R.W. Johnson in his book "SA's Brave New World", was (indirectly) killed by the ANC (mainly Joe Modise), but the loss for SA is not as great, of course (in fact, we can really do without Terreblanche). What is interesting now is that we had similar problems in 1994: Blacks were shouting "one settler, one bullet" and more or less exactly the same angst and issues regarding race are still with us. A lot of people said we had come a long way since Apartheid, but the exact same issues are still the most explosive today. I find it extremely interesting that someone like Malema who is clearly uneducated and one of the bluntest pencils on the political landscape can have such a major political impact in South Africa. He accuses the whites for everything that's wrong in SA today, even though the ANC has now been in power for 16 years. What he's doing is very transparent, and I must say he and Zuma look more and more like copies of Amin, Mobutu and Mugabe...

CBL: I always thought that Terre'blanche was the kind of joke figure that made satire pointless - a caricature of White nationalism that served to discredit the very ideas he espoused. I am thinking here of the three-legged swastika, military fatigues, and even his name which invokes "Eugenics" and "White Land." Did he make your job as a satirist hard by existing as a satire on himself? And isn't this also true of many of the other figures in the South African political landscape?

AK: I attached the one work I made of him with this mail - but you're right: it's difficult to satirise him. Even his actual death is satirical - it's bizarre. He's my work come to life, but probably better than I could have executed. At the moment he and Malema are the two extremes on the SA political landscape: the irony is that both of them represent(ed) far right extremism.

CBL: The way he died is evocative of the fears that your art often touches on. Is it about unresolved issues of economic inequality (as opposed to economic justice, which is a different issue), or a nebulous mood of racial hatred that can easily find a focus?

AK: Apparently a white Boer is killed every 18 hours in South Africa. These statistics are not released by the police, but by the action groups set up by farmers themselves. I must say, now that the ANC has shown us where they're heading, now that even the secretary-general of the Communist party is driving a million Rand Mercedes Benz, I'm very worried about the future of South Africa. Also, I'm quite surprised by the "nebulous" racial hatred in SA - I know I'm politically naive, but it slowly dawned on me (in the last 5 years or so) just exactly how racist people still are. Even Mbeki is a racist - he was supposed to be our intellectual leader, you know, an enlightened leftie. You were talking about "post-racism": maybe that's the privilege of the upper middle classes and the rich. Especially the privilege of those in white countries. South Africa was supposed to be this country where a miracle happened - I must say there are SO many white liberals who are SO disillusioned with the ANC, it's in fact rather funny. So: no, I do not see Terreblanche's death as an isolated incident, and yes, it's about race and class: and I do not know, with the current education system in South Africa (a senior Black professor at UCT said recently that education is now worse for Blacks than what it was under the Apartheid regime), where this will end.

CBL: Are you planning any artistic response to this incident?

AK: I hope so - I don't force anything, hopefully a lateral solution will arrive soon. I don't think like a political cartoonist, and I do not do this kind of work on a deadline.

Mikiko Kumazawa, Artist

2010-03-27T10:49:00.006Z

Mikiko Kumazawa is an artist, who does large drawings full of chaotic and humorous details. In October, 2009, I was writing a short article about her exhibition at the Citizen's Gallery at the Setagaya Art Museum, so I emailed her a few questions, and got the following response.

CBL: Can you tell me more about Panicked?

MK: I have been hearing, on recent news, about the recession (the recent extremely bad economy) all over the world. This inspired my enthusiasm to represent something which is not influenced by the depression, something unshakable. My inspiration led me to express such a thing as “women” in contemporary Japan.

CBL: What did you include naked pregnant women in the picture?

MK: I expressed pregnant women as the existences from which I can feel the "spiritual" and "instinctive power of women." I mean, I thought in contemporary Japan, the thing capable of overcoming this situation is symbolized by women.

CBL: What do they mean?

MK: The pregnant women are like Japanese hobgoblins (inhuman) in their forms (swelling belly and corpulent breasts), and are like something spiritual in their unbelievable abilities to create babies. There are many forms, types of gods and hobgoblins mingled in the work. I feel that Gods and hobgoblins are very close. Gods are the existences that are not only able to help, save and lead us but also, as hobgoblins, horrible. On the other hand, hobgoblins are sometimes the existences that are beautiful and spiritual as Gods. I drew the link between Japanese modern hobgoblins and the power of modern women.

Mayu Endo, Miss Universe Japan 2000

2010-02-15T11:33:00.004Z

In April or May 2000, the owner of Tokyo Journal, Dr. Stephan Hauser, asked me to do an article on Mayu Endo, the new Miss Universe Japan. As Hauser was desperately trying to sell advertising space, he also roped in Dr. Andy Wong, a skin care specialist, who had treated Ms. Endo's skin. This made the interview a three-cornered affair with Dr. Andy occupying an interesting intermediate role between interviewer and interviewee. Hauser's hope was that Wong would be so flattered by the experience that he would gladly start advertising in our magazine. Needless to say, this underpowered scheme by the crafty German didn't quite work out. Quite satisfied with the free exposure he got through the article, Dr. Andy sensibly decided to advertise elsewhere.

CBL: Why do you think you were chosen to be Miss Universe Japan?

MAYU: This is something I heard afterwards. That I wasn’t even in the top five until I started speaking. Before the pageant I had 20 days together with the other 20 finalists. The more I spoke to them, the more I saw each girl’s allure. Some girls had the perfect body, some the perfect inside, some the perfect intelligence... It’s not like I became the top out of everybody, but I think its something we built up together. I got a lot of tactics to be Miss Universe Japan during those 20 days, because I learned so much from them. That was one of the reasons I won.

Dr. ANDY: I was first invited to the pre-party at Yokohama, the first time that me and my staff saw you, and all of a sudden we said number four will be the winner. You were number four, right?

MAYU: Oh my goodness!

Dr. ANDY: It’s because she’s well-balanced, has beauty and intelligence, and a vision of a borderless future, so she’s the right person to represent Japan. Notice her sense of ease and grace. It’s because you spent so many years overseas, Mayu, and you understand the different ideas of beauty between East and West.

MAYU: I think an important difference is the idea of healthiness, with the beauty coming from the inside out, not from covering the outside in. So, it’s very important to have the kind of treatment Doctor Andy does, to make the skin itself better instead of covering it up with make up. I think Asian beauty tends to be more in the way of covering up, but I think we have to consider all things together: what we eat, what we do, exercise, what our habits are, our daily life, as well as how to get good treatments before we start searching for make up goods.

Dr. ANDY: How do you understand the treatment I’m giving to all my patients here?

MAYU: It’s really very medical. You revitalize from inside, bringing up the energy of the skin so the beauty comes from inside.

Dr. ANDY: From every cell, because we tackle the biochemistry, the anatomy, the physiology of every cell. Every skin cell is one life. What I’m doing is aesthetic dermatology, which is an advanced form of cosmetic surgery where effectively we do facelifts, rejuvenate the skin, and resurface the skin without using a scalpel. We believe that if the skin is damaged even if you do an operation it won’t last long. It will just come down again. We use micro-derma abrasion which is popular in Europe. Actually, I learned it from Italy back in 1988. We exfoliate a layer of the most superficial part of the common strata of the epidermis and then apply the skin lotions and vitamins directly to the skin and it gets down there.

CBL: Micro-derma abrasion, how does that work?

Dr. ANDY: It is pressure and suction of 100-micron crystals hitting the skin at a certain angle, exfoliating the cell then sucking the dirt from the cell; always under micro stimulation.

CBL: A little like a shampoo vacuum cleaner.

Dr. ANDY: Yes, that’s right. So, we rejuvenate the skin by giving it the natural essential ingredients. After the skin is rejuvenated, then you get your elasticity back, then we decide if you need an operation or not. In most of the cases an operation is not indicated. So, Mayu, how does it feel on the skin?

