Joy riding, a just act of social practice

[imomus]

We lunched with San Francisco gallerist Chris Perez yesterday at Shiroto Sepia Cafe, run by the Shiroto no Ran (Amateur Revolution) collective -- slightly less revolutionary than their name implies, they're a group of Koenji secondhand dealers. The food was tasty and incredibly cheap -- just 350 yen for green curry!



Chris mentioned that he'd been to some events that Californian artist Barry McGee had been hosting at the Watarium over the weekend. One detail pricked our ears -- Barry had collected a heap of bikes found abandoned at railway stations, taken them to a bike shop to get them fixed and altered, then left them unlocked outside the Watarium for anyone to use. This radical act of reappropriation fitted right into McGee's street art theme, itself a kind of "amateur revolution" (on Saturday night he was showing slide projections of tagging and graffiti, analysing each illegal scribble as if it were by Leonardo).



So we headed down to the Watarium and, sure enough, there were two unlocked bikes outside. Strange beasts they were too. One was a slim racer with odd curly handlebars and no brakes whatsoever. The other was a weird massive tandem hybrid, a sort of long low drag racer with a wooden surfboard platform at the front. We decided this was the one to take, and climbed aboard.



We wobbled through Harajuku, Aoyama and Shibuya on this thing, turning admiring heads wherever we went. The rack-and-pinion steering took a while to master, and the caged pedals were scary, but we got to the Apple Store in one piece (well, two) and I performed my show, even making an announcement from the stage about the free bikes outside the Watarium.

But when Hisae took some friends round to see the bike where we'd left it, the beast was gone. Some kids from a secondhand clothes store told us the police had come with a guy called Eric, that the museum had reported Barry's art bike missing, and that we were wanted criminals. When I mailed Chris Perez about it, he said we'd taken the wrong bike. "On the West Coast people are calling the new performance art "Social Practice," he added. "I think you've committed a just act of social practice."

Joy riding, social practice, street art, amateur revolution or just plain old crime -- call it what you will, and look out for Wanted posters of Hisae and me outside police stations next to hatchet-faced mugshots of Aum Sect members and petulant deliquent taggers. Sorry, Barry, but next time do remember to lock your amazing bike! What a buzz that beast is to ride!

Comments

[eptified.livejournal.com]

That is beautiful.

[(Anonymous)]

how was the apple store live? was planning to be there till it turned out to be the 4th rather than the 6th...

Shibuya Live

[hadleyburg.livejournal.com]

I was there - It was the first time I'd seen Momus live. There were a few of the Momus crowd there. I also talked to a couple of others who used to listen to Shibuya-kei in their teenage years and had come because of that. There were some artists, designers, media folk there too.

I really enjoyed the music. Momus puts some intensity into the performance. I don't mean to say that he closes his eyes, lifts his head and makes it "real". I mean that he doesn't relax while on stage. I was interested in the way he (subconsciously?) moved his head up and down at the end of lines for a vibrato effect. I sensed a David Bowie influence in the way he acted a lot on stage.

I was expectin about 30 minutes, but it went for at least an hour. The Apple hardware made for a good backing track, but also I wondered if Momus ever plays concerts with a guitar these days.

From memory, songs included Corkscrew King, Voyager, Giapponese A Roma. Bantam Boys, Born to be Adoreed, Hang Low, Nervous Heartbeat.

Momus - You should probably come and live in Japan for a few years. You seem to be stimulated by the place and in many way you feel at home here. Have you considered doing that?

- Lex

Re: Shibuya Live

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You should probably come and live in Japan for a few years. You seem to be stimulated by the place and in many ways you feel at home here. Have you considered doing that?

I am indeed considering that. I simply adore Tokyo. Every moment here is precious, and every hour contains serial revelations.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

It was a bundle of fun. I usually do a bit of the old "glass wall mime" thing, but under that glass staircase there really was a glass wall! So I got to do the "imagine a glass wall is in front of me" gestures -- with a real glass wall in front of me! Then squeeze my face flat against it...

[diggets.livejournal.com]

Anyone who leaves an art bike unattended in SF has got to expect it to be borrowed -- perhaps permanently. It's part of the art, baby.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

lulz.

Everytime I see someone paint a wall white here in London I get exactly the same sorta feeling.

[(Anonymous)]

I've been thinking these days, that I want art that scares the living piss out of the suffocating comfortable, upper middle class types ... which is 99% of the creative world these days. A real revolution in creativity, rather than new brand strategies like "amateur revolutions" or "Social Practice" that really just keeps driving art market sales.

What threatens them the most ... hmmm... would burning down their $1,000,000 San Francisco lofts be considered performance art? People say _real_ new movements in creativity and thought happen when people start getting crushed under the weight of society, and man, I think that's starting to happen now.

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"I've been thinking these days, that I want art that scares the living piss out of the suffocating comfortable, upper middle class types."

Anymore boring cliches you want put into motion? Erotic gay art featuring Jesus christ perhaps? That would shake those art snobs up.

[hiljaaa.livejournal.com]

I've dreamed for a bike I could easily move big things cause I have no car. And bike you can drive when you're yopparai.

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Inmate: "What are you in for, pal?"

M: "Deconstructing without a license."

[kumakouji.livejournal.com]

"just 350 yen for green curry!"

You have to love Tokyo for its integrity in terms of price and quality when it comes to food. 350 yen is about £1.50.

Here in London, it's a different story. Wagamama for example, will charge you £10 for a bowl of ramen, it's insane when you think that in Tokyo, ramen is a street food you can buy from Ramen stalls for about 500 yen which is £2.50. And I'm aware that the cost of living inflates the price of goods, but Tokyo is just as expensive as London in terms of cost of living... there's no excuse.

Another trend that's picking up here is the American custom of a "service charge" ie. compulsory tipping. It's a shitty, greedy practice where instead of the management paying the serving staff a decent wage exclusing tips, they include the "service charge" into the salary ie. tips are now counted as part of the salary.

In Japan, tipping isn't done at all because the serving staff are expected to provide excellent service as standard, no incentive.

Tipping

[(Anonymous)]

Also, the Govt accepts tipping as part of the minimum wage, so waiters could be paid a good deal less than what is legal in other work, and then have to make it up. That is bloody outrageous.

- Stephen Parkin (not a waiter, by the way).

[(Anonymous)]

"Tokyo is just as expensive as London in terms of cost of living..."

Nonsense!

[flying-squid.livejournal.com]

Good artists borrow, great artists steal their bikes!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

A lovely review of the Apple show (in Italian, with more photos) is here (http://www.baroccogiapponese.com/blog/?p=185). There's even a schematic diagram!

[(Anonymous)]

2 years ago in Roppongi, some friends of mine took part in some Social Practice, making use of 3 abandoned bikes with flat tires in an attempt to ride back to our hotel in Shibuya. Had my one friend not made his initial borrowing attempt on a police bike (putting it back after finding it's lock) we would have made it. Instead, we spent the night in jail.

A very pleasant experience. No handcuffs, nice conversation and some coffee drinks.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Perhaps I was secretly hoping to be given life imprisonment in Japan for this and get to stay here forever!