21 square metres into the future

[imomus]

"I feel like I'm thirty years in the future... and I'm from New York. I've never been so moved by a city, except for New York."

That's Jordan Wolfson, a young artist who participated with me in the Whitney Biennial, and who now lives in Berlin. He's describing the impression Tokyo made on him during his first visit to the city earlier this year. It's very much the impression the city made on me on my first visit in 1992, and continues to make each time I go back. I may end up living in the world's biggest city eventually, but for the moment I'm happy to make annual trips there from my home in Berlin. I like to feel like a tourist, and I like reliving those first impressions each time, from a slightly different angle.



So right now I'm looking five months into the future; from mid-April to mid-May I'll be living in Tokyo again. I've arranged an apartment exchange with Australian artist Alin Huma (his website is here). Alin has a "21 square metre L-shaped box" (he's just added four and a half cat's foreheads -- the traditional measuring unit in Ginza -- by removing an inner wall) in an area I'm not too familiar with. That's mostly because Shiodome Shiosite, a new skyscraper district at the south end of Ginza and just east of Shimbashi, didn't really exist when I last lived for any length of time in Tokyo (2001-2002). It's sprung up since then, becoming Tokyo's biggest media district, with advertising company Dentsu occupying about 50 floors of Caretta Shiodome, a vast axe-shaped building, the Nippon Television Tower nearby, and other towers housing Matsushita Electronics and Nippon Express. This mushroom cluster of skyscrapers will be my home for a month. (Hisae's first thought: "I hope there aren't any earthquakes.")

Despite the freeways you see in the picture, this is a location ideal for cycling and walking; it's not far from the Ginza kabuki theatre, the Tsukiji fish market, and the terminal for the monorail to Odaiba, another mushroom district; Odaiba literally rose from Tokyo Bay on landfill. Expect reports on hatsu sakura, the first cherry blossom, live from Shiba Koen, at the foot of the nearby Tokyo Tower. I'm living for the spring -- my chance to get back to the future!

Comments

Melbourne

[metatherian.livejournal.com]

Momus have you ever been to Melbourne, Australia?

No earthquakes, and lots of cycling lanes... it's really common here to cycle as main transport including to shows at night and so on. Cheap rent too.
The population is about 4 million... you should visit.

Re: Melbourne

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'd like to -- I was asked to participate in a group show at the Blindside Gallery there last year, but they couldn't raise the cash to fly me in.

Re: Melbourne

[saint-claws.livejournal.com]

Pfft. Whatevazz. Sydney is way better. We have more pigeons than you could possibly dream of!

Re: Melbourne

[dzima.livejournal.com]

it's really common here to cycle as main transport including to shows at night and so on. Cheap rent too.

Sorry but you're describing somewhere else...

[saint-claws.livejournal.com]

I just arrived England. It's very ye olden here. How come you get to go to the future and I'm stuck in the past? They haven't even invented the sun yet over here.

[dzima.livejournal.com]

I always wanted to ask Alin why he chose to live there. The only reason I would go to Shinbashi was to catch the monorail... (same with Shinagawa, I'd only go there to visit the Hara museum).

I thought Nippori, Suginami or Kichijoji would be better suburbs, no?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm sure he'll be along soon to explain. It'll certainly make a change from Nakameguro, though.

[akabe.livejournal.com]

- partly it's the irony of it all.
- a no-suburb is conceptually better than a good suburb.
- just about every train passes by so with at the most one change i can be anywhere in japan. also you can always choose between 3 - 4 different ways to go to say shinjuku, or anywhere really, i can't handle routine.
- it's not a 'cool' area, there are far too many cool areas and cool people so it's good to keep a safe distance.
- it's next door to the nakagin capsel building.
- there's an odd energy comming from the fact that it was the first part of japan to be 'europeanized'. i quite like that, you can also feel it in kanda/jimbochou, which is probably my very fav part of tokyo.
- a walk along ginza douri on a traffic free sunday (which i don't do every sunday) reminds me of my positive, communist happy 70s childhood; people are genuinely happy and positive.
- it's oddly quiet. etc

[petit-paradis.livejournal.com]

the picture of the room with the books (no need for a mangapod here) could be straight out of tzusuki's TOKYO: A CERTAIN STYLE (my favourite book ever)



erik

[diggets.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind a close-up of those books... the titles I can read are books I have or have lusted after for years.

