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

[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.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Actually, having written that I immediately got an email inviting me to an opening here in Berlin on Friday night of an exhibition by photographer Zoren Gold and his girlfriend Minori (http://www.mi-zo.com/fashion/main.html). And Hisae and I once did stay in Zoren's guest bedroom. He's rents a family-sized detached house on top of a hill in Nakameguro. But he's the exception.

[(Anonymous)]

Hmmm... a city where everyone has to live in rabbit hutches can't be all good.

I don't know about New York, but I live in Paris and most people I know manage to live in comfortably-sized apartments. I live with my girlfriend in 75 sq. metres, which is common enough among my friends, few of whom earn huge salaries.

[(Anonymous)]

(obviously we're not living in the 5th or 6th or anything, we're in the 10th - most of my friends live in the 10th or 11th or 13th)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I lived ten years ago at 13 Place du Tertre in Montmartre (don't laugh!) and the apartment was about 28 square metres, I think. Still, it felt big because you had a view out over the dome of the Sacre Coeur.

[nicepimmelkarl.livejournal.com]

check out the fernsehspiel, mein junge. guter freund.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Karl mate I reckon you have just invented the thing that comes after postmodernism. Now the only question is what do we call it?

[cheapsurrealist.livejournal.com]

Tubeism

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Patamodernism.

[klasensjo.livejournal.com]

Tropikarlia!

By the way, the sushi you can get close by the Tsukiji Fish Market early in thw morning is to die for. Melts in your mouth.