Tokyo Trip 2008 (part 5): Some Literature on Gothic

The Yokohama Museum

Introduction to the exhibit

Taking a break from the scheduled museums, I decided to visit one that was off my radar and out of the way. Just south of Tokyo is a town called Yokohama well known for its China town and ports. There I found the Yokohama museum that had a special exhibit titled Goth. The title alone caught my attention and convinced me that I needed to see it. After visiting the exhibition I got to work writing out my opinion. The following is lifted directly from my notebook with a little editing.

"Gothic art what does it mean? The introduction to the exhibit does a good job of describing what the history behind the word Goth comes from but it seems to miss the mark or trying to label artist as goth that may have influenced the sub-culture movement of today. In short, there is confusion as to whether the exhibit is trying to encapsulate the emotion or intention of the sub-culture of goth or instituting and pigeon holing artist as “goth”. An example being, danse macabre, or dance of death, an idea that speaks to the fragility of life and how death unites us all. An idea and art style that has much older and deeper roots then the modern fad goth is today. The first exhibits were from artist from Mexico using this style which seemed a little out of place with the pictures of Japanese youth. I don’t know if you could say the German artist was goth either and the Japanese artist who had the wonderful animation display. The biggest attraction was the pictures of Japanese youth and Pyupuru, who documents her sex change through her art. Pyupuru’s exhibit especially tries to be loud and over the top on purpose with portraits of her covered in meat, mud, paint, etc. The main piece in her exhibit includes a gaudy wedding dress with the train of the dress filling up the entire room. There is no head but the dress is modeled with arms with one extending up giving the viewers the middle finger with a giant drop of blood hanging from that finger.”

“The pictures of Japanese youth as well provoke more questions then answers. Why is it they objectify themselves as dolls, beasts, etc. It seems to be mostly women and I guess Lolita means European doll dress. Seeing the photo shoots of the girls in their bedrooms dressed up makes them look as if they were objects in the room. It seems to say a lot of things about the objectification of women in this culture that has a tendency to put woman on a pedestal. I can’t really tell if dressing up like a porcelain doll is in defiance of this objectification or an absolute acceptance of it. The exhibits are thought provoking and it speaks to some of the realities of the culture and the time period in a way that people don’t want to accept. If gothic as it was originally defined encapsulates words like barbaric and dismantling then Goth culture today is a dismantling of the self?? More thought may be needed but dating and having friends who considered themselves goth and having my own perspective of what the term means I see it as a normal understandable lifestyle choice. However the exhibit and the way goth is presented as a gaudy and striking fashion statement puts the whole thing on some other worldly, outsider perspective. In the society of Japan these people are considered the freaks of society. There is a place in Tokyo where people go just to take pictures of people dressed up in gothic clothes hanging out on the street, playing games and doing activities for the singular purpose of creating photo opportunities for the many visitors. There was one exhibit at the very end where they took pictures of people who visited the museum who appeared or identified themselves as being goth. From my experience with this word in lower education I considered the exhibit to be a little degrading. It would be like if someone where to do an art exhibit on “Jocks” or some ill contrived social grouping of people. While the rebellious youth culture is there it is very apparent to me that what goth means in Japanese has taken a departure from what it means to me and possibly people in the US.”

I noticed no matter how much I edited this there has to be some kind of introduction or knowledge spreading of what exactly is goth. I felt that this is what the art exhibit was trying to do and yet in its flaws I can’t quite think of a way to describe it. The word goth itself isn't enough to describe all the different types and sub-types of fashion and one of the exhibits in the museum tries to explain. At its heart, the word “goth” to me embodies a fashion movement as well as a type of lifestyle. At the least I can show you some pictures of the type of outfits you will find in portions of Tokyo with galleries here, here, and here. Most of the people in these outfits you will find in a place called Harajuku just hanging out with loads of people taking pictures of them. The district is well known for its abundance of fashion shops all catering towards youth. There is an amazing article about this area and its fashion movements here.

My final statement in my notebook I think still stands but as far as questions they are still in abundance.

