JAPAN
Nippon Electronic College / Lunch with Michael Goldberg / Yoichiro
Kawaguchi and his Computer Graphics / Kuo Nakajima at Lunch /
Discussion at Gallery Scan / Lecture at Nishida Gallery / Glimpse
of David and Bob at IPC / Living Prints:
A Visit to Kuromaki Kobo
Nippon Electronic College
- Japan. . Tokyo. 2/5/83. The private school--a business as
much as anything--provides a curriculum for students who are seeking
entry into the professions as television and computer technology
workers. Michael Goldberg, a Canadian, is the only Westerner on
their faculty; he provides a guided tour of the studios. Students
work at editing, production tapes, and other post-production tasks.
The sound studio is visited.
- The needs of educating people for the electronic age is being
met by the private professional schools more than by the so-called
public schools or by the states' liberal arts institutions. They
find a ready, eager market in the student-age population, and
a well-financed school can provide almost limitless facilities
to meet the rapid changes brought about by technical communications
systems. 11:00 Min. SA830205
Lunch with Michael Goldberg
- Japan. . Tokyo. 2/6/83. Vancouver, B.C. is the home city of
Michael Goldberg. For years he worked with the video movement,
and recently, after a long relationship with people in Japan,
he took a job in Tokyo. He provides an informative perspective
of what he has been doing and explains what businesses in Tokyo
offer video makers who live there. He also gives an introduction
to Kuo Nakajima.
- In Japan there are examples of the relationship between private
business and art--even video art. It is not only for members of
the corporations, nor is the offering of facilities limited to
the Japanese. There is evidence that some International understanding
is being fostered by these private-sector programs. 10:00 Min.
SA830206
Yoichiro Kawaguchi and his Computer Graphics
- Japan. . Tokyo. 2/5/83. Yoichiro Kawaguchi's "spiral
program" is seen to be very beautiful, and Ritchie tries
to make some video record of it from Kawaguchi's hand-held slides!
Kawaguchi, Assistant Professor of Computer Graphics at Nippon
Electronic College' Department of Art tries to describe
his procedure in English; the pictures speak well.
- "The computer is a tool" is what we often hear,
and the artists who see the computer in this way are attempting
a variety of applications. Some programs mime painting and drawing.
Others attempt new ordering of visual properties. Still others
are programs having ancient or traditional values at their core--and
the question, "What is a tool?" comes to mind. 12:00
Min. SA830207
Kuo Nakajima at Lunch
- Japan. . Tokyo. 2/6/83. This well-known film maker, video
systems designer and computer artist entertains at lunch with
a doll made of a napkin, two hashi (or chopsticks), and a salt
shaker. Ambient music in the restaurant provides his dance with
music. Not much of the meeting is recorded, but Nakajima's great
creativity is apparent.
- One finds, while traveling, that it is not always interesting
to hammer away incessantly on the theories, questions and programs
being undertaken or researched around the world in regard to the
media arts. Some people, especially artists, deal with oblique,
vague actions, or respond to curiosity with indirect answers.
3:00 Min. SA830208
Discussion at Gallery Scan
- Japan. . Tokyo. 2/7/83. A group of younger artists from the
Tokyo area met at the Gallery Scan to meet Bill Ritchie and listen
to a talk on the ways artists find money for video work in the
US. Afterwards, he asked the individuals, "What does video
art mean to you?" and each person made a statement - in Japanese,
mostly - for the video recording. An interpreter, Soy Nobuki,
explained some of the statements in English.
- Every major city around the world has some kind of forum for
the discussion of media arts. The weekly or monthly meetings attract
many of the younger people. If there is a generation-change (as
in the new generation of video artists) it appears that the members
of the new generation will be found meeting in such media arts
or video arts centers. There are associations for these centers;
in the US, for example, there is the National Association of
Media Arts Centers (NAMAC). 26:00 Min. SA830209
Lecture at Nishida Gallery
- Japan. . Nara. 2/14/83. Nishida Gallery is Nara's contemporary
art gallery, with a collection of post-modernist art from Europe
and the U.S. Kosaku Nishida, the owner, periodically offers a
seminar to the public and Bill Ritchie was the invited speaker
on this occasion. His was a talk on the topic of the use of media
- print, film, video, and computer graphics.
- Art centers are developed for the dissemination of new ideas.
Government and other publicly supported systems are the rule in
the US In other countries, like Japan, business provides forums
for discussion of new art topics. 21:00 Min. SA830214
Glimpse of David and Bob at IPC
- Japan. . Kyoto. 2/20/83. The International Papermaking
Conference (IPC) invited artists David Hockney and Robert
Rauschenberg to speak at a panel on papermaking. The IPC had forbidden
Ritchie to use his videotape recorder (but not so Rauschenberg),
thus only a surreptitious glimpse was possible. Hockney talks
for a moment; Rauschenberg had to leave for another appearance.
- Hand paper-making occupies a place of considerable attention
lately, due partly to the fact that its technology overlaps the
methods of artists and crafts people in such a variety of styles.
Annually there are conferences being held to discuss hand paper-making
from the viewpoints of traditionalists and experimenters in different
countries. 1:00 Min. SA830215
- Japan. . Nara. 2/18/83. A commercial printing company in Nara,
Kurumaki Kobo, has, for 12 years, proceeded with an artists'
printmaking program. Starting with stone lithography, they produced
original lithographs by well-known Japanese artists and, more
recently, added intaglio facilities. The tape shows the hand-printing
of lithographs from stone, the intaglio presses, and a view of
the library of work in book and folio works by artists who have
worked here. My former student, Acha Musashi, helps by translating
on the visit.
- The production of luxurious fine art graphics by corporations
is somewhat unusual. More often it is small publishers who devote
their entire business to it, and large companies only provide
incentives or special commissions on rare occasions. It is exceptional
to find a big business which has literally incorporated an in-house
production center in its buildings for the creation of original
prints without government incentive. 48:00 Min. SA830218
Next Stop: Bali (via Singapore City)