Bashamichi Art Vision / 馬車道アートビジョン

 

In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the opening of the Minatomirai Line in Yokohama, The Bashamichi Mirai Project (馬車道みらいプロジェクト) commissioned local artist Yuichi ITO (伊藤有壱) to do a video installation on the iconic domed ceiling of the station on weekends during the month of March. Ito is a renowned stop motion animator, known for his ongoing NHK television series KNYACKI! (ニャッキ!, 1995-present). He has also made animated shorts set in Yokohama such as Harbor Tale (2011) and Blue Eyes in Harbor Tale (2014). In addition to his team at I.TOON Ltd, Ito had technical assistance from Yuichi MATSUMOTO (松本祐一), Akimasa OISHI (大石彰誠). 

Bashamichi Art Vision was designed to honour Yokohama’s deep ties to photography and film culture. The first commercial photography studio was opened in Yokohama by Renjō SHIMOOKA (下岡 蓮杖, 1823 – 1914) in 1862, and Shimooka is often called the father Japanese photography. In more recent history, Tokyo University of the Arts (aka Geidai) opened its Graduate School of Film and New Media in the Bashamichi district in 2005. Ito has been teaching at Geidai’s Graduate School of Film and New Media since they opened their animation department over 10 years ago. 

When I visited Bashamichi Station with my husband, Stefan Hotes, on Saturday, March 23, Ito told us that he had been thinking about doing such an installation for 18 years. Inspired by the design of space created by architect Hiroshi NAITO (内藤廣), Ito came up with the concept of making a modern version of the 19th century optical device, the Phenakistiscope (also known as Odoroki-ban in Japanese) projected onto the domed ceiling. 

 The installation consisted of 5 projected videos that each ran at about a minute and a half. The themes were as follows:

 

 ①      Minato Mirai Line 20th Anniversary Video 

           みなとみらい線開業20周年アニバーサリー映像 

 A collection of historical images of the port city of Yokohama. 

②     Garden Necklace Yokohama 2024 Sequence 

         ガーデンネックレス横浜2024 イメージムービー 

 Ito is the designer of the Garden Bear character used by the city of Yokohama to promote its Garden Necklace events (events that take place at the beautiful city gardens, which have been included by foreign trends in gardening, such as the English rose garden style). 

③     GREEN EXPO 2027 Sequence 2027

         年国際園芸博覧会 イメージムービー 

Yokohama will be hosting the World Horticultural Exposition in 2027 with the theme “Scenery of the Future for Happiness” with an estimated participation of 80 countries. The Expo will run from March 19 to September 26, 2027. 

④      Art Video 1: “Phenakistiscope” 

        アート映像1 「フェナキスティスコープ」 

This projection used historic Phenakistiscope discs named horse 「馬」, flower「花」, and dance「ダンス」, which were really perfect for the location. The place name “Bashamichi” translates as “horse-drawn carriage way,” as it was the way that horse-drawn carriages would go on their way to and from the port when it opened. Professor Emeritus Machiko KUSAHARA (草原真知子) of Waseda University, a world-renowned collector and researcher, provided the discs for the creation of the installation. 

⑤     Art video 2: “The Road Leading to the Harbour'” 

        アート映像2 「港へつづく道」 

The last installation was a collaboration between Ito and leading Yokohama photographer Hideo Mori (森日出夫). The Bashamichi area has long been known as “From 'Isesaki to Bashamichi and Bankoku Bridge to the harbour” 「伊勢佐木から馬車道、そして万国橋が港に連なる」. The theme is how the landscape of the port changes with the times… which was also the theme of Ito’s animation Harbor Tale, which they also collaborated on. The 20th anniversary edition of Harbor Tale with Book can be ordered here.

2024 Cathy Munroe Hotes

Mutoscope (ミュートスコープ, 2011)

Many animators take an interest in early cinema technologies and often experiment with them.  In fact, their first “animations” are often flip books drawn on the corners of school workbooks.  References to early technologies can be found in many animated films, from Taku Furukawa and Kōji Yamamura’s  experiments with the Phenakistoscope (see: Odorokiban and Omake) to Toshio Iwai’s 3D Zoetropes of Toy Story (made with Gregory Barsamian, who does a lot of art inspired by early animation/cinema) and Bouncing Totoro at the Ghibli Museum Mitaka. 

The animator / artist Hirotoshi Iwasaki (岩崎宏俊, b. 1981), who just this week won the Grand Prix for Non-Narrative Short at HAFF for his latest work Dark Mixer (2014), built a Mutoscope out of iron in 2011.  The Mutoscope is an early cinema device which was patented in 1894 by the American inventor Herman Casler (1867-1939).  Instead of projecting on a screen, the Mutoscope creates the perception of movement in the same way that a flip book does except, rather than being bound like a book, the large cards (7 x 4.75cm) are attached to a circular core.  These were coin operated machines that could be viewed by an individual through a single lens, as the poet Jared Carter describes in his 1993 poem “Penny Arcade”: “The light goes out, the ratchet handle stops, / along the tightrope stretched across the falls / the cards collapse.  Another penny crawls / into the slot.  The light blinks on.  She hops, / she keeps her balance with a parasol /and strikes an hourglass pose.” (read the whole poem)

Mutoscope from Hirotoshi Iwasaki on Vimeo.

Iwasaki’s Mutoscope is a pared down version of the original – just the mechanical structure of the device without it being encased in a coin-operated viewing device.  Instead of the approximately 850 cards used in the original machines, Iwasaki made just 16 images that repeat.  Interestingly, 16 frames per second is the minimum frame rate needed for the phenomenon of persistence of vision to work.  With projected film, anything slower would cause a flicker that soul be distracting to the spectator.  I don’t know if this is why Iwasaki chose 16 frames, but it seems likely. 