MAYU: At first, because I wasn’t used to it, I felt first that it was crushing my skin, the very old cells. But it is more important to build up the skin that to maintain it. Now with my new skin, I have to take care of it with special make up.

Dr. ANDY: The medical cosmetics.

MAYU: That’s right. I realize that the treatment is the most important, more than the peeling. People always talk about the peeling, but I think that the aftercare is the most important.

CBL: Was the treatment painful when you first tried it?

MAYU: It wasn’t really painful. It was more like ticklish. It felt like cats’ paws. But after the treatment I used the products that Doctor Andy offered to me, and I also try to be careful what make up I put on. Anyway after two weeks of treatment, it’s getting much better than before.

CBL: I can’t help noticing that you have a very nice suntan. Earlier Dr Andy was saying that he never goes out in the sun. He’s afraid of the sunlight.

Dr. ANDY: Well, yes, because I want to look young.

CBL: When he said that, it sounded like Dracula to me.

Dr. ANDY: I should have opened the blinds.

MAYU: He said that to you?

CBL: Yes, that the Sun was his enemy.

Dr. ANDY: Speaking of the Sun, when are you going to Cyprus?

MAYU: On the 20th. I'm very, very excited. I have a very dark skin because I do various sports all through the year. I think I'm pretty ready now. I was just in New York and I met the other delegates, so I know how it's going to be, who I'm going to meet, and the atmosphere.

CBL: The delegates?! It sounds like a diplomatic conference, or the United Nations.

MAYU [laughs]: That's true. I'm never called Mayu anymore, I'm called Japan because it's the least confusing way and we don’t want to mispronounce the girls' names. I got to know some of the girls very closely already, but 85 girls are going to be living together for 20 days and it’s going to be pretty confusing, so, whenever I have the sash on with Japan people will just call me Japan. Although it sounds political, I think it’s common sense.

CBL: Do you feel like you are really representing your country?

MAYU: Oh yes, because people are watching me. They ask me a lot of questions about Japan and they judge Japan through my attitude and what I say.

CBL: Japanese people especially seem very aware of themselves as a distinct nationality. Doesn't this make you feel stressed?

Dr. ANDY: That's what we are worried about because once you get the stress that usually affects the skin. It makes it more vulnerable to sunlight, sun damage, supplementary spots develop and dryness and wrinkles. And I have to take responsibility for that.

CBL: If you win, you'll have even more stress.

MAYU: Well, I should be honest and admit that I’m a little bit scared about being there with 85 women, but I know that there is a very good part of Japan that is very open-minded and which still has its own character because we are an island country and very much one race. I think this is a strength because now the world is getting smaller and people tend to be very similar like per se European countries. They try to maintain their cultures but it's getting more unicultural. Japan has a better chance of keeping something different, of carrying themselves in a unique way. I hope that we will find some unique beauty and originality.

CBL: Although you're obviously proud to be Japanese, you have features which are very attractive anywhere and, indeed, you look in some ways quite Western: you have a long face and your character, of course. You're not shy! What do you think about the different ideals of beauty between the Orient and the West? What's the difference?

MAYU: There are many differences like in Japan I am probably too talkative. People think its better to be silent and modest, rather than be outgoing and doing whatever you want. Because I studied in Europe and the States I know how society is different. But, also, because I was abroad I learned much more about Japan. When I was there living in different countries, I always felt like 'Oh my God, I'm so Japanese inside.'

CBL: Which European country were you in?

MAYU: I was in Denmark when I was 17 years old without knowing any words except, "Hi, my name is Mayu," and I lived there and went to school there for one year as part of an exchange program. I was also in Boston for one year, going to college. I will always have my base here in Japan and it'll never be replaced that's why I'm confident to represent Japan. Living overseas let me see different countries but it also helped me see Japan by the contrast.

CBL: Your English is very good for such a short time overseas.

MAYU [laughs]: I still need to brush up more.

CBL: Maybe I could I interest you in some half-price English lessons?

Dr. ANDY: I was surprised to know that Maya was one of the Rotary Foundation exchange students in her high school days. The Rotary Foundation choose the most brilliant students to represent their country as a civilian ambassador, so she has been an ambassador since she was 17 years old.

MAYU: And Dr Andy is a Rotarian, which I didn't know. The Rotary organization gives the students funds for one year and lets them choose which country they want to go to, and my choice was Denmark.

CBL: Why Denmark?

MAYU: Because one of my biggest dreams is to become an architect, and my mom used to be an architect. When I was little I would sneak into her room and look at all the interior design magazines and all the beautiful furniture was from Denmark, so that was my image. Also another reason I chose Denmark was because I wanted to be the normal height. I hated my height. I told my parents that even just one time in my life I wanted to feel normal with my height, so they said go to a Scandinavian country.

CBL: A lot of people say Orientals have better skin than Western people...

Dr. ANDY: I have written a book about this difference. Of our patients, 50% are Japanese, and we also have a black patient coming in today, as well as Indians, Indonesians, and people from all countries. Northern European skin is more sensitive and vulnerable to sunlight than Asian skin. There's a lot to say about it and I'm still doing research into skin care for different types of skin, so, Mayu, I hope that when you go to Cyprus you get some information from the delegates from other countries on how they keep their skin fit.

CBL: Suntans are a big topic nowadays, what with the gonguro, and gyakupanda fashions where young girls tan themselves to excess as part of a fashion. What do you think of this phenomenon?

Dr. ANDY: The message that it is harmful to the skin has not yet reached these young people. I’m afraid that when they are in their late 20s they will be sorry for that. Everybody knows about sun protector which protects against ultra violet (UV) rays. Most sunscreens that you have are for protection against UV-B, but UV-A is more penetrative. It travels through clouds and glas, and can affect you even indoors. Once it gets to your skin, it gets to the deep part, where it produces free radicals which are harmful to the entire architecture of the skin by breaking down the bonds between collagens, elastina and proteoglycans, and many biochemical properties inside the skin.

CBL: How about the conditions in Cyprus?

Dr. ANDY: It’s a beautiful country, but it’s the worst place in the Mediterranean with all the sunrays. Mayu, I believe your family’s going to go with you, right? Your parents?

CBL: Will you be staying with your parents?

MAYU: I will be sharing a room with another delegate I met when I went to New York recently, Miss Ukraine. We talked and clicked very well and decided to share a room.

CBL: When they get all these beautiful women in one place doesn’t that create problems, like driving accidents, etc?

MAYU: There are going to be guard men all the way. People who are coming to Cyprus to meet us can’t even see us except at certain times. Were going to have a curfew.

CBL: Doesn’t it feel strange?

MAYU: I feel like going back to being a high school student because we’re all together. We eat at the same time. Whether we want to be or not, we have to be happy and confident. It’s also similar to being in high school because we have to be ready when people ask questions. It think it’s very funny to be doing this when I’m 24.

CBL: So, it’s strictly no men allowed?

MAYU: Yes, I believe so. All the girls want to keep their best reputation. For 20 days we are good girls [laughs].

CBL: Dr Andy, you have to work with many beautiful ladies on a professional basis, of course, day in day out. If I was doing your job, and I had to do skin treatment on such a beautiful girl as Mayu my hands would shake. How do you stay calm and get that professional distance?

Dr. ANDY: Professional touch, professional heart, so I don’t get tense, I don’t get shaky hands.

CBL: It comes with practice?

Dr. ANDY: Yes.

CBL: A lot of practice?

MAYU: How many years does it take before you get this professional?

Dr. ANDY: It’s my secret. I can’t say anymore.

CBL: I know, it’s because he’s scared of his wife.

Dr. ANDY: I’m not married.

