anticlimaxikovsky is my new short film that I shot in Manhattan and Brooklyn. It is a playful experimental film full of varieties of music such as noise music, garage rock, 8bit music and pop rock. I tried to emulate Hiroshi Teshigahara’s style a little bit so you might see that a tiny bit.
It’s been about a year since I started making videos. A video below, Sound of Rain, is one of the very first videos I made. This year is ending, and I’m looking forward to making new films.
There are stories about people such as Kobo Abe and Hiroshi Teshigahara who developed new kind of literature, art and films after domination of huge formidable power of big names in the industry such as Akira Kurosawa and Yasujiro Ozu. Very inspiring stories.
Completely fulfilling jail cell or completely deprived freedom? This is the question Kobo Abe asked in his talk among some things he talked about. In later parts of the talk, he talks about the role of literary works. I really enjoyed this talk, but it is in Japanese, so I write down some of his points below.
Which one would we choose? Completely fulfilling jail cell, or completely deprived freedom? Our lives are double-crossing of both. We generally choose more predictable situations. Almost all the science are attempts to predict the future. Human thoughts and efforts seek stability. But if everything were predictable, we would not be able to tolerate it. We would kill ourselves. Desire of people who practice literacy works and other forms of arts is to put themselves in the deprived freedom. Fortune-telling has the exact opposite role as literacy works. There is a type of novel that corners people into the deprived freedom. Literacy works are useless things, they are not practical things. But if there is a reason why literature exists, I think bringing people back to the deprived freedom is the literacy works’ only reason of existence.
What do you think? I watched Groundhog Day a few days ago and reminded me of this talk not entirely but a little bit especially when Bill Murray was freaking out because everyday was Groundhog Day. I think “deprived freedom” is what’s essential to develop our individuality and internal freedom. “Fulfilling jail cell” would make us and our minds powerless.
In this speech, world-class Japanese novelist Haruki Murakami talks about Japanese spiritual nature, Earthquake in North East Japan and nuclear incident in Fukushima, and an importance of being “unrealistic dreamer.” I couldn’t find his speech with subtitles, so I translate some parts of his speech even though it’s pain in the ass and my translation skill isn’t quite pro. But I know some people would enjoy it.
“This nuclear incident in Fukushima is the 2nd nuclear damage we Japanese people experience. But this time isn’t like someone dropped an bomb on us. We prepared for it, we made mistakes, we polluted our own land and we destroyed our own lives. Why this ended up happening? The feeling we had for a long time after the war, the feeling of rejection against nukes, where on earth did it disappear? What did impair and distort the peaceful and affluent society we consistently searched for? The answer is easy. It’s efficiency. Power company insists that nuclear reactor is an efficient electric power generating system. In short, it is the system they can make the most profit. Also, Japanese government nationally pushed nuclear power especially after the oil shock due to their skepticism about the stability of crude oil supply. Power company made the money fly as advertising money, bribed media, and planted seeds of an illusion in citizens to make belief of safe nuclear energy. And before we realized, 30% of electricity in Japan was generated by nuclear power. While citizens didn’t know about it too well, this small and crowded country with frequent earthquakes had become the 3rd largest number of nuclear power plants in the world. ”
“At first, they created accomplished facts. People who are concerned about nuclear power, will be intimidated by accomplished facts like “OK, so you are OK if there isn’t enough electricity? You are OK if you cannot use air-conditioner in summer?” They label people who are skeptical about nuclear power as “unrealistic dreamer.” Then now we are here. Supposedly safe and efficient nuclear reactor is now displaying a terrifying state as if someone opened the lid of the hell. “Look at the reality,” the reality people who supported nuclear power actually wasn’t the reality at all, it was just their superficial convenience. They switched “superficial convenience” and “the reality” to switch the logic. It was the collapse of Japan’s long-lasted technical power myth, and at the same time it was loss of our ethic and norm that tolerated such a switch of the logic. “Please rest in peace. We won’t repeat the mistake.” We have to etch these words in our minds once again.”
“We Japanese people should have kept shouting “NO” against nukes. This is my personal opinion. We should have pursued alternative energy that can replace nuclear energy in the national level by fully mobilizing our technological capabilities, by calling upon wisdom, and by putting social capital into it. That would had been a way for us to collectively take a responsibility for the victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. That also would had been an big opportunity for Japan to truly contribute to the world. However, we lost our precious way in amid rapid economic development because we bought into the standard of efficiency.”