According to his official website, he made four sets of 16 images for the device: Phantom, Wave, Moon and Bottom.   The Mutoscope was exhibited as part of his exhibition Invisible Time at Gallery Terra Tokyo from 6 June – 23 July 2011.  The event description reads:

“Iwasaki constantly tries to turn invisible existence - time, space and memory - into perceivable objects. He uses moving images to make palpable what was formerly invisible, transcending language barriers and producing a poetic atmosphere. This exhibition showcases works that focus on the theme of “time” - in our memory, in a mirror, at the bottom of a well.”  (Source: TAB)  Footage of Phantom and Wave in action can be seen on Iwasaki’s Vimeo and Youtube channels.

2015 Cathy Munroe Hotes

Japan in Germany 9: Shinro Ohtake at documenta 13

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The first weekend in August, my husband and I visited documenta 13 in Kassel.  The amount of art, live performances, and film on offer at documenta 13 is simply overwhelming, so we picked out a few artists whose work we definitely wanted to see and saw a number of other interesting works incidentally while wandering through the installation spaces.

Soil-erg.2012 by Claire Pentecost

My husband, being a conservation biologist, was interested in American artist Claire Pentecost’s installation of soil shaped like gold bars at the Ottoneum.  The concept of soil being as valuable as gold is very relevant to our times as we enter the post-oil era. (b. 1956, artist profile) (artist website)

Image of a metronome in Kentridge's "The Refusal of Time"

I happily stood in line for ages to get into the William Kentridge (b. 1955) installation “The Refusal of Time” (2012) in the Hauptbahnhof North Wing.  Kentridge’s animation has been highly influential – one can see the influence in the charcoal animations of Japanese experimental animator Naoyuki Tsuji, for example (see: Angel).  “The Refusal of Time” is projected on 5 screens with a mechanical machine in the middle.  It explores the various ways humanity has tried to capture time: metronomes, pressurized clocks, time zones, music, and so on.  There were elements of animation (stop motion, drawn) and live action with Kentridge himself even appearing in some scenes.  It is a complex work and I wish I could have spent the whole day in the installation just to be able to take in the diverse elements at work in it.  Learn more about the installation in this interview with the artist.

Also high on my list of things to see were the paintings of Canadian artist Emily Carr (1871-1945, CBC article) on display at the Neue Gallerie.  I had previously only seen a couple of her paintings in person at the McMichael Gallery in Ontario.  It is such a different experience to see her work in person than reprinted in books – they create a certain atmosphere that is hard to put into words.  The seven paintings on display were of her later work and the influences of Fauvism and Cubism were very evident.  Dark and hauntingly beautiful pieces.

As much as I love Emily Carr, she seemed a bit out of place in the documenta.  She seemed to have been selected to balance out the two Australian artists sharing a room with her – Margaret Preston (1875-1963) and Gordon Bennett (b.1955) – whose work is also influenced by aboriginal art.  All three were surrounded by conceptual and installation art – which represents the bulk of documenta works.  The neighbouring room, for example, featured the work of Geoffrey Farmer (b. 1967), which was perhaps the most popular installation at the documenta.  “Leaves of Grass” has been featured widely on magazine covers and newspaper articles – it has mass appeal not only because of the immensity of the project but also because of the popular subject matter: pictures cut from 5 decades of Life magazine (see Guardian review).  The link to Carr is that Farmer is also from British Columbia and attended the art college named after her – but it terms of style and subject matter these two could not be more different.

Japan was represented at documenta 13 by Shinro Ohtake (b. 1955, official website).  Ohtake is known as a collector from his ongoing series of “Scrap Books” (1977-) to the strange collages and ephemera decorating the “I Love Yu” Bathhouse in Naoshima, Kagawa Prefecture (article).  Ohtake’s “Mon Cheri: A Self Portrait as a Scrapped Shed” installation in Karlsaue Park shares much in common with the “I Love Yu” Bathhouse.  “Mon Cheri” is an example of a “snack bar” – the kind of hut one might find frequented by eccentric locals at an off-the-beaten track seaside town.  The neon sign was apparently found by Ohtake ten years ago and the Scrapped Shed was inspired by a defunct snack bar in Uwajima.

We could hear the Mon Cheri snack bar before we could see it as we traversed through the expansive grounds of Karlsaue Park.  At first the music was tinny and difficult to recognize, but as we got closer the song changed and I heard the familiar strains of Kyu Sakamoto’s rendition of the Jimmy Jones hit “Good Timin’.”  The snack bar has been installed under an impressively huge tree, and boats of various kinds are strewn around the bar on the ground and in the tree.  There is also a small caravan next to the snack bar. The snack bar is covered with newspaper and magazine clippings from both Japan and Germany.  The bar was wall-to-wall with a collection of junk from bicycle tires to a guitar and even miniature video screens displaying abstract videos. 

The junk in the tree caused a number of German commentators to suggest that this was a reference to the devastating tsunami of March 2011, but the title of the installation suggested to me that this was a much too literal interpretation.  As a self portrait, it seemed to me that the artist sees himself as being formed from the random detritus of popular and disposable artifacts of modern culture.  One could detect a sense of humour in the way in which the objects and clippings had been assembled – Ohtake appears to both love all this junk and be aware that all these things are simply fleeting in their nature.

Judge for yourself by checking out my photo album of Ohtake’s installation.

documenta 13 runs until September 16. 

Catherine Munroe Hotes 2012