CBL: Mayu, Tokyo Journal has a lot of handsome male readers. I’m sure a lot of them would be interested in your idea of male attractiveness, male beauty.

MAYU: I think that health is the first thing [laughs]. Among Japanese people, women are starting to understand that health is connected to beauty, but Japanese men, compared to Western society, are more backward about health. They don’t really care what they eat. They drink a lot, smoke a lot.

CBL: So, you like healthy guys?

MAYU: Yes, guys who are healthy and know intelligently how to carry themselves, and how to make their own living. I’m not talking about guys like body builders.

CBL: I always heard it was sense of humour that girls liked.

MAYU: Oh really?

CBL: Healthy guys? That's still a little abstract. Could you maybe tell us which movie actors you like?

MAYU: I don't have any special preference.

CBL: So, you don't care for Tom Cruise?

MAYU: I see many celebrities and they each have their own style. I like the man who knows what is important in his life and has a strong style based on this intelligence, because we live only one time in our life and every single small choice is going to change our life.

CBL: That sounds very philosophical, but it wasn't a very philosophical question. Okay, then, how about DiCaprio, or my own countryman, Ewan McGregor?

MAYU: I like all of them, sorry.

CBL: You're so diplomatic!

Dr. ANDY: That's why she's the right person for this job.

Angus Young & Brian Johnson [AC/DC]

2010-02-11T04:40:00.007Z

Angus Young & Brian Johnson

In February 2010, I "interviewed" the biggest rock band on the planet AC/DC by proxy. The way this works is quite simple. Rather than scheduling slots for individual journalists, the promoters collect questions from several journalists then send a proxy interviewrer to present these to the interviewees in one sitting. This saves the musicians lots of time, but leads to a lot of disjointed questioning, dropped points, and bland answers, as questions are not pressed and follow-up questions are lacking or lame. Four of the six questions I submitted were used: numbers 2, 3, 4, and 5. The interview took place at the Park Hyatt in Sydney on the 7th of February, 2010.

QUESTION ONE: The current music scene has CD sales falling and more and more people downloading rather than going to stores. AC/DC is not following that trend. What kind of reasons do you have for emphasizing physical releases in this current day and age?

ANGUS: For us it’s probably a different market. On the digital side they kind of concentrate more on the pop music, and pop music - it’s very fast. They kind of have a single every month or something, but, from our background, we were always a band that tried to make a good album. We concentrated on that. So, for us, it’s been two different things. But it’s been that way from the beginning. Where other bands made pop music or changed their direction, we always stuck to what we do best, which is rock music.

QUESTION TWO: What distinguishes Black Ice from all the other albums you’ve done over the last four decades?

ANGUS: I wouldn’t say you reinvent the wheel when you do something. You just try to get better song craft. You just to put a bit more craft in what you do, and hopefully you come up with something a little bit different than the album you did before.

BRIAN: I think it’s just a natural progression. It happens naturally with the band and the boys, and it’s just a different time and a different feeling.

ANGUS: And we’re lucky - over the years we’ve managed to get a lot of new fans to plug into us.

QUESTION THREE: In one interview you did the title of Black Ice was explained as a reference to a Scottish weather forecast. While AC/DC is typically seen as an Australian band, how important are those British and Scottish roots?

ANGUS: Well, black ice was always a term you heard a lot in that part of the world, Australia is always warm but other parts of the world, like Scotland, you get the four seasons, spring summer, autumn winter, and snow. So, when you got snow, for me it was always unusual. When you get out there in Britain, and they talk about Black Ice for me it was a whole new term.

BRIAN: It’s dangerous, y’know. On the radio if they announced “tonight there’s going to be black ice on the road,” you know it’s just lethal stuff, and Scotland and the North of England that’s where’s it’s prevalent. It was just a dangerous word, black ice. You know you took your life in your hands when you went out on the motor bike!

QUESTION FOUR: From your millionaire mansions, what do you think of impoverished music press hacks who consistently slag off every AC/DC album as being “unoriginal retreading of the same old rawk-and-roll cliches”?

ANGUS: Well, we’ve outlived a lot of them haven’t we!

BRIAN: Put a few in the ground too, didn’t we?

ANGUS: We outlived a few record deals as well… You’re not supposed to do that.

QUESTION FIVE: AC/DC’s international appeal has consistently grown over four decades. What do you think is the REAL reason so many people in so many places love this band?

ANGUS: I think it’s because we stick to what we do best, and probably every few years, there’s a change where people say “oh we like rap” or “we like indie”, but for us we always stick to what we do best, and it probably goes back to our roots. At the time, music was very soft and we wanted something that was more popular, y’know. When you’re in the bar, the music people liked most and would get up and dance and have a good time to was loud rock music. I always thought, there’s something going on here, because when they put on a love song people sat out, but when you put on a rock track people get off their feet. I think that our music was both the kind of stuff that we wanted to be playing, and also something that the people were looking for. I’m not a psychologist, but I think there’s something of a primal beat that sits inside us all, and the public seems to like music when it has more energy.

BRIAN: It just makes you want to move, basically.

QUESTION SIX: You were just nominated for the Grammy for “Best Hard Rock Performance.” Congratulations! What was your reaction when you first heard the news?

ANGUS: As you can see it was overnight for us! It was only for how long? Can’t even think, maybe 30 years?

BRIAN: A couple of ciggies and a cup of coffee!

QUESTION SIX (Follow-up): So the public support is what you pay attention to more?

ANGUS: Yeah, we get our reward every time we go on stage.

BRIAN: The punters know best.

ANGUS: And we were never a band looking for that stamp of approval.

QUESTION SEVEN: Standing on the stage looking at an audience is a perspective and feeling that few people in this world know, what particular sight or sound from the stage can you remember from the shows on this tour?

BRIAN: Going deaf is what I remember most! No, but I think that this show is so good, and what the boys have put together in the production of the show, seeing the reaction to that each night is great. There’re certain shows of course, to give an example, the Stade de France or Wembley, where you get on the stage and it still takes your breath away. It’s always exciting though. Just the other night in New Zealand, there was a stadium where there was a hill in the back just covered with people, and it was surrounded by trees. Nothing’s the same and each night is an adventure, and that’s what keeps you going.

ANGUS: And when the lights go out, all you see is a sea of devil horns.

BRIAN: That’s right. Those devil horns, never seen anything like it. It’s just amazing some nights.

QUESTION EIGHT: What kind of daily things do you do to ensure that you can give 100% every time you take the stage?

ANGUS: I lift a lot of cigarettes. That’s my weight lifting program.

BRIAN: Well, if you’re on tour, I just stay in me room, and try not to talk! Angus is always fiddling on his guitar. I guess you just get yourself ready for the next gig. You could be traveling, but try to go to the gym to stay fit, but basically you just have to get ready. The gig bit is fine. It’s just the bits in between that takes years!

QUESTION NINE: We are now about one month away from your Japan tour. What are your thoughts and feeling s heading back to Japan?

ANGUS: It’ll be real good to be back to play in Japan. It’s always good, if you’ve not been in a while, to go back.

QUESTION TEN: What kind of places in Japan have stayed in your memory? Where would you like to go this time?

BRIAN: Yeah, well what I remember the first time I went to Japan, somebody said to us, “the Japanese audience will be very polite”, y’know. What a load of twaddle! It was fantastic. And I remember the shabu-shabu, that meat stuff. That was good. But it was just fun, a fun time. A very exuberant audience. It’s not that way for every band, so that really says something about what kind of band AC/DC is.

ANGUS: Yeah, savage! Here they come!

QUESTION ELEVEN: You have played at arenas and domes around the world, including the Budokan and Yokohama Arena in Japan. Now you will be playing at the Saitama Super Arena and Osaka Dome for the first time. Is there any kind of particular excitement or anxiety playing at a venue for the first time?

