Krystian Woznicki on 28 Nov 2000 15:19:40 -0000


[Date Prev] [Date Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Date Index] [Thread Index]

[rohrpost] Berliner Gazette, 29.11.[english version]


4 1/2 Minutes
or: >>The average time it takes a Tokyo resident to reach a convenience 
store.<<

[ ] Protocol: Sean Snyder, artist [1]

The one hour and forty minute ride from Narita airport displaces any 
preconceptions a western visitor may have about Japanese culture. A 
cognitive placelessness occurs due to overlapping visual references from 
elsewhere. The basis of my project during a four month residency in Japan 
is to construct a sampled composite (an impossible task?) of hybrid and 
non-Japanese aspects of the built environment and cultural landscape of 
Tokyo and its periphery.

Tokyo is constantly transforming and dissolving in photographic, animated, 
and virtual representations. The most dominant characteristics of the city 
are not itīs copied landmarks, but interconnected flows of electricity, 
communication and transportation. Profuse above ground utility lines, 
elevated subway, urban rail, high-speed train and the Metropolitan 
Expressway connect Tokyo with the rest of Japan. Auto navigation technology 
[2] orients the vast expanses around the city through an endless network of 
transaction points; convenience stores, fast food restaurants, gas stations 
and shopping centers.

Tama New Town, Play Station A5, and the DIY Architecture of Tokyo

In 1971 Denise Scott asked the question >>in fact, where did the McDonald's 
parabola and the split-level ranch come from in the first place? << The 
same year McDonald's opened their first restaurant in Japan. An examination 
of the roof angles of traditional Japanese architecture could provide a 
hypothetical answer. So where did Tokyo come from?

Fantastic architecture is everywhere: Pachinko Parlors, Love Hotels, and 
Theme Parks. But the rooftops of the anonymous expanses of Tokyo's 
periphery hold the most unusual examples. The depictions of cities around 
the world with no commentary on late-night Japanese television and free 
tourist brochures with collaged continents merge with aspects of Tokyo's 
environment. Tama New Town/ Tama Center in suburban Tokyo combines 
futuristic urban design and architecture with stylized urban symbols from 
the great civilizations of the world.

The Play Station video game A5 [3], intended for the Japanese market, 
follows a similar logic as Tama New Town. Using simplified CAD 
architectural renderings, the game begins with a topographic view of an 
undeveloped natural landscape with a monument (the Houses of Parliament, 
the Arc de Triomphe, the Pyramids of Giza, Tokyo Tower, etc.) as the focal 
point. The goal of the game is to develop a prosperous infrastructure 
around the monument with the given vocabulary of non-spectacular components 
of the contemporary city. The elevated transportation network is the one 
distinctively Japanese aspect of the resulting city. For Japanese 
architects and individuals there are numerous references for sampling 
architectural styles available. For practicing architects there are 
extensive guides to non-Japanese architecture, picture books, exterior 
details, dictionaries of western architectural terminology, etc. For 
amateur architects home design software [4] is available. Using a 
vocabulary prefabricated elements, individuals can create their own 
'fantasy' environment [5]. This sort of 'do it yourself' approach [6] can 
begin to explain the origin of the unusual architectural varieties.

Project

I have constructed a narrative guide in printed form, creating a composite 
of the city's surface through an excavation of ephemeral everyday visual 
data (printed material, television and computer software) juxtaposed 
against my own digital material. The material has been condensed at 
low-resolution, re-assembled, categorized, clipped, scanned, ordered and 
placed into a magnified random grid structure interpreted from Japanese 
publications and cartoons. One focus of the research, through a process of 
scanning the city and its surroundings from rail lines with digital media, 
is to construct a sample archive of typological approximations and pseudo- 
classifications of the obscure architectural variants found in the region. [7]

1. mailto: seansnyder@altavista.net
2. http://www.zenrin.co.jp
3. http://www.artdink.co.jp/japanese/title/a6/index.html
4. http://www.megasoft.co.jp
5. http://www.pophome.com/index.shtml
6. http://www.doityourself.com/
7. http://itools.mac.com [open public folder with member name: seansnyder ]

And here some Berlin dates for your schedule:

Wed  29.11.

