Teach Me

[imomus]

A couple of months back I bought a lottery ticket and had a wee bit of a dream about what I'd do if I won 24 million euros. (The right to dream is, of course, what you're really buying when you buy a lottery ticket, and worth every euro cent.) After going through all the stuff I could do with the money (get a house built in Tokyo by Atelier Bow Wow, give it to charity, get my teeth fixed) I decided that "actually, I wouldn't mind starting my own art college, a bit like Fabrica, Benetton's college outside Venice. That would be fun."

Well, I'm pleased to say that, although I don't (yet) own Fabrica, I will be participating later this month (September 29th to October 2nd) as a guest teacher at the Teach Me Festival in Venice, organized jointly by Fabrica and Universita Iuav di Venezia. The workshops are held in some converted warehouses called Magazzino 7. The theme of the festival is Stories, and my workshop will be about the narrative qualities of the sounds produced by objects. I think the workshop is open only to students of the two art schools, but I'll be blogging the experience here and posting some of the results of our explorations. I'm very happy to be invited to this festival. I had a great time at Future University in Hokkaido earlier this year pursuing similar researches with the students there (see my little movie Five Seconds of FUN for some of the results). Really, who needs to win the lottery when you can travel and work with people on art and communication?

Tokyo Notes: Jean Snow seems to have landed some kind of job with Japan Times, Digiki's money is running out and he needs a job, but he's made an excellent new Polypunk podcast for us to listen to, the Shobus Tour is coming to an end, and Yuki is having a few problems with ghosts.

Comments

[svenskasfinx.livejournal.com]

Really, who needs to win the lottery when you can travel and work with people on art and communication?



This is exactly why I keep telling people in a quandry about life, to do exactly what they enjoy, as winning the lottery, may or may not happen, and its best to try to create (and be creative with) your own happiness by doing the work you LOVE in spite of the emphisis on earning a living.

[nickink.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! And thanks for the Polypunk link - very enjoyable.

[(Anonymous)]

Back in the studio finishing the Overture For Berlin. Quite definitely the most out there piece I've had a hand in since the days of Dr Calculus. It's an overture of themes from the forthcoming RW album Intensive Care & will be played before the Velodrome concert in October.

I'm so pleased cricket is popular again. Any five day game that might end in a draw that survives and actually thrives in this most stupid of times is truly a miracle. Next John Luc Godard is a box office smash and Martin Scorsese makes the greatest rock film of the 21st © about Bob Dylan.

[(Anonymous)]

Momus, get your teeth fixed for goodness sake!!
There must be an affordable clinic somewhere in the EU for you!

(I imagine you're talking health and not cosmetic dentistry - you don't really seem like a Whitening Strips sort of boy)

[merzbow.livejournal.com]

Teaching is so much fun! ))
I'm happy for you!

[the-bee-box.livejournal.com]

What an opportunity for you and the students alike.

The favorite part part of my job is by far when I get to go out and travel and teach...the subject matter, educational systems around the world, is interesting and rich and pulls in all the wonders of history, culture and language...but it still isn't the same as "the narrative qualities of the sounds produced by objects". It stirs a general yearning to be back in school.

The subject matter also makes me wonder if you read David Byrne's blog on 26 August as the topic matter (Japanese Onomatopoeia)seemed like something that would or rather most likely has, sparked your interest. Honestly, my first thought after reading this was...he's either been a. reading click opera or b. corresponding with Momus. It sounds like your subject matter is the next phase or a few phases down the road from the ideas expressed in this post...not to slight Mr. Byrne in any way...but the logical progression of this sort of thing seems to be onomatopoeia, the development of language and the development of narrative (the preceding two perhaps with the final in mind all along).

In any case, I'll be looking forward to your posts about the experience.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I did read David Byrne's piece about Japanese onomatopoeia, and I share his interest in the way Japanese thinking is often a lot more embodied than Western thinking. If, as he says in the entry, states of mind can have sounds attached (gocha-gocha is "the sound of a cluttered office, or a cluttered mind"), then maybe there are forms of metaphoric or textural association in Japanese thinking which zigzag from one experience or metaphor or sound to the next rather than following the paths of symbolic logic. I guess that kind of poetical thinking is what puts the "poeia" in onomatopoeia!

[the-bee-box.livejournal.com]

Exactly! But I've always been partial to poetical thinking as its unique structure (multi-dimensional, metaphorical, associative) has always provoked in me a greater sense of truthfulness to the intended meaning or a more-fulfilling sense of narrative than traditional paths of logic. It has a far more expansive and interesting realm to draw from than the world of numbers and mathematical equations. Onomatopoeia provides such an essential and intuitive link between the physical and mental world.

[the-bee-box.livejournal.com]

Unfortunately, no. Though I would love to learn about them...the bulk of my time at work is spent evaluating academic credentials, and Sub-saharan Africa issues documents and teaches in English so the documents I see are in English. The little I do know leaves me in absolute wonder at the complexity and musical nature the languages possess.

[henryperri.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'd attend your school if you had lots of chicks like the ones in the middle photo.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Keep your hands on the desk, Perri!

[(Anonymous)]

yeah we all love those art school groupies. momus' girlfriend being one of them. but these girls don't know a thing or two about orgasms and art. they just exist to suck two bit artist cock, or appear in brochure-esque propaganda for retarded artist 'communities'. can i throw up now?

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Approximately my thoughts, except that I was musing "now that looks like a nice place to be faculty".

Maybe it's time for a trip to Italy.

[mcgazz.livejournal.com]

> get my teeth fixed
You too? Apparently people have referred to me as "that guy with the weird teeth". Maybe it's a Paisley thing :)

stanford

[cityramica.livejournal.com]

you should teach at my school. i'm taking "sound art" this quarter. i hope it is not totally ridiculous. or maybe that would be ok. the prof is wearing 3-D glasses in his bio photo. come guest lecture i'll host.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

If you now had a school. What kind of art would the students create?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, I don't think that's really in the power of the school founder to determine. A school can have an aura, an ethos, a style associated with it, but that tends to come from the work of the people who go there, and what happens in their subsequent careers, and how that in turn affects who then applies to the school.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Well, if you had any sort of imaginative model of what could be going on.

And what about if you would build that school in a left-wing country that turned right wing. Would you leave or stay?

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

get a house built in Tokyo by Atelier Bow Wow, give it to charity

In most countries you can contract it to charity so that, in the event the charity suddenly decides to change it's status to a for-profit corporation (as has happened to more than a few charities) or if the charity dissolves and liquidates it's holdings, rights to the house revert back to you. At least this way you can keep it from eventually ending up a McDonald's (ha ha).

[imomus.livejournal.com]

A house by Atelier Bow Wow would be a nice thing to find in a charity shop, but I meant those as alternatives, not a sequence!

[butterflyrobert.livejournal.com]

Ahh.

This weeks lottery numbers

[(Anonymous)]

23 12 33 36 5 28

[innertemple.livejournal.com]

just added you, hope it's ok:)
I like your entries, all these art related details:)
thank you
now there is a workshop in Istanbul as side dish of biennial, the theme/concept -feel free to name it- is Istanbul. I am working as volunteer asistant, some of them including me are recording city sounds to use in installations:)
very curious for your work.
:)

[baobabs.livejournal.com]

hi imomus

i'm a student from the creative writing dept in fabrica, and i hope they'll let me come for the workshop!

would it be ok if i added you?