BRIAN: You try to channel.

ANGUS: I suppose over the years you try to bring that everywhere. You know for us it was even if you went from a small place to a big stage, you always tried to keep the same. I never felt the difference depending on where we were.

BRIAN: Everywhere we go we try to make it feel like a club.

ANGUS: If you can make everyone in the place feel one, tapping their feet in time.

QUESTION ELEVEN (follow-up 1): And are there any venues around the world that particularly stand out in your memories?

ANGUS: There’s lots of great venues.

BRIAN: That’s a hard one, that.

ANGUS: Usually the first show in a place you haven’t been for a while. Like Brian says we came on the other night in New Zealand and for us and the people there it’s almost as if you’ve jumped time. They’re right there in front of you and, it’s like the feeling that you were all there yesterday.

QUESTION ELEVEN (follow-up 2): So, this is obvious, but for you it seems like the people in the venue are the key.

ANGUS: They’re the sixth member of the band.

QUESTION TWELVE: When big acts come to Japan, one universal concern for the fans is whether the show will be full scale, same as the USA or Europe, which they often cannot do because of transportation issues and the like. So, is AC/DC coming with the whole set up? Hearing it from you will be very exciting for the fans.

ANGUS: Everything’s with us. We’ve got the whole production.

BRIAN: Otherwise what’s the point?

ANGUS: They’ve got the whole production, they’ve got us, and we don’t come cheap!

QUESTION THIRTEEN: Your last Japan tour was 2001, and before that seems like ages ago. This leads many to speculate that this could be your final Japan tour. Is that something you have given thought to yourselves?

BRIAN: I’ve never thought about that.

ANGUS: I think it’s the same as when we started. People always ask us “did you realize you would be a big band when you started?” and you don’t. You just play and you go along and take each day as it comes along. And as I said before, we are after all just an overnight sensation! You too can be someone after 40 years!

QUESTION FOURTEEN: What are your upcoming plans?

ANGUS: Probably try and get in and start to get new tracks, get another good studio album. It never really stops, y’know. You get off the road and then you’re back doing what you do, writing tracks, so that never stops.

QUESTION FIFTEEN: You had to cancel some shows during the USA tour last year, and you have rescheduled them for this year. Is everything ok now?

BRIAN: Yeah that was me. I’ll put me hand up. I just had this cancer scare in my esophagus and had to have lots of tests and CAT scans and stuff like that. And the doctor wouldn’t really let us go until we were sure I didn’t have any of the nasty stuff. Thank god I didn’t, but a few sleepless nights, let’s just say that!

ANGUS: I thought my diagnosis was the best. “Lack of nicotine” I thought!

BRIAN: Yeah, they stopped me fags!

QUESTION SIXTEEN: Who is a person you particularly respect and why?

ANGUS: There’s a lot of people. One in particular I think of is Chuck Berry. He basically wrote the book on Rock N Roll. He was a great guitarist and a great entertainer, and I think everyone borrowed from his book. If you look at the Beatles , the Stones, even Elvis Presley, they all borrowed and took a leaf from Chuck Berry. Of rock n roll, he’s probably the Shakespeare.

BRIAN: For me I always liked, I still do, Eddie Cochrane. And then Jerry Lee Lewis, I used to get all excited and girly watching him because he was just…

ANGUS: The killer!

BRIAN: Crazy. With big shock of hair, y’know. He was real. He wasn’t kidding!

QUESTION SEVENTEEN: What would you say to your Japanese fans who have supported you for years who have been eagerly waiting for your return ?

ANGUS: Yeah, we’ll get along there when we come, and we’ll certainly show them that if you liked us last time you’ll love it again this time.

BRIAN: Tell them that we’ll be ready, so come on in.

QUESTION EIGHTEEN: What would you say to your new Japanese fans who are going to be seeing you for the first time?

ANGUS: Just be ready to rock.

BRIAN: We can’t give all our secrets away, y’know!

Mikael Akerfeldt [Opeth]

2010-01-23T04:22:00.004Z

In late 2009, I conducted a telephone interview with Mikael Akerfeldt, the leader of Opeth. He was in Italy and I was in Saitama. The entire interview lasted about twenty-five minutes. Here are the first twenty minutes or so, with an exceptionally high “y’know count” both by the interviewee (65) and the interviewer (11). I guess we really hit it off.

MA: Yes.

CBL: Hello.

MA: Hello.

CBL: Is that Mikael Akerfeldt?

MA: Yes.

CBL: Hello. This is Colin Liddell.

MA: OK.

CBL: I’m phoning from Japan.

MA: Yes.

CBL: From the International Herald Tribune Asahi Shimbun.

MA: I know, but weren’t you supposed to call 12:30?

CBL: Well, yeh, but there was a problem, eh, with, eh, with giving me your number. I didn’t get your number until about an hour ago then since then I’ve been phoning a few times and there’s been no answer, so there’s been a bit of a mix up somewhere.

MA: Yeh.

CBL: Is it OK to speak now?

MA: How long is it going to take, d’you think?

CBL: Probably about fifteen twenty minutes.

MA: OK, that’s cool. Hold on a second. Thank you.

[pause]

MA: OK, I’m sorry. I was sleeping. We had a rough night.

CBL: I see, so, eh, right now are you, eh, going around touring?

MA: Yeh, we’re out on a tour called Progressive Nation with Dream Theater.

CBL: Yeh.

MA: Big Elf and a band called Unexpect, which is basically an initiative from Mike Portnoy, the drummer from Dream Theater put this together. So we’re just basically winding down. We only have another – let’s see – three shows before we’re finished.

CBL: Right, where are you at the moment?

MA: Right now we’re in Bologna in Italy.

CBL: Aha, so… where did you just play?

MA: Ah, we played Rome last night.

CBL: So, how was that? Did anything interesting happen?

MA: Ah, we’ve been to Italy many times and it’s always been pretty good for us here, and especially Rome, eh, which for some reason we’ve neglected – many times we come to Italy we haven’t had shows there for some reason, but it’s always great. And yesterday’s show, I think, was one of the best of the tour for me personally.

CBL: So, what went right?

MA: Ah, it’s just y’know I think it’s more in your head to be honest y’know like the way you play. We’re so picky these days that if there’s one mistake that I hear the show is more or less ruined, y’know what I mean?

CBL: Yeh.

MA: Which is horrible, but it’s also, yeh, the interaction with the crowd when everything just clicks and you feel like. y’know. it’s like a... I don’t know... some, y’know, magic. It’s always good and it’s always good fun to play the shows but sometimes it’s not as fun as other times, y’know.
CBL: The article I’m doing about you is to prepare, eh, for your coming to Japan.

MA: Yeh.

CBL: And I’m wondering, em, how often you’ve been to Japan and what are your impressions eh so far?

MA: We haven’t been that many times. We’ve only been twice. We played the Loud Park festival in 2006 and went to 3 or 4 shows last year and it was amazing, y’know. I’ve been hearing so much about playing in Japan and just being there as a tourist y’know It’s been [garbled] and myself and when we finally made it over it was fantastic, y’know. So well arranged, everything so professional and they take really good care of you once you’re there y’know, and the fans are really nice and respectful, the food is awesome, and y’know, its y’know, I think Tokyo and Osaka are y’know it felt a bit like it’s on a different planet if y’know what I mean. It’s so different from Stockholm but I loved it, y’know, I loved it.

CBL: Yeh, eh any problems coming to Japan cos I mean, eh, a lot of, eh, you’ve got tattoos and a lot of the band members have got tattoos and like in certain establishments people with, eh, tataoos, eh, can scare or freak people out?

MA: Ah we didn’t see anything of that, y’know, I’m sure, y’know, like most metal and rock bands today get tattoos. I think, I don’t think that represents that much of a problem. We certainly didn’t hear anything about that. They they took great care of us to be honest and obviously some nights we got really drunk and obnoxious but and it was, y’know, they didn’t seem to be that irritated with us, y’know.