Freed on a Fleeting Friday

A dog can has cheeseburger too: a photo taken from the Osaka design major school

Last Friday was the last day of classes at the University of Hyogo to which there was a very quite and dull hurrah from the students in general. Its sort of interesting that the School year ends in February and begins in April. It makes summer vacation seem so much stranger. What I mean by that is the school year as I’ve known it ends in summer and begins in fall meaning there is a definite break up between school years. However the college system here starts in April and ends in February making the college experience itself feels more fluid or constant. This is all good but then summer vacation seems strange and unnecessary. Not saying I would ever give it up though. The thing is you start school for a couple months and then in the middle of July you get a two month vacation in the middle of the school year. The year is broken up into semesters but how are you suppose to keep the energy and the mindset of being in the same school year and going to the same classes after a two month vacation? Anyways that's all in the past and the end of classes has opened my eyes to the handful of small realities I will face and should face. One of them being that I will soon be off this little island heading for the landmass across the ocean I call home. I think another thing was that being a student at the college and spending my time in classes there has left me with so many things left that I want to do. I wouldn’t necessarily call it regrets but the monotonous pace of school life and the piling on feelings of struggle and being lost in a familiar place were a giant relief to break free from. It was also a break I took rather violently because on the day of my final class I rushed to the station to be whisked away to Osaka.

titled : 菰野石仏 (2006)

piece titled: 申賀の里 (1989) (sorry, I'm not translating these)

My reasoning for going was I had been informed of an Art Museum there that I had been meaning to check out. My idea for this quarter has been to study the arts and to try and gain a vocabulary or understanding of how people speak about art in Japanese. I guess in a nutshell, and this could be said for most of my time here, trying to fill the desire to be lost and confused. I have spent a little time checking out museums and some of the older art forms but I wanted something that was a little more modern. Well if I had done my research properly I would have realized that the museum I was going to is for contemporary art. Not that this bad though, in fact it wiped a way a very strange general conception I placed on visual art in Japan. That cutting edge modern or pop art is oozing from all pores of the art world. This I have my study of advertisement and my trip to Tokyo to thank for this generalization I think.

The unique, not at all dangerous looking, Umeda Sky Building (photo courtesy of Google photos)

The show on display was of an artist named Muragishi. His work on display was breathtakingly realistic and his paintings had a very rough texture to them. I kept thinking that they were done with oil pastels or charcoal but was amazed to hear that some of the paintings were done with traditional Japanese brush and paper. I’ve never worked in that medium so I could only wonder as to how it was done. The curator asked me what I thought of the exhibition and I said back to him well actually I came here today to learn how to say such things. He was very kind and told me what he knew about the artist and talked about some of his work while also suggesting some other places to visit. The experience in general was refreshing and thinking from the start of this trip that I’d be studying art made me feel like I was finally returning to something I had left behind.

Browsing the gallery took a lot less time then I thought so I decided to do a little exploring in a city I don’t frequent very often. Being near the Osaka station you can see the strangely formed Umeda Sky Building. I had heard it is well known for its overrated and inaptly named “Floating Garden Observatory” and decided it couldn’t hurt to go and check it out. Getting there I passed through some of the industrial areas right next to the train tracks. It’s really a side of Japan that I’m very unaware of a lot of the time. The cackling/sleeping homeless people in public spaces are another thing. On my way there I took a double take as I spotted a little design college. I walked inside to look at their student gallery and snapped a few pictures.

When I finally made it to the Umeda building I walked inside and got in line for what I thought was going to take me to the top but instead brought me into something completely different. Apparently the building was having a museum display titled “Mysteries of The Human Body”. To give you an image of what it was like just imagine hundreds of people staring at dissected, trisected, and pretty much cut up cadavers put behind glass. It was amusing and fitted pretty well with my coming to reality thoughts of late. The exhibit makes you feel really self-conscious and well, human, bound by the limbs, organs and tools we are born with. However, it doesn’t answer why we are built the way we are or how that has seemingly nothing to do with who we are and what we do and in fact make those questions stronger. To see cadavers is an interesting event in itself because being the conscious reflective beings that we are we can recognize the mass in front of us as human but it no longer moves or functions like one. Therefore, looking at it we associate with a cadaver as if it were an object. So what about somebody you know? The difference between a living breathing person and a dead body is so earth shatteringly significant that its got me and a lot of the rest of the world believing that we have to be beings with souls. Just one of many reasons I might add.