W o r k s h o p : The workshop on Mobile Multimedia Communications 
[http://mcp.fantastic.ch] will provide an international forum to discuss 
innovative techniques to tackle the lack of resources by implementing 
special optimization and coordination techniques, which support the 
provisioning of particularly valuable services to users on the move and 
especially in the vehicular environment 
[http://www.comnets.rwth-aachen.de/~drive]. The scope includes optimized 
interworking of mobile telecommunication and radio broadcast networks and 
the layered interworking of network elements with adaptive applications in 
order to exploit the scarce radio resources in the most efficient and 
demand-oriented way. Above all the workshop will provide a road map for the 
provisioning of the future mobile internet in the car. Place: 
Heinrich-Hertz-Institut Berlin [http://www.hhi.de], Einsteinufer 37, 9 a.m. 
- 6 p.m.

B o o k r e l e a s e : Friedrich Kittler presents his new book >>Eine 
Kulturgeschichte der Kulturwissenschaft<< [ISBN: 3-7705-3418-2] which 
traces the founders of cultural studies from Vico to writers as Flaubert 
and cultural scientists like Victor Hehn to Nietzsche and his followers. 
Place: Kiepert, Georgenstrasse 2, Stadtbahnbogen 182, 8 p.m.

Thu  30.11.

L e c t u r e : Berlin based theoretician Knut Ebeling (born in 1970), who 
studied under Gilles Deleuze and Friedrich Kittler will approach >>Madame 
Edwarda<< by Georges Batailles from two different angles: By taking one of 
the most scandalous and mysterious pieces Batailles ever produced Ebeling 
sheds light on his way of reading and positions his philosophy between 
Hegel and Nietzsche. Place: Juliettes Literatursalon, Gormannstrasse 25, 
8.30 p.m.

Sat  02.12.

O p e n i n g : Berlin based artist Hanayo [http://www.hanayo.com] 
transforms the former Club 69 space at Kunst Werke 
[http://www.kw-berlin.de] into a winter-style Kindergarten. The playful 
fantasy area for parents and kids reflects the recent baby boom in 
Berlin-Mitte and its new, growing social networks: As the artist herself 
puts it >>Hanachambre is the room where u can feel free: a baby becomes a 
worm; a man becomes a butterfly; a child becomes an alien<<. The indoor 
playground by Hanayo opens daily between 10a.m. - 6p.m.; for the opening a 
special performance has been announced. Place: Kunst Werke, Auguststrasse. 
69, 8 p.m.

Best wishes,

Krystian Woznicki
mailto:krystian@snafu.de

PS: >>Dreams on the path to reality<< pumps up first when you enter the 
site of the people's project [http://www.thepeoplesproject.com]. Founded by 
Axel Lapp, its intention is to stimulate and motivate people to create 
public space with their own ideas: Public areas like streets, parks or 
buildings are mostly perceived in their functional idea and less as a 
creative or democratic space. The people's project wants to open this space 
for projects that transform places of our everyday life into places of 
recreation and new ideas. There are several concepts being realized at the 
moment not only in Berlin.

PPS: Im Zeitalter globaler E-Speed-Kommunikation ist vorallem Sprache 
(Language) ein Medium, das die Globalisierung verlangsamt. Mit dem 
Internet-Translator Systransoft [http://www.systranet.com] lassen sich 
Dokumente automatisch uebersetzen, wobei die Moeglichkeit besteht, mit 21 
spezialisierten Woerterbuechern zu arbeiten und damit eine hohe 
Uebersetzungs-Qualitaet zu erreichen. In Wirklichkeit kann die vermeintlich 
unuebertreffliche Intelligenz der Software Sprache zu neuer Komik und 
Poesie verhelfen. Um Sean Snyders Werkstattbericht aus Toyko auch fuer 
deutsch-only LeserInnen verstaendlich zu machen, haben wir ihn mit so einer 
Uebersetzungskanone beschossen 
[http://www.kulturserver.de/cgi-bin/view_korrespondent?id=420&layout=], 
raten allerdings kuerzere Abschnitte in den DIY - Uebersetzungsreisswolf zu 
werfen.

[ ] Berliner Gazette

The weekly E-Mailzine is published by http://www.kulturserver.de

[ ] Editors

Klaas Glenewinkel
Ulrike Rogler
Anne Schreiber
Krystian Woznicki

[ ] Subscriptions

http://www.kulturserver.de/cgi-bin/newsletter



----------------------------------------------------------
# rohrpost -- deutschsprachige Mailingliste fuer Medien- und Netzkultur
# Info: majordomo@mikrolisten.de; msg: info rohrpost
# kommerzielle Verwertung nur mit Erlaubnis der AutorInnen
# Entsubskribieren: majordomo@mikrolisten.de, msg: unsubscribe rohrpost
# Kontakt: owner-rohrpost@mikrolisten.de -- http://www.mikro.org/rohrpost