CBL: Do you remember what sort of places you were going to, eh, for drinking?

MA: Well, we went to a couple of different restaurants and also in, ah, in, ah, we went to – what’s it called? – the Rock Rock, the Rock Rock bar in, ah, is it Osaka, Nagoya? I can’t remember, but I was just there I had a few beers, y’know, and it’s just one of those places that apparently you’re supposed to go to, eh, but otherwise we sat in the cafe in the hotel and had a couple of beers.

CBL: Right. Now you you’ve obviously got quite a long career and, y’know, in that time there’s been quite a lot of line up changes and is this sort of something that, eh, gets associated with, eh a lot of hard rock or heavy metal bands – these continuous line up changes – em, so could you maybe tell me a little bit about that? What’s been going on with all the line up changes and, eh, how about the line up now? Ha, have you finally settled on a, y’know, very solid line up?

MA: Well, I like to think we have, y’know, but since we’ve had many line up changes I don’t take anything for granted, but as for the five guys who are in the band now, we’re, we’re, y’know, get along great we play great. It sounds better than ever. And it just no denying, y’know, it’s just so much better sounding when we play live to be honest. And in the past, y’know, I think most of the line up changes have, y’know, been happening because people change, y’know. People don’t want to do this anymore because they get new ideas they, y’know, it’s a risky type of business, I mean, y’know, for many years we didn’t make a penny, which obviously presents a problem if you’ve got bills to pay and rent and shit like that and food of course, y’know. Um, so, I think some of the group members who have been in the band simply didn’t have it in them to be musicians on this level...

CBL: Yeh, um, I was looking at the DVD that’s, eh, connected to the Watershed, uh, LP, and I got the impression that you, you’re a relatively kind of normal creative guy and you’ve surrounded yourself with these very kind of intensely focused musicians now, like, you’ve got a very good drummer, eh, the keyboardist is very good at what he does – everybody’s sort of very technically proficient and very, very focused and almost autisticly so, and you’re in the middle of all that.

MA: Yeh, I know but that’s, y’know, that’s… It’s basically what I’ve been looking for. [garbled] me both as a player and a songwriter have developed during the years and some of the guys have been in the band but they didn’t develop, if you know what I mean. They didn’t push themselves to the next level.

CBL: You mean they didn’t develop as musicians or creatively?

MA: Both. Well, mostly as musicians, y’know, because I want all the guys in the band – even though I write most of the songs, y’know, almost everything – I want the guys to take their positions, to take charge of their positions and do it, y’know, as if, y’know, it’s position, if you know what I mean. I don’t interfere, y’know, It’s what they know much better than me. That’s always what I’ve been looking for. I just want to present the songs and obviously some of the songs are quite advanced to play I guess but, y’know, em, I think I’ve always wanted to surround myself with great musicians, but people that are better than me if you know what I mean.

CBL: Yeh, in terms of technical proficiency.

MA: Yeh, so I can just relax and concentrate on the thing, y’know, more or less. And it just feels so safe playing with a drummer like Axe and with Mendez and Frederick and Per. It’s just never... I can always kind of just lean back and enjoy the ride if you know what I mean, when we play live; when in the past, there’s always been ups and downs. You’re not sure where the one is and, y’know, everything’s a bit more chaotic, y’know, and now it’s just, y’know, everybody’s in charge of their own position in the band I think.

CBL: Yeh. This is, this is something that a lot of people who don’t really know about heavy metal are actually quite surprised at that, y’know, you have to be very, very precise about what you’re doing and there’s very little room for mistakes or... And there’s almost... Like when you’re performing there’s very... there’s almost no improvisation, yeh?

MA: No, we don’t improvise much, and if we are improvisation, its specific that we have made like ‘OK this minute or two in this song, we improvise a little bit, y’know, in the key of whatever.’ But, generally, we try to play the songs as close to the album versions if you know what I mean, and we’ve become very, very picky, as I’ve said. We record all the performances and listen back to them after the show and the difference between what we think is a good show and a bad show is so small that you can barely hear it, you know what I mean?

CBL: Yeh. Yeh...

MA: Which is strange, I guess.

CBL: Yeh, maybe, you notice it a lot more than the audiences, I guess.

MA: Yeh, we all have like – especially on this tour – we all have some like the in-ear monitors if you know what that is. Basically we have a little like a thing in your ear and that’s your monitor. That’s what you hear and everything’s so close and dry, and if somebody plays a bum note it really, y’know, shines through if you know what I mean.

CBL: Yeh.

MA: Eh, right now we’re extremely picky. It’s just a... if you want to play a more or less flawless show.

CBL: Yeh, but isn’t that kind of... doesn’t that work against the basic ethos of rock, which is supposed to be this kind of rebellious, eh, wild experience for a lot of people, and you’re completely the opposite of that because you’re so focused, so precise – mistakes are just not allowed, y’know what I mean? It’s just a... There’s a paradox there, isn’t there?

MA: There is, and we’re completely ‘unrock’ in that sense, but it’s not like mistakes are not allowed. It’s just that they really, y’know, affect you in a negative way when you hear them so clearly.

CBL: Mmh…

MA: If you know what I mean. And it affects your self-confidence, like if I sing a bum note, and ‘oh my god, the next vocal line I’ll have to concentrate more’ and you become like more nervous and less relaxed if you know what I mean.

CBL: Yeh. So it affects the whole feeling that you generate and emit?

MA: I think if you were to put an ear monitor on a band like – I don’t know – to make an extreme example like the Sex Pistols. They would go fucking hell, we have to shape up, y’know.

CBL: Yaha, so it’s a lack of awareness?

MA: Yeh, I think it is because we thought we were good before and we were just talking about this the other night, eh, me and my bass player. We’re like why don’t we ever like – so rarely these days – why don’t we ever go offstage and like... The band would absolutely kill us. And I said well it’s because every night [garbled] and in the past we were so shit in comparison to what we are now, but if we made a halfway decent gig it sounds so awful if you know what I mean, but now the level of our performance is so high that it’s… I don’t know... It’s been evened out into… I don’t know, something that doesn’t, y’know, you never feel like you did really perfect a perfect show.

CBL: Yes, this… So you’ll never be perfect?

MA: Yeh.

CBL: Yeh, now, um, I noticed that, yeh, one of the songs on, on Watershed, the song Burden, eh, I think near the end you kinda like detune the guitars, and so you’re kinda like purposely introducing a kinda element of, eh, bad playing in a sense, aren’t you?

MA: Yeh, but that was like just a little production feature [garbled] and that’s like, even though I’m telling you that we’re perfectionists on stage – and that’s probably the case – but that’s not something we want to. We really kinda lose people. I’m not… Like, I don’t yell at anyone if they play bad or anything, and I still think, um, y’know, we still have it in us, y’know. It’s not like we are a slick band in that sense, y’know – still love the ugly when it comes to music, and the chaotic, I still love it, if you know what I mean, but y’know in its place. I don’t want it like going on all the time. I want to [static] and that’s just an example of that, that we have this beautiful slick sentimental ballad and basically I just felt like we should destroy it a little bit by doing that detuning of the guitar at the end.

CBL: Yeh, so it’s sort of controlled chaos?

MA: Yeh, Yeh exactly.

CBL: Yes, cos this is, ah, something I get a sense of from your music is y’know, y’ y’do have em… The music has a lot of amplitude, y’know, you do have very quiet acoustic and melodic bits and you have this, the kinda growly, eh, singing and the kind of, em, really heavy thrash style juxtaposed with each other, and that kind of creates a feeling of chaos in the audience, but from your side it’s very controlled isn’t it?