[cap-scaleman.livejournal.com]

Did you experience many earthquakes during your 2001-2002 visit?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

There were tremors, certainly. The windows rattle, things fall off shelves and the girls jump up off the futon shouting "Yada yada yada!"

(I slept on a single futon with two girls in those days. Oh, life can be cruel, life in Tokyo!)

[dubow-org.livejournal.com]

Is a wee wedding planned in the visit too?? :)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

A wee wedding? Does that involve golden bridal showers?

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

oi! wolfson! get off that upskirt escalator. bloody earthquake.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

sorry the other day, nick. i reckon you are better than bowie. best mates again. sweet as...

[(Anonymous)]

Tokyo is your much beloved city, but how relatively affordable is it to the Japanese who live in Japan (yes, jetsetting Westerners aide)? I wonder what the Japanese think of New York City ... if it's as exotic and wonder-inducing as Tokyo is over here.

New York City is pretty much off-limits now unless you work your brains out, live like your immigrant ancestors (6 to an apartment!), or have lots 0 cash. I live in the 1990s Lower East Side of today, and I can't imagine how anyone who isn't an American salarydude and single can afford it. If Tokyo's the same way, I can't imagine it being too much of a better opportunity for the people who actually live there.

[(Anonymous)]

Oh yeah, I also have an indescribeable urge to wail that kid at the top of this post right in the face. Just pound that smug, self-satisfied smirk into oblivion. "Ohhh, la de da, look at me, the cities of the world aren't enough ... poor, bored me!!!! I deserve better."

These are the people who _belong_ to the art world? No wonder the only good stuff is made by unfashionable outsiders.

Salut

[(Anonymous)]

oi, can you post the link to your IT culture essay,please...
wanna corroborate something with the mp3 lecture.

Thnks
Alexandre

Re: Salut

[imomus.livejournal.com]

There's no IT Culture essay per se, the lecture is here (http://imomus.com/momuslecture.mp3) and it's extemporized. It does, though, refer to Click Opera essays you can find if you google "imomus" plus terms like:

Relativism swings right
The US becomes situated
The Japanese are almost Japanese
The cosmopolitanism of the poor
Fatal MEETS vital

[(Anonymous)]

21 square metres is pretty damn tiny. I think I'd go insane if I had to live in a space that small for any length of time. Is this relatively normal in Tokyo?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It is. That's why you can never count on staying in a friend's guest bedroom in Tokyo. Nobody has one.

Then again, my apartments in Paris and New York weren't much bigger, or cheaper... and they had the disadvantage of not being in Tokyo.

[cardindex.livejournal.com]

Hello Momus,

I do hope this post finds you well. I read this with interest as I was hoping to do something similar next year. Have you embarked on the whole apartment swap thing before? How does it work out? I'd be faintly terrified that my swapee might feel short-changed by my attractive but small Berkeley cottage. How does one ensure that the cutlery drawer is free of pubic hair, etc.?

[cardindex.livejournal.com]

I should like to add that the last sentence was purely hypothetical. Potential swappers, please come and live in my immaculate house.

[cerulicante.livejournal.com]

I was looking forward to seeing you in Tokyo, but I turned down the job offer. Not everything I do revolves around money.


I am, however, looking into things in Okinawa. If I get there, come visit!

[bricology.livejournal.com]

Nick -- have you ever visited the Nostalgia Mall at the Decks Tokyo Beach complex in Odaiba?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if it's the same thing, but I've visited the antique cars section of the Italianate mall there. And the Edo village supersento...