human noise

On my third day in Nagoya I rode south and came to a temple... I can't remember the name of it, it was really hot and I was looking for a pool, but the temple was peaceful- mostly. I could hear all these children yelling. On investigation it turned out to be Akido lessons. These little films are mostly posted for the noise- I am a little disappointed in the quality after compression- But I hope you can see the dailek-like action in the second clip- I can't work out whether the exercise is to practice striking someone on the head, or to practice being beaten on the head- probably both.

The sound of the cicadas also sound quiet mechanical after the compression too.

The title of this comes from Sarah's new blog Human Noise, and these where the words that came to my into my head as I watched.

Conversations with cats - Gotokuji Shrine

I wrote this more than a month ago but had not had time to correct it or put in as many details as I had wanted- and then I just got super busy finishing the work for Aichi Triennale. But time has passed and is passing so fast and I am now back in Australia so it will have to go up as is in order to think new thoughts.

In 2007 my dear Ruben died. It was long and drawn out. Not long after a friend of Lucas(Ruben's co-owner) and I, Jo Law, had the Australia Council residency in Tokyo. You can read about her trip on her Season Almanac blog. As part of trip she went to Gotokuji Shrine and said prayers for Ruben and her cat Puzpuz. When I came home from Tokyo in April my dear Mambo died and I felt I needed to go to the shrine to visit Ruben and say good bye to Mambo.

Gotokuji Shrine is where the legend of the waving cat- Maneki Neko is said to have happened. The White cat - Tama- is buried in a shrine along side the main Buddhist (?) temple, and this is where I said my prayers.

It was a fantastic thing to do- the quiet ( there was only me and two other people there) and very green space was exactly what I need, and I lite insense and said prayers for all my friend's cats who are no longer around and for those who still keep us company.

Cats of freinds who have passed on: Tupelo, Jose, Blanche, Smilla, Puzpuz, Puspus, Gordon, Lucy, Claude, Gus and Carole. As well as those still living: Otik, Martha, Sushi, Drazic, Orlando, Dexter, Zooty, Minny, Baba, Brian.

I love the backs and the tails in the shot above, and I couldn't resist putting my miniture Yokoo Tandanori cat Buddha in for a picture too.

Conversations with trees #1

This is a thread I have been thinking about a lot and for some time but was always too scared to start- too much to say, too overwhelming. But I am just going to start and not say much, but post a picture of a tree from outside of Tokyu Hands.

Tokyo blur

The last five days have been a real blur- trying to see as much as I could and as many people as possible. Some snaps and images from the first couple of days.

Commercial gallery hoping with Reuben from Artspace (now on internship at the Yokohama City Museum) and Will French, an Australian artist now at Tokyo Wonder site (check his site- nice work with flags and bicycles). It was quiet nice that day as it rained, so it was reasonably cool.

The galleries were a pretty mixed bag, with Jun Nguyen-Hatsushiba at Mizuma being a highlight, especially two flag works that remixed the stars of the Vietnamese and U.S. flags. Here is a link to his current large project “Breathing is free”.

We ended up in Ildabashi the part of town where I was staying and ate dinner at a nice isagaya. It’s a fairly fancy part of town so it has a fugu restaurant in the main street. Eating this fish doesn’t appeal to me, they are fairly ugly, along with being poisonous. I like the ‘before and after’ set up, one window has the fish tank and the next is a display of what you will get served.

Green greeting

After the high of seeing Fuji from the plane I was delighted by the heat and green of being on the ground. I took the Skyliner to Tokyo, which has a slightly different route from the Narita express, my departure route,  passing first through rice fields before hitting the city. It’s nice to compare the UFO landing spots with how they looked in Spring.

Finished Chapzine- Printing, pick ups and nature strips

Finished!

I am amazed that I managed to get the chapzines done. It wouldn't have happened without Louise from Poppy Letterpress and Caren. Thank you ladies of movable type!

I am now wrapping some of them up to send to Melbourne and some to take as gifts to Japan. Less than 24 hours now before I fly.

ok now I feel like a real iidiiot- just got down some packets of paper to freight down to the show in Melbourne and discovered a stack of anonymously stamped paper- more than the stack I have printed- derr!

Just as well I kept my chases intact- and now I get to correct the spelling mistakes - namely mine and Andrew's names.

paper birds

the beginning of the Black Kite body.

to scale model finished

detail of the wings

to scale Varied Tit.

Made from the paper bags of all the things I bought in Japan.