MA: It is, y’know, and that’s basically I think for, for a person who’s never heard us before , never heard…I don’t know if I can really mention any bands…Like if you see us for the first time – you never heard the band, I’m sure it could be a pretty, em, odd experience, y’know, and you’re like, ‘What the fuck is this? What’s going on?’ But that’s just the result of our influences and we’re… We started out being a metal band and during the years we just picked up all these different influences from other styles of music, and today basically the metal that we write is generated by inspiration that we got from non-metal music.

CBL: So who’s been a big influence on you in sort of changing your course in that way?

MA: Well personally I… Obviously all those metal bands that I’ve [garbled] me to play the guitar and all that stuff but when I write I rarely listen to metal. It’s mostly… I listen to…um, um, I’m really much into psychedelic music like Sixties.

CBL: So, so, what’re you listening to recently, or the last few days?

MA: Well the last few days, well, I don’t know, I’ve been listening to all sorts of things like, like, now, what’s playing before I fell asleep was a girl called Sheila McDonald, from… I think she was Irish, like a singer-songwriter from Ireland.

CBL: Or Scottish, yeh.

MA: Yeh, might be Scottish. I listen a lot to Miles. I listen a lot to the Zombies, they’re one of my favourite bands.

CBL: Sorry?

MA: The Zombies.

CBL: Oh yeh.

MA: And, y’know, like the progressive rock from the 70s as well, and, y’know, everything, like Nick Drake and Leonard Cohen, and Tim Buckley’s an idol of mine, Joni Mitchell, and just very much into…

CBL: It’s just sort of shocking to hear these names, really, y’know, really…

MA: Oh yeh!

CBL: Like Nick Drake and so on, yeh, and the, y’know, obviously, you start the last album Watershed with a very kind of, em, low-key, gentle number as well, and then the, y’know, that just… People probably think they’ve bought the wrong album, y’know, what I mean?

MA: Yes, but, y’know, that’s what I like about it. We’ve been going for 20 years now and I don’t want people to feel like they know where they have us, if you know what I mean. They can never have us in their pocket like…they buy an album and it’s a hundred percent safe that they’re gonna love it, if you know what I mean. I wanna, I want it to be unpredictable, not unreliable when it comes to the quality of the music, but unpredictable if you know what I mean.

CBL: Yeh.

MA: And I think we have a good chance of being a band like that because of the fact that we have so much of that rare influence.

CBL: Yeh, eh, but also there is a lot of aggression and energy and anger in, in, ah, heavy metal, and I’m sure that when you were a lot younger you probably felt like that. How about now? Do you still have that kind of, that kind of rage feeling inside?

MA: No I don’t and maybe it’s, y’know, maybe the music is my outlet that I’m not so very, y’know, like a eclectic pretentious person who would say that’s certainly the case but, em, I don’t get like [garbled] or anything or like… I’m a very calm person, and it might be because I have the music as an out for all the negative emotions, but, y’know, I put positive emotions into the music too, y’know, and, um, I wouldn’t say like I was … if it wasn’t for the music that I’d be killing people, y’know…

CBL: Yeh, but there’s this kinda, y’know, often people think that Swedish people are quite gentle, nice people, but obviously there is also a kind of dark side as well isn’t there?

MA: Yeh, I guess so. We have one of the highest suicide rates and that kind of stuff, but I really wouldn’t know. Sweden for me has always been a regular, like the most normal country on the planet if you know what I mean. There’s nothing really abnormal about Sweden as a whole. It’s just, y’know, everything’s working, everybody’s minding their own business, y’know, and that kind of stuff but…

CBL: It sounds boring.

MA: Yeh, a little bit.

CBL: That can irritate people too, can’t it?

MA: Probably, y’know, and that’s the thing that a lot of people who move abroad… It’s something we call the “Jantelagen,” which basically means that you shouldn’t be happy with your job.

CBL: So, what’s that expression again?

MA: “Jantelagen.”

CBL: “Yank de large?”

MA: “Jantelagen” is what we say. I don’t really know where it comes from, but basically you shouldn’t think your something if you know what I mean.

CBL: Yeh, so you shouldn’t think you’re something. You shouldn’t be too full of yourself, like that?

MA: Exactly. They hate that. Swedish people hate that, y’know, It really – how do you say – sticks like it burns, like for people to see… For Swedish people to see, like, a Swedish person going abroad and making a great success with music or something you love to do it, it’s lots of jealousy. You’re supposed to be working your ass off in the factory and you’re gonna be grumpy and you’re gonna be drunk on the weekend, y’know, and...

CBL: Very similar to my native Scotland I have to say, yeh.

MA: Well, I would guess, y’know.

Kengo Kuma, architect

2009-11-11T08:58:00.006Z

On the 10th of July, 2008, I interviewed the architect Kengo Kuma at his office in Tokyo. We talked in English about his design for the Suntory Museum of Art, his approach to architecture, and his opinions of other architects. The interview lasted more than an hour.

CBL: Yeh, yeh, it’s a microphone, so it should do its job. Now, em, first of all, eh, let’s start with the Suntory Museum of Art and, um, I’ve been there several times because I often write about art for some of the newspapers in Japan. Em, could I ask you what was the thinking and the brief and the inspiration, eh, behind the museum? What were you trying to do in that case.

KK: Yes, I’d like to create as a... the different museum from the typical white cube type museum. The reason is most of the museums in Japan, not only in Japan but globally, is following the white cube idea, using the, uh, the simple material like the white painted plasterboard with the... as the monolithic flooring, and also lighting design similar, but I think the contents of the Suntory museum, it is, as you know, ah 17th, 18th, 19th centuries Japanese traditional art. I don’t want to go with that kind of material. I tried to understand the heart of those contents and I like to combine those contents with some natural materials like rice papers or as a wood, very soft wood rather, called kiri, paulownia in English. Normally this soft wood is not used for architecture because it is too soft and easy to have the, the…

CBL: Cracks, or…

KK: Yeh, yeh, but I’d like to use the kiri for the museum because the kiri is the... is usually used for the tansu. Tansu is the chest, a traditional chest. Because kiri can control humidity of the kimono in the tansu, the... Then I believe the contents or something, the museum fit the kiri.

CBL: Why not just control the humidity using air conditioning?

KK: Hah hah, yeh, yeh. Yeh but as a, as a kiri is a good for a small box but it cannot control the big box like the museum.

CBL: So, you think that the kind of typical white box style museum, eh, there was a mismatch with the, eh, artworks that belong to the Suntory Museum?

KK: Um, exactly saying, not a missmatch, but if we can use the natural materials, it can pick up the quality of the contents stronger, uh, and that is the main reason we are using those materials.

CBL: Em, it makes the um exhibits feel more at home?

KK: Yes.

CBL: It kind of…

KK: Yes, yes. The, ah, I think the prototype of the museum is the home and… In Japan and also in Europe, the people like to show their art in their own home, in the daily warm atmosphere with the very close friendship, but recently the museum is, becomes like the factory, a big simple box and many people walking around.

CBL: So maybe like Tate Modern or… which has a very industrial feel to it.

KK: Industrial feeling, yeh. I don’t like that kind of industrial feeling, and especially in Japan, as a... In Japanese home the material is very soft, is very soft, very different from outdoor, from material for the exterior. There’s a tatami mat, on the tatami mat with a rice papers, and the Japanese art can fit those kind of, those very soft warm materials.

CBL: So, this was determined by the fact that it was the Suntory. If it was another kind of museum, a modern art museum, you would have taken a much different approach. Is that right?

KK: Yes. The curators of the Suntory Museum and also the director of the Suntory Museum, Mr. Saji, the, ah, they understand my approach. I think it’s not so easy because the museum with such the big visitors... Actually Suntory Museum holds 700 or 800 thousand visitors a year. For that kind of the big and the popular box to use ricepaper for wall is not so easy. At the beginning of the meeting one of the curators shouted, ‘Why use ricepapers? Can you buy the rice paper if it’s – ha ha – damaged…ha!