“Dreaming is a novelists’ job. But more importantly, novelists have to share their dreams with people. Without such a sense of sharing, we cannot be novelists. I know that people in Catalonia have been protecting their own language and culture even though they had many difficulties and cruelty in their long history. There must be many things we can share among us. In Japan, and here in Catalonia, if we can equally be “unrealistic dreamers,” if we can build new values that are common in the world, I think it would be so wonderful. I think that would be a starting point of regrowth of our humanity that went through horrible disasters and horrifying terrors in recent years. We must not fear dreaming. We also must not fear having ideals. We must not let dogs of limitations that have names such as “convenience” and “efficiency” catch up to our footsteps. We will be “unrealistic dreamers” who move forward with strong steps.”
Japanese band Frying Dutchman did a great performance regarding nuclear power, so I put a video of their street performance below in this opportunity. This video has English subtitles.
Thank you everyone who came to the opening on 11th. My works will be displayed at the Tin Can till the first week of January. Below are the photos of my works and their prices. (If you are broke, we can talk about the price too 🙂 ) I got lots of compliment for my new short film after the screening. Thank you for encouragement! I will post the short film online very soon too. Trippy Tuesday Freakout Jam was amazing. So was DJ. World Wide Music Released in the Last 5 Years. Lastly, thank you Tin Can, Magic Brotherhood, Danica Molenaar, Jordan Hammond, Glendon Romett and musicians who jammed hard! Jena Bogorad will have her works for February‘s show. Second Tuesday of the month is Tin Can’s Art Opening day. Remember that 🙂
mixed medium on paper
20 x 16 (framed)
$50
mixed medium on paper
20 x 16 (framed)
$50
texture of feelings (sold)
texture of feelings (sold)
texture of feelings (sold)
“Head Space: Unbiased Yet Limited Sight”
mixed medium on canvas
16 x 20
$250
“Head Space: Childhood and Kokoro”
mixed medium on canvas
24 x 36
$150
SOLD
Head Space: Rain and the Window ($50)
Head Space: Resident in the Music ($200)
“Head Space: Attempt to Organize Information (to see the consistency in the reality)”
mixed medium on canvas
24 x 30
$400
“Our Collective Amnesia/ A View From A Cafe”
color pencils and ink on paper
10 x 12 (framed)
$40
“Our Collective Amnesia/ Penguins and Avocados”
color pencils and ink on paper
10 x 12
$40
“Our Collective Amnesia/ Night Bird”
color pencils and ink on paper
10 x 12
$40
There are only 3200 tigers left on the planet. One of the ways to help tigers is to come to the Tiger Bomb Art Show at El Dorado Cocktail Lounge (1030 Broadway, San Diego) on Thursday Dec 13th. The show is curated by a local band Lion Cut. 30 local artists created tiger inspired art for majestic tigers’ sake. 75% of sales goes to WWF to save tigers. Monkey Paw brewing is launching their very special beer, Tiger Bomb IPA, on this Thursday night for beautiful tigers. And 50% of beer sales also goes to WWF to conserve tigers. Lion Cut will be performing 🙂 So, why not party this Thursday. Buy local artists tiger art, drink Tiger Bomb IPA and simultaneously help tigers! FREE event!
Here is a one that I made for this event. “Vanishing Tigers and Audience”
Good evening people floating in the blog-sphere in the global village. I have news for you regarding the cultural event in San Diego region. Tin Can, one of my favorite music venues in San Diego, is hosting an art opening for my very first solo art show on Tuesday December 11th. On opening night, I am screening my new short film at 9:30 p.m. I spent so many hours on making this film so now my biological clock is so off-synched with the earth’s rotation and most of the responsible people. I hope that made this film good at least. The film is an experimental film (check out the trailer!) that I shot in NYC in October earlier this year. I am curious to see what people think about it.
And the night is also the first ever Trippy Tuesday Freakout Jam hosted by Magic Brotherhood. All Welcome! Doods Foods will be serving great foods till 10 p.m. My personal favorite from them is Grilled cheese with tomatos. They make it with sourdough bread and it’s crispy like early summer day in San Diego.
I am looking forward to hanging out with my friends, meeting new people, drinking and releasing all the stress that I built up preparing for this show on Tuesday 🙂