A Black Kite and Varied Tit- they are the props for an animation that I am now editing with Abi. The works title is "Feeders" and it picks up on some of my encounters with birds- including the Black Kite that stole my lunch.

Getting it ready for the Aichi Triennale.

Procrastinating- Berlin alphabet

I bought this set of type 10 years ago in Berlin. At the time I thought they where rubber stamps- and it might turn out that they are in fact rubber stamps, but lately my theory is that they are some hybrid letterpress. They seem to be a very hard rubber that has been glued onto some pine bases. For the arguments pro and contra them being letterpress:-

Pro:

The rubber is too hard for rubber stamps and it seems to reject water based inks. The ink tends to separate on the surface of the letter making it hard to get good coverage and a dark print (in next post). As I bought them in Berlin from someone selling various pillaged things from the former East, it could have just been bad quality rubber.

Contra:

The bases seem to be some kind of pine or other soft wood. Pine is not usually used in moveable type as it gets dented too easily. I have been wondering though whether the rubber tops have been removed from their original bases and remounted as the bases have no ink stains and x heights are also not consistent. The other fact that counts against these being moveable type is that the profile is too high for moveable type.

I can’t remember what the standard measurement is for type, Caren has it pasted helpfully on the wall opposite from where you would stand in order to set the pressure of the press: the beast (I’m not sure whether it has a nickname or gender- for me it is gender neutral). My memory says .987 but maybe that’s from an inch? All the measurements for type and furniture we have in the Book Studio are in inches (is all moveable type like this?), which make all the measurements really abstract for me.

However whatever the original use of these letters, I am going to cut the bases and use them as moveable type. And as there is only one alphabet I have started to make several sets of letters in polymer by filling up some of the negative spaces on the films I set to get the centre of the Nature Strip chapzine made.

Of course I have absolutely no spare time to be doing this or writing this entry- I am filming part of the Aichi work tomorrow and have things to do before then- but I find myself being quiet fascinated by this little project.

Along with the questions above my main question is: What is the type font? And what would the capitals look like? Any ideas out there?

chapzine

I’m still working on the chap-zine that re-uses the discarded stamped prints from the installation of ‘Varied, noisy’ at Artspace last year. Chapzine is Caren’s term for a zine – like artist book that been produced using letterpress, and is usually printed on one piece of paper and folded (like the orginal chapbooks). The one piece of paper makes the setting up and printing time more manageable.

When you do a search on the term chapzine you mostly get links to Caren’s chapzine pr0n c0k-tales, but I also found references on this dead Art School blog in Vancouver. I gleaned from the detailed entry about Chapbooks on Wiki, that chapbooks where still a common form in the States in the early 1900’s, so not surprising that the term still has resonance there. Although I also found this interesting little poetry press in Berry, NSW, using the term.

The wiki entry also provided the wonderful term ‘bum folder’:

Because of their flimsy nature such ephemera rarely survive as individual items. They were aimed at buyers without formal libraries, and, in an era when paper was expensive, were used for wrapping or baking. Paper has also always had hygienic uses and there are contemporary references to the use of chapbooks as bum fodder

I don’t recommend that you use the Nature Strip chapzine as toilet paper as it is over 120gsm: not very soft or absorbent.

I have now printed two colours on the outside and am getting ready the plate to print on the inside. The top picture gives you an idea of how the long pieces of paper will be folded into a zine.

Here is a detail of the whole image that will be on the inside. It’s a reworking of the drawing that Andrew McQualter and I did on the walls at Artspace.

At the moment as well as working on a deadline for Aichi Triennale, (this website has a very helpful counter telling me it's only 37days to go) I’m also trying to get things ready for a show with Andrew in Melbourne at VCA’s Margaret Lawrence Gallery (when you see this link you have to wonder why Universities, like local councils, can't get the importance of a good website for a gallery). Busy? Too much on my plate? Yes well…

conversations with dolphins

It was sunny this morning so Haico and I decided to head over to Bronte to look at the beach, get some horizon with our scrambled eggs.

The surf was pretty winter rough with big rips. Wandering around the headland and staring out to sea, we saw three dolphins swimming out beyond the surfers. They where in a playful mood, leaping out of the water every now and then. At one point they surfed the waves along side the riders and all three made a spectacular syncronised high leap - wonderful!

Unfortunately these photos are not mine and are from Deb and NSW Ocean Baths on flickr .

Bronte Beach from above