CBL: Is that the case? Do they often have to replace and repair bits of the museum because it’s made from very soft materials?

KK: A-Ha, yeh, yeh, but I had experience of using the rice paper before for museum in Bato-machi Hiroshige Museum. The… It is not so popular as Suntory because it is set in the countryside, but still in the year, a hundred thousand visitors they are getting. It’s completed 2000 but after a few years the rice paper walls still very white, almost as clean as first built.

CBL: Now, um, yeh, that museum, it has a very sort of comfortable atmosphere and it doesn’t have a kind of monumental feel that a lot of museums have, um, but it does have a façade on one side of the building and there’s a bridge and then there’s the…

KK: The vertical louvers.

CBL: Em, yes, so were you, eh, were you concerned about the façade of the museum, the identity of the museum, the kind of iconicness of the museum?

KK: Yes. my approach is the museum’s façade should have some iconic, the iconic, the iconic... Not iconic shape. Iconic textures they should have, I believe, and a… The reason… and that is not only for the Suntory. Most of my projects has a iconic textures. The reason of choosing that approach is ah the… Sometimes iconic, the silhouette or iconic the shape destroys the atmosphere of the place.

CBL: Can you give me an example.

KK: For example, the Bilbao Guggenheim. As a… As a… In the case of the Bilbao Guggenheim, the... Exactly saying, the museum sits just outside of the town and probably it is OK to have that kind of iconic symbol because the town is, ah, is, ah, not so close from the museum itself. But in the case of Suntory, and ah, it is the center of the town. In those kind of urban context, I would like to have the quiet silhouette, but still some kind of icon is necessary. People would like to bring the memory from the museum. The iconic textures can bring the visitors to have the special memory of the museum.

CBL: So if there were… Now, also quite close by there’s also – what’s it called – 21_21 Design Site. That has a much more kind of iconic shape I think, yeh. So there’s a kind of contrast there because yours is the, it’s the texture that is the feature. With 21_21 Design Site it’s much more of a radical shape and so in many ways 21_21 might be more memorable, em, but I think your museum, em, it has a much deeper impact, em, so the 21_21 has an immediate impact but also it’s very… Inside it’s not very, eh, suitable for a museum, I feel. Whereas yours is very comfortable space, so I’m very interested in this contrast between the two. Eh, what do you think about the differences there?

KK: [Laughs] Yeh, ahhh, one reason of the difference is, ah, the contents of the museum, as a… In 21_21 museum the, the, the curators and the committee members of the museum always try to exhibit the new things. Always they try to renew. I think it’s a very hectic as an attitude. But the Suntory Museum, the attitude of the curator of the museum is opposite. The, the, they try to show the old things but the, the visitor can get some new inspiration from the old things. That approach is similar to my architectural approach.

CBL: Now, em, often your architecture is described as, eh, in a way, quite low-key, contrasted with the very high-profile style of architecture that, em, grabs people’s attention. Yours is famous for maybe kind of blending in and not being so... standing out so strongly. Ah, now, em, if you had more space in the case of designing a museum, em – because you said the reason that you focus on the texture is because of the situation, which is... space is limited in the urban environment. Now, if you had more space, em, would you change the shapes, cos I think…

KK: It depends on the quality of the space, not the size of the space. As for example, now I’m designing the museum, I’m designing the cultural centre for Besancon, the city of Besancon in France. The site is very big. This is just beside the river and this is a very different site from Suntory. But, as, the… I’m reading the context of the site. The, the shape of the rivers, the relationship between the town and the rivers. Those contexts are deciding the shape of the building and in that case also I don’t want to, ah, outstanding shape. The answer to that big space is just one simple roof. Beneath the roof we have some existing building. We have some halls, which connect the city and the river, but the silhouette of the building is very simple and very calm.

CBL: Do you have any visuals that you could show me to ?

KK: Yes. Now?

CBL: Yes, yes.

KK: OK I will bring….

[KK goes to fetch visuals. He then returns and places a book on the recorder accidentally switching it off. Around 30 minutes of recording was lost. The next part of the interview is reconstructed from memory and notes]

CBL: It looks like a kind of post-industrial landscape with that sort of disused bridge. This is the old building, which is incorporated in the design?

KK: Yes, I want to respond to the site context… This roof is the main visual feature.

CBL: I see that it harmonizes the old and the new building. On these computer mockups it is emphasized and it looks quite prominent, but it’s semi transparent. I imagine that viewed from the ground it must have an even softer presence. The way you combine old and new aeminds me a little of Kisho Kurokawa’s ideas. I met him before he died… What do you think of his design for NACT, which is also here in Roppongi.

KK: Kurokawa’s theory was symbiosis, bringing together contradictory elements in his architecture...

CBL: Yes, he explained his idea. I thought it was quite interesting. He liked to set opposite things together – the primitive and the technological, for example. It reminded me of what a lot of successful artists do – they put opposites together in their work and it creates a kind of psychological energy, if you put them the right distance apart. A good example is Kuala Lumpar airport, which he made both local and international, Islamic and secular, by a variety of design elements. From your work, however, I get a different feeling. I don’t think you’re trying to set up opposites. It’s a much gentler low key approach.

KK: Yes, I’m interested in what’s already there and fitting my buildings to it. Also, I like to use softer materials that can interact more with their surroundings and have a dialogue.

CBL: Your approach with soft materials, soft silhouettes and texture instead of shape, I’d say, is much more of a post-Bubble style, much more in tune with the present age with its ecological concerns, and, I would say, the economic downturn, in contrast to the often grandiose designs of the older generation. Are you in effect a post-Bubble architect?

KK: I think this is influenced by my childhood. I was brought up in an old-fashioned Japanese house with tatami mats, ricepaper, sliding doors, etc. One of my friends lived in a new modern building with vinyl material. At first I was envious. My house looked old and unimpressive, but with those traditional Japanese materials there is a dialogue. If you touch them they change. Tatami mats change shape if you stand on them. Ricepaper is very delicate. This is differnet from modern materials like vinyl.

CBL: Which are in a sense dead because they don’t respond to human touch.

KK: Also when I graduated there was the oil shock of the 1970s so that also had an impact, I guess.

CBL: With well known architects there is sometimes the tendency to concentrate on impressive, dominating, eye-catching monumental buildings. Architects like Tange, Isozaki or Kurokawa, even Ando, sometime seem to be grandstanding. Their work gets tied up with things like nationalistic statements or bubble era ambition or expansiveness, and even arrogance, while your work seems much more low-key, self-effecing. Works like Tange’s National Gymnasium, while very impressive, seem to dominate the landscape and lie in it like pieces of undigested food. Your work by contrast seems to digest a lot easier into its surroundings.

KK: I’d say one of the things about those architects is that many of them came from the countryside. In a sense they were always heading to the city and felt a strong pull of the city, to a kind of modernism.

CBL: So, the reason for their ambition and their eye-catching ambition was a kind of country boy mentality?

KK: Yes, and they saw architecture as a kind of battle between different kind of forces.

CBL: Yes, there seems to be something very Hegelian about them, working through opposing forces both architecturally and culturally. The monumentality I associate with them is very different to you. In fact, I heard that space is very important to you, more important than the actual structure, a bit like a doughnut maker focusing on the hole rather than the doughnut.

KK: [laughs] Yes, that’s right. I want to consider how the space acts with its function and surroundings. The uniqueness and importance of space is very clear from traditional Japanese temples. From the outside they are not so different. Structurally the main feature is this very large roof. It’s only when you go inside and experience the space that you can tell the differences between temples. They have very different spatial qualities.

