The 3D man
May. 24th, 2007 12:52 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
imomus"You've really succeeded," I tell Florian Perret. "I always knew you would." You can see the talent in the sleeves he did for my albums Folktronic and Oskar Tennis Champion, or the visuals he made for my art projects for Zach Feuer Gallery and MoCA (I'm an artist not only without prices, but without visuals too!). The one thing I got wrong about Florian is that, back when I met him in New York in 2000, I thought he'd end up driving a BMW. That's what I told Kazumi, the girl he ended up marrying. In fact, he hates cars. These days, in Japan's most beautiful town, he's pushing his young son Karel around in a pram or riding a stunt bike past foxgloves and bamboo.
I spent Tuesday and Wednesday with Florian in Kamakura, Japan's one-time capital, a highly haunted and magical resort on the Pacific. He's living there in one house and renting another for his 3D production company, Alfabet. For the next couple of years he'll be working on the animation of a feature-length film for a major Japanese animation studio. His workspace is idyllic; a Swedish-style pine lodge in the low, densely-wooded hills just to the north of the town. It's an incredibly tranquil place, surrounded by the whooping calls of unseen exotic birds. The ground floor is all shiny new Macs, sketches of characters, CG software manuals. Upstairs there's a vast and noisy server shuttling files back and forth between Kamakura and Tokyo, and the guest bedroom where Hisae and I stayed. The 3D man is doing what he wants, and doing it brilliantly. He's rounded, making, and made.
Hisae and I rented Yamaha PAS City electric bikes on Wednesday and cycled out along the coast (the sun scorched me lobster red) to Enoshima, then surged over the wooded hills of Kamakura, seeing all the usual temples, caves, towers, giant Buddhas and so on. The PAS City is an amazing invention, a NiCad-charged beast that continuously monitors your pedaling and supplies spurts of power to the back wheel when you flick a switch at handlebar level. You can choose "feeble" or "zoom" (they aren't called that, of course). It's not like a motorbike at all -- the power complements your own pedaling intelligently. If you don't pedal, it doesn't help. The result is a bit like having bionic legs, or walking on the moon.
I spent Tuesday and Wednesday with Florian in Kamakura, Japan's one-time capital, a highly haunted and magical resort on the Pacific. He's living there in one house and renting another for his 3D production company, Alfabet. For the next couple of years he'll be working on the animation of a feature-length film for a major Japanese animation studio. His workspace is idyllic; a Swedish-style pine lodge in the low, densely-wooded hills just to the north of the town. It's an incredibly tranquil place, surrounded by the whooping calls of unseen exotic birds. The ground floor is all shiny new Macs, sketches of characters, CG software manuals. Upstairs there's a vast and noisy server shuttling files back and forth between Kamakura and Tokyo, and the guest bedroom where Hisae and I stayed. The 3D man is doing what he wants, and doing it brilliantly. He's rounded, making, and made.
Hisae and I rented Yamaha PAS City electric bikes on Wednesday and cycled out along the coast (the sun scorched me lobster red) to Enoshima, then surged over the wooded hills of Kamakura, seeing all the usual temples, caves, towers, giant Buddhas and so on. The PAS City is an amazing invention, a NiCad-charged beast that continuously monitors your pedaling and supplies spurts of power to the back wheel when you flick a switch at handlebar level. You can choose "feeble" or "zoom" (they aren't called that, of course). It's not like a motorbike at all -- the power complements your own pedaling intelligently. If you don't pedal, it doesn't help. The result is a bit like having bionic legs, or walking on the moon.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
yay
Date: 2007-05-24 06:50 pm (UTC)