Above the Osaka sky line

I finally got myself in the right direction and got to the top of the building, which produced another awesome aerial view of the never-ending city that is the OsakaKobe area. It was a good spontaneous day and I think there will be quite a few more before I make it back.

An interesting look at Internet plagiary (a look into my animation past)

I was browsing the net reading a friends blog and to their dismay saw their own work being stolen on the Internet or being posted without permission. That's when I decided to take a look down memory lane.

Back in 2004 I had enough stress to focus it into a recreational four month project that started as a whim and turned into a something less of a whim and more of a something? It started when I heard a strangely amusing song called Bunnies by Horse the Band. Next thing I know I'm making a kind of music video for it. The whole thing was completely spontaneous until the last half when I started story boarding it. When I finished I submitted it to a site called albinoblacksheep.com they liked it and posted it on their site. When I emailed it to the band they liked it as well and I got a free t-shirt and a CD and a pat on the back. That's about as far as it went. Here is the original piece.

http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/flash/pixelated.php

I noticed though that it showed up on Newgrounds, another animation site

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/176907

I initially was pretty angry and left some remark as to what I thought of them doing. After that initial anger I realized I wasn't that upset and was just merely surprised that someone had spent the time to take it and re-post it and claim to be the creator. With a little more checking there were several other sites showing it and even a youtube version of it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Twokr090WM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVWjdP1oL44

Whats interesting to me is all the mindless comments about how one band is better then some other band. The second one is actually authorized and owned by the label company and they have it posted on their site with a flash version of it as well.


http://www.plutorecords.com/media/video/bunnies/

You'll notice the sound and the singer is completely different. I was asked to change it from the original audio to a recorded track they were using for their new album. I personally liked the original audio and singer and the youtube view counts might agree with me.

So I didn't write this to talk about plagiarism actually, since I never wrote any copyright onto this work nor really intended to. What really freaks me out is every time I watch it its like seeing a familiar stranger. From the second I submitted it and it went onto some website I began to feel detached from it. As if someone beside myself had made it making it all the more mesmerizing and surreal. As I become less and less in control of its path through cyberspace its like an organism of its own just floating around. I'll read the comments of where it gets posted and I'll see things like "make some more!" or even the surprising "hey this isn't the original its at albinoblacksheep and Charlie Daugherty made it!".

I think also I can finally look back and write about it with some perspective without saying things like "isn't it cool?" or "why on earth did I make such an abomination".

The project started as my second or third test with the program Macromedia Flash (before adobe bought Macromedia) and it was during the end of my third year of high school. I remember that time of my life being like many normal teenagers: miserable, defiant of authority, full of pent up anger, and being dragged through things which you don't want to do but have to. I kind of feel like this video was like a chance for me to filter that energy into something productive and also in essence bottle that teenager into something that would last. Some of the intentional and unintentional inspirations for this were, Looney Tunes, Nintendo, Life in Hell, Rayman, and a childhood filled with watching VH1 and MTV music videos.

The chase or the running conflict is something that I found to be very interesting and seems to be quite popular in the internet animation world. As you animate a character struggling to get away it begins to reflect your own struggle to animate the character. It is for the most part, a mindless ride, but I like to think there are things that convey some sort of meaning. For example the rabbit in a suit standing in a factory that appears to be making chocolate bunnies out of live ones. It represents the corporation and the fear of corruption; that they are only interested in making a profit off of other people. The stairway and the giant carrot can represent our goals, dreams, or a search for truth. There are times when we are so close to reaching it but for some reason a reality, some realization, or something along the lines of fate pushes us back down. In all honesty, I don't think this is something that needs to be talked about too deeply but I find something new in it whenever I return back to it. It was definitely a time when I had a much darker view of the world.

Looking back on all this has made me realize that its time to get my hands dirty again and climb those proverbial stairs and take a bite out of that carrot. What my next project will be I can't really say yet but I've already started the planning. Hopefully I haven't been away from this stuff too long.