The nano-aesthetics of everyday life (original) (raw)
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Nihei Tsutomu and the Poetics of Space: Notes Toward a Cyberpunk Ecology
Southeast Review of Asian Studies , 2013
The work of manga artist Nihei Tsutomu 弐瓶勉 (b. 1971) is here examined in terms of its extraordinary use of space. Not only does Nihei's work present us with sophisticated renderings of architectural space, it also makes novel use of the manga format itself: the space within and between panels. The uncanny spatiality of Nihei's manga resonates with an equally uncanny sci-fi ecology, one that no longer distinguishes between living and non-living matter, between creature and datum.
Aesthetic Techniques Without Technology: Soichiro Mihara's "[blanc] project"
Taboo-Transgression-Transcendence in Art & Science 2020, 2022
Many Japanese artists were also affected by the earthquake and the ensuing tragedy. Some of them have reexamined their engagement with the environment in the aftermath of the 2011 Tohoku earthquake and tsunami and the incident of nuclear power in Fukushima. However, ten years after the earthquake, one may wonder what these artists have been trying to reexamine. To begin with, there is no definitive answer to this concern. Like the "wayfaring" that anthropologist Tim Ingold discusses in Lines, constantly moving around (thinking) results in the possibility of responding to this concern without a final destination (definitive answer). Someday, when the traces of "wayfaring" emerge as a line, we may be able to see some tendency toward an answer. That is why we must always attempt to respond to this concern. As a result, this paper proposes one of responses for this concern. To explore it, the paper focuses on Soichiro Mihara's artworks because he is considered to be a representative figure of the artists who have reexamined our engagement with the environment since 2011.
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This conversation paper examines the visual, sonic and corporeal entanglements that inform the work of the Vietnamese-American-Japanese artist Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba. It explores the corporeal and aural qualities that are central to an understanding and sensorial experience of the artist's installations and visual practice. In paying attention to breath, sound and motion in visual art production, Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba's works reveal how corporeality and sonicity can dismantle the ocular-centrism of visual art. The discussions between Jun and Prarthana map the varied traumatic histories of racial colonialism, war and forced migration that haunt Vietnam's present, and bring to the surface the artist's aesthetic and political concerns around art, performance and cultural memory.
2019
The essay investigate Japanese aesthetic values based on Zen Buddhism in relationship to philosophy of experience of Kitaro Nishida and Martin Heidegger’s, their definition of art. The essay discusses matters of existence of our being and our consciousness in relation to time and to objects- pphenomenology: the philosophical study of what happens to our consciousness when our perception meets an object. The study of phenomenology points this analysis towards investigating works of art that reveal their materiality (ontology). Work ought to bring an awareness, that allows them to be “present” and to experience “subject-object duality”. I uses thin and delicate paper - directly glued onto wooden panels using animal skin glues – that is painted using traditional painting techniques to prepare the surface. Painting works project these qualities; pushing the materiality of the work into the foreground. It references post modernism concerns of minimalism and mono-ha movement, where the artists used simple material as the core of their work. In terms to paintings, it refers to Robert Ryman’s painting as “realism” and question on “what is painting?”. Key concerns are the core elements of painting: the medium, the surface, the support, the hanging system, in relationship to the installation space. I am taking this further questioning the relationship of the installation and the studio space. This research project is motivated by the belief that works of art that we produce in the present are inevitably rooted in the past. Thus, there is value in investigating the relationship of traditional Japanese aesthetic values to contemporary art.
Contemporary Japanese New Media Art
Recent discussions of the relationship between humankind and technology have been shaped by ideas about embodiment and corporeality. Social and technological advances such as the availability of new media devices, urbanization, and globalization have led to the constant reassessment of social values, including humankind’s place within nature, the relationship between the organic and the artificial and the impact of technology upon national identity and cultural production. As technology continues to gain momentum in pertinence and availability, contemporary artists have used their art to express sophisticated ideas about the possibilities of a machine-dominated society. This thesis discusses contemporary New Media artworks that express, challenge, or celebrate the role of technology in society. Chapters focus on: a) conceptions of embodiment in a self-consciously media-driven ‘information society’, b) the use of new media in art for the purpose of challenging stereotypes relating to gender identity, and c) artworks that provide a fresh perspective on the connection between embodiment and corporeality in the relationship between humans and non-humans (including the ecological consequences of redefining humankind’s relationship to the natural world). The thesis focuses solely on artworks by Japanese artists. It is argued that Japan’s economic history combined with its high levels of urbanization and media-driven culture offer a unique perspective on notions of embodiment and corporeality in the 21st century. Furthermore, the thesis shows that the background influence of Shinto beliefs regarding human-technology cohabitation has helped to shape a distinctive approach to the creative possibilities of contemporary new media art.