CBL: What sort of spatial qualities are you referring to then?

KK: I mean the gradation from light to dark and how the space flows and what it connects to.

CBL: The way it opens to air or not, and how it looks out or focuses aspects of the surrounding?

KK: Yes, like that.

CBL: This and, indeed your whole approach reminds me very much of Feng Shui.

KK: Well, yes, I admit there are some similarities. We have to pay contant attention to how the building interacts with its surroundings. I always make a close study of the surroundings.

CBL: Also the way you use some elements kind of reminds me of haiku, which I would say is a verbal way of framing certain sensory impressions from nature. For example in this design for FRAC you have created a kind sun-dappled effect with the semi-transparent roof. It breaks up the lines and softens the effect but it also clearly evokes the sense of sunshine pouring through the trees.

KK: It’s interesting that you should say that because I’m very intersted in haiku. In Japanese this is komurebi.

CBL: In English we would say sun-dappled… You seem quite happy and relaxed to be Japanese – talking about haiku and traditional materials, for example. For people like Tange, expressing Japanese-ness was a big deal, while for Isozaki, it seems from his book “Japan-ness in Architecture” that Japanese-ness is a kind of problem, an invasive foreign concept of Japan that was internalized by Japanese and therefore something to be shaken off. You, by contrast are happy to use elements and concepts from Japanese culture.

KK: For me as a Japanese it’s only natural to use things from my culture. I would say that the present generation of architects are becoming more relaxed about being Japanese.

CBL: Which will be an asset working overeas. Besides the projects you already mentioned, are you working on any other foreign projects? Anything in America?

KK: I’m also working on building a companion structure to Philip Johnson’s Glasshouse.

CBL: Would you have any visuals for that.

[He phones down for them. A girl brings them up. I also take this opportunity to check the recorder and switch it back on.]

KK: For this house we had some high cases for glass house. Very transparent but the structure is mixture of wood and steel, and also we have this kind of wooden terrace. This is…Wooden terrace is ‘engawa’ space that can combine environment and the building.

CBL: Yeh, so… And also the lines are just following this [indicating the verticals]. The colors flow through, so it’s sort of blended in. So several blending devices. You have a whole repertoire of blending devicies: transparency, echoing the natural landscape – add soft silhouette – and so on.

KK: And this is the existing glass house 1954.

CBL: Yes. Do you have pictures of them together, see how they harmonize?

KK: This is the existing…pictures… If you need the pictures I can send you.
CBL: Oh yes, definitely, we’ll need… They like lots of pictures.
I’m just wondering how this will look when people actually move in.

KK: [laughs]

CBL: Because privacy is an issue I think.

KK: My client don’t want to have the curtain. They like to live with the forest without any curtain.

CBL: So they have a…obviously, I guess, they have a large area around the house which is private, so they don’t need curtains.

KK: No.

CBL: This wouldn’t work in Tokyo would it.

KK: [laughs]

CBL: It’s a bit too transparent for Tokyo. Is that the kitchen?

KK: Yes.

CBL: Interesting, definitely… Now, em, were there any problems with the design for the Suntory. Anything that you found difficult or challenging?

KK: Mmm, [garbled] the maintenance of the materials, the rice paper and the kiri, ah, and, ah, the wood floor came from the barrel of whiskey.

CBL: Oh really?

KK: Yeh.

CBL: Well that makes sense.

KK: Suntory, every year they have, ah, they’re getting many many bottles, barrels of whisky, but no use. They want to re-use, and we sent it to China to make it flat and…

CBL: So, also, the, em, your work is very, it’s very important to focus on the surrounding environment, now, eh, around the Suntory Museum of Art, there are, as far as I can remember, many restaurants and shops, eh, how did that kind of mediate the, eh, the Museum with the, eh, environment in that case, the very commercial environment?

KK: Yes, we, as a… We propose the screens between the commercial environment and the Suntory Museum itself. As a solid wall is not fitting with that kind of relationship and also as a hundred percent transparency is not fitting that relation… The relationship is 50% or 60%, that kind of transparency can control the visuality the, and if we can get the appropritae screens between two different things, the people can keep interest to the interior and also the people in the museum can feel some openness to the city.

CBL: So, if you had a total barrier that would imply a conflict.

KK: Yeh.

CBL: But if you had complete open air, that would be a form of pollution.

KK: Pollution – yes, yes.

CBL: So, you’re kind of trying to find the right distance between the two things through the degree of transparency.

KK: Yes, yes.

CBL: Em, it reminds me very much of, I don’t know why, but it kind of reminds me of Japanese society. People keeping their distance and, a little bit reserved, very… maybe a similar to England.

KK: Really?

CBL: Yeh, this idea of having a little bit of reserve, not being too friendly, but, y’know…

KK: Ah, Japanese society is like that.

CBL: But also, y’know, you’re pretending not to see something but really you’re also watching it. This kind of characteristic which is very common I think in Japanese society, in my experience anyway. Now also going back to the façade, there’s the bridge. Now, there’s some kind of echo there, I think, of something, isn’t there?

KK: Yes, it is the echo of the typical taiko bridge. Taiko bridge… The shape of this is called Taiko bridge. But normally Japanese Taiko bridge is painted red, but recently I painted white. White taiko bridge.

CBL: For reasons of harmony?

KK: Yes and also this shape can decrease the thickness of the structure. This is a kind of arch and arching effect can make the size smaller, and then the lightness…

CBL: So, it’s to maintain the feeling of lightness, which you get from the semi-transparent façade and so on. Also the, the surface, it’s ceramic, yeh?

KK: Yes.

CBL: Yeh, and ceramic… Was that to protect, to cool down the building, eh, to…?

KK: Yes. This vertical louvers can cool down the building and, ah, and also we’re focusing on the edge of the ceramics. Our rival is SOM’s towers in Tokyo Midtown, and we know, each other, the main material for the building. I know that SOM is using the big terracottas for the façade and I saw the detail of terracotta and for me the edge of terracotta is too big and ah and I feel like to create the opposite detail by using the same material. The SOM material is strong and strong in expressing, but my detail is very… The edge of my ceramic is about six millimeter.

CBL: About as thin as this [indicating glass table]

KK: Thinner than this, and it is not so easy to create that thin by using ceramic.

CBL: So, it must be vulnerable to damage then.

KK: Yes [laughs].

CBL: If there’s a bit of a slight earthquake or something they might all fall off. That’s more work for you.

KK: The secret is we combine the ceramics with aluminium as aluminum is supporting the thin ceramic.

CBL: How do you combine, though? What’s the process to combine?

KK: The, the ceramic has a hole and the, it is the pin and hole can join, some flexible groove.

CBL: So there is flexibility?

KK: Yes.

CBL: They can adjust to stresses and shocks even?

KK: Yes.

CBL: Now, also that the taiko bridge there... lot’s of cherry trees.

KK: Ah, the cherry trees! The cherry trees came from the, as the old buildings, the old gardens, as you know, it used to be the Ministry of Defence.

CBL: A lot of things in Roppongi used to be defence, yeh.

KK: Yes, and the Ministry of Defence had a big garden with cherry trees and landscape designer from America. I think landscape designer… Do you know that landscape designer?

CBL: I’m not sure.

KK: Young landscape designer from States. They move the cherry trees lining the border of the building.

CBL: So, which came first? Your building was there and then they moved the cherry trees or…

KK: The landscape design, the designers, ah, roughly designed the layout of the cherry trees. The cherry trees is following the border if the building.

CBL: So you had that to work with?

KK: Yes, I like that idea – the cherry trees in front of the building.

CBL: There’s also water there, a kind of water feature, some kind of pond, the water is flowing isn’t it?

KK: Yes. Some fountains.

CBL: Well, I think I have enough material for my article. Thank you very much.