Average Japan
Project description
Digital Dye Transfer prints
Exhibition
fuse/ fureru (FUSE), Sesnon Gallery, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA., 2007
fuse/ fureru (FUSE), Tokyo Zokei University Gallery and Museum, Tokyo, Japan, 2007
fuse/ fureru (FUSE), Gallery AUBE, Kyoto University of Art and Design, Kyoto, Japan, 2007
The pieces in this exhibition come out of my love of Japanese film – especially Ozu, Kurosawa, Mistoguchi, Naruse and others. The work in this exhibition Tokyo Story (for Ozu) and Kyoto (for Kurosawa) take their references from films by the great Japanese film directors Yasujiro Ozu and Akira Kurosawa. Tokyo Story (for Ozu) was created by averaging together images shot by tourists from a train traveling into Tokyo. The train figures prominently in Ozo’s films. For me they represent the passage in space and time.
In my piece Tokyo Story (for Ozo) I am representing shifts in time and place both through the use of averaging images together from different places and times, but also to express a compressed sense of time – of all times at once. In the piece Kyoto (for Kurosawa) I created a more static image by averaging together tourist images from Kyoto of temples and nature. Kurosawa re-examined the traditions of Japan and often told very modern stories through the epic Samurai drama. Japanese traditions are conjured up to examine modern and personal dramas while maintaining a cultural connection to the past. Kyoto (for Kurosawa) merges together tourist images of nature and the temples of Kyoto. The resulting image features layers of green foliage and ancient architecture reflecting the sense of the eternalness of nature and the metaphysical. Where Tokyo Story (for Ozu) is muted and rectilinear, Kyoto (for Kurosawa) is organic, lush, and green. Through these images I seek to reflect on the experience of the 21st century tourist and how that experience resonates with cultural and historical notions of the meaning of time and place.