Aesthetics in Dialogue. Applying Philosophy of Art in a Global World, Berlin: Peter Lang, 2020, pp. 29-38 (ISBN 978-3-631-79218-6), 2020
Anglo-American research on aesthetics as well as that being carried out in continental Europe are increasingly interested in the topics pertaining to everyday life. However, the label “Everyday Aesthetics” apparently conveys a surprising oxymoron. After exploring the relation between Everyday and Philosophy, I shall analyse the principal theories on Everyday Aesthetics. Then, by means of anthropological interpretative tools, such as those offered by Henri Lefebvre, I will bring to the fore the concept of rhythm, as what can shed light on the fundamental value of daily life and its cyclical alternation of ordinary and extraordinary moments. According to Lefebvre, there’s no rhythm without repetition in time and space. Referring also to Ellen Dissanayake’s theory, I focus on the concept of “making special” and the positiveness of repetition. As Lefebvre employs the notion of rhythm in order to explain the alternation of celebration and daily life within a cyclical understanding of time, he provides an interpretative tool to discover inner richness under the seeming poverty of everyday life and to reach the extraordinary in the ordinary.
UOU scientific journal , 2023
Time is perceived and lived within a different understanding in Japanese culture, which brings new possibilities and existential modes for the construction of space. Time follows a cyclical/circular structure of temporality and ensures impermanence with its transience and the permanence of transience with its repetition. Both past and future are intertwined within the culture of spatial design as well as within the language. The language and philosophy of living reflect the architectural and aesthetic approaches for building a temporal spatiality. The phenomenological generators of these spatiotemporal atmospheres echo through the key concepts such as ma, mu, and kū, as well as through the aesthetic conceptions of, for example, mono no aware, shakkei, wabi-sabi, and hanasuki. It may be claimed that the love of imperfect and impermanent beauty is the gene of the Japanese spatial atmosphere in the traditional context. In this framework, this paper examines three projects of Japanese spatial design that reflect the cyclical understanding of time and the aesthetic conceptions connected to it: the Summer Solstice Light-Worship 100-Meter Gallery and the Winter Solstice Light-Worship Tunnel / Light Well designed by Sugimoto Hiroshi, and the Benesse House Oval designed by Ando Tadao. These three examples perfectly demonstrate the unique way in which Japanese culture understands and expresses time and space. Based on these projects, the paper also argues that temporality is one of the most powerful modes of spatiality in Japanese culture, which aims to weave a shell for time to exist in space. Japon kültüründe zaman farklı bir anlayışla algılanır ve yaşanır; bu da mekânın inşası için yeni olanaklar ve varoluş kipleri meydana getirir. Zaman, döngüsel/dairesel bir zamansallık yapısı izler ve geçiciliğiyle süreksizliği, tekrarıyla da geçiciliğin kalıcılığını sağlar. Hem geçmiş hem de gelecek, dilde olduğu gibi mekânsal tasarım kültüründe de iç içe geçmiştir. Dil ve yaşam felsefesi, zamansal bir mekânsallığın inşasına yönelik mimari ve estetik yaklaşımları yansıtır. Bu mekân-zamansal atmosferlerin olgu bilimsel üreticileri, ma, mu ve kū gibi anahtar kavramların yanı sıra, örneğin mono no aware, shakkei, wabi-sabi ve hanasuki gibi estetik kavrayışlar aracılığıyla yankılanır. Kusurlu ve süreksiz güzelliğe duyulan sevgi, geleneksel bağlamda Japon mekân atmosferinin genidir denebilir.Bu çerçevede, makale, Japon mekân tasarımının döngüsel zaman anlayışı ile bu anlayışa bağlı estetik kavrayışlarını yansıtan üç projeyi incelemektedir: Sugimoto Hiroshi tarafından tasarlanan Yaz Gündönümü Işık Tapınağı 100 Metrelik Galeri ile Kış Gündönümü Işık Tapınağı Tüneli / Işık Kuyusu ve Ando Tadao tarafından tasarlanan Benesse Oval Evi. Bu üç örnek, Japon kültürünün zaman ve mekânı nasıl anladığını ve ifade ettiğini mükemmel bir şekilde göstermektedir. Bu projelerden hareketle makale, aynı zamanda, zamansallığın, mekânda var olabilmesi için zamana bir kabuk örmeyi amaçlayan Japon kültüründeki en güçlü mekânsallık kiplerinden biri olduğunu savunmaktadır.
The Time of Nature and the Time of Cities: Contemporary Art dealing with Disconnection from Nature
The Time of Nature and the Time of Cities: regarding art dealing with the disconnection between urban life and the natural world, 2015
This thesis aims to understand the underlying motivations and contexts of artists who question the disconnection between urban life and nature especially with respect to aspects of time. The methodology used is largely about the analysis of artwork. The strategies adopted by the artists discussed here vary from critiquing the ambitions of city builders in their pursuit of controlling time to shunning urban time altogether and reaching for the rhythms of nature. In order to ground this understanding of artwork in the contemporary context the thesis explores how contemporary urban life changes our experience of time and how this separates us from the natural world. Theories regarding the relationship of the human, the natural world and the passage of time are covered in order to contextualize this analysis. These include the study of entropy by Robert Smithson, Martin Heidegger’s theory of the “earth and the world” and Georges Bataille’s ideas about the human impulse to annul the passage of time. The eastern philosophy of Zen and the aesthetics of Wabi Sabi that in many ways corroborate the ideas proposed by western thinkers have also been considered.