Contra-bombast

[imomus]

When the Serpentine Gallery Pavillion opens on Sunday, it'll be Britain's first exposure to SANAA, the architectural team of Ryue Nishizawa and Kazuyo Sejima, responsible for New York's wildly successful New Museum.



Every July the Serpentine Gallery -- currently under the direction of the enlightened Hans Ulrich Obrist -- lets an architect erect a temporary pavilion in its Kensington Gardens enclosure. SANAA's, the ninth in the series, is certainly the least bombastic. As the Times' architecture critic Tom Dyckhoff explains in a video on the paper's site, the Japanese team has built a light plane of polished aluminium sloping modestly towards the ground across pillars and bendy plexiglass walls. The inside space, dotted with Nishizawa's white bunny chairs, merges inside and outside. From a distance, the mirrored structure seems to blend with the trees, like a calm sheet of reflective water.



Equally reproachful of bombast is the music of Otomo Yoshihide, the subject of a new documentary called KIKOE. Filmmaker Iwai Chikara (who also runs a club with Yoshihide) filmed the musician over ten years, building up 500 hours of footage of concerts, interviews and sessions, which he's edited down to 99 minutes. Chikara calls it "a document of a system observed from a fixed point" -- the fixed point being Yoshihide himself, and the "system" being collaborators like Sachiko M and Kahimi Karie. The film shows at Shibuya Eurospace later this month before heading out to European film festivals.

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Yoshihide is part of the No Input onkyo movement which shares a certain organic minimalism with SANAA's architecture. "I just wanna listen, no playing," as Sachiko M puts it, and I can imagine SANAA saying the same about Kensington Gardens -- their building really seems to want to listen to the park rather than dominate it.

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My final example of a Japanese dislike of bombast comes in the form of the documentary Jesus Camp, which we watched last night on the recommendation of Japanese friends. The Christian evangelicals depicted in Rachel Grady and Heidi Ewing's 2006 film probably won't surprise anyone -- they're a well-explored, even over-familiar subject, and for the moment they've lost their mainstream political capital -- but what I found interesting here were the cut-aways to a Japanese studio discussion in which a short-skirted woman exclaims to an expert how sorry she is for American kids whose ideologically-motivated home-schooling doesn't allow them to study art or music -- let alone Darwinian evolution -- and whose parents are so out of love with the world that they can't wait to die.

"It's truly scary that 25% of Americans think this way!" these Japanese commentators agree. A religion, or a culture, with a little more love for its surroundings -- and a little less bombast -- suits them better.

Comments

connecting the dots

[milky-eyes.livejournal.com]

I like your references... I am a fan of SANAA, and Yoshihide, and love where he took music... growing up, his music was a truly foreign influence... about the possibilities of music and thinking in general... which I learned a lot from.
The boredoms I learned a lot from. they were the first total rearranged vomit of american thought and context...
Out of all of their separate projects some of the members went on to do... which I like all of them... I think Yoshihide... kept something special the others didnt.
At least in the context of your post....

yup... I love that thought behind your references. And ah, the american lack of...? something is very sad... instead we have a very intellectualized learned sort of aesthetic... with has no heart....
this is my thought... we have 'art' and we have everything else. Art is special, and contains all that is special... everything else... is just a commodity. Plain and simple
In japan, there is a thing called craft (I'm calling 'it' that)... and it means that things in your life can have beauty and thought... experienced as something... not just commodity.... so yes... we are raised with no soul... which sometimes leads to cool discoveries... but also often a lack of understanding, of why life is worth living....

[endoftheseason.livejournal.com]

It's probably good that you wrote "a Japanese dislike of bombast," rather than "the Japanese dislike of bombast." The claim that "the" Japanese dislike bombast might be a pretty tough sell.

And, of course, there are such things as an Irish dislike of bombast, an English one, a Swedish one, an Icelandic one, an Argentinian one, a Portuguese one, a Brazilian one, a German one, a Scottish one, a Pakistani one, a Swiss one, an Eritrean one, a Kiwi one, and--gasp--an American one.

There is not, however, such a thing as a Canadian dislike of bombast.

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

To be fair, nowhere near 25% of Americans "feel that way."

[(Anonymous)]

It's more than 25% of Americans - you're forgetting who was in charge of the 2004 swingvote.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, I think when you put the symbol "%" and the word "feel" in the same sentence, you hit absurdity pretty quickly. Because how do you quantify the way people subjectively feel, and lump them in with others who "feel the same way"?

Worse, if you try to get more fine-grained about "the way Christians feel", you get into absurdist pedantry fairly quickly. Check this Christine Wicker article (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/christine-wicker/obama-wins-big-with-born_b_120761.html), which defines born-agains as "those who say they have made a personal commitment to Jesus Christ that is still important in their life today and who also say they believe they will go to Heaven because they have confessed their sins and have accepted Jesus Christ as their savior are classified as born-agains" (note that changing "say they have made..." for "have made" would change the numbers) and then lays out this incredibly complicated set of qualifiers for "evangelicals", a subset within "born-agains":

1. their faith is very important in their life today
2. they have a personal responsibility to share their religious beliefs about Christ with non-Christians;
3. they believe Satan exists
4. they believe eternal salvation is possible only through grace, not works
5. they believe that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life on earth
6. they assert that the Bible is accurate in all that it teaches.
7. they describe God as the all-knowing, all-powerful, perfect deity who created the universe and still rules it today.

Oh shit, I was all set to be counted with the evangelicals, except that I describe God as the all-knowing, all-power and pink deity who created the universe and still rules it today. The quality of mercy is not dkfkljjuoioiff!

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Well, not to mention the fact that some absurd number of people in the U.S. claim to attend church regularly, but while there are a good many churches in America, there aren't possibly enough to hold them all.

Evangelicals have had some of the best PR over the last several years, because they've somehow hoodwinked "serious" people into thinking that they're a game-changing vote in elections, when in actuality the people who call themselves "evangelicals" are always going to vote for republicans anyway. This PR is about getting them a seat at the table for policy discussions, but honestly, even the republicans play their asses. All they really ever get is lip service.

[(Anonymous)]

Amen.

Telly-ban(?)

[(Anonymous)]

It's amazing to think that even a band as politically empty as the Eurythmics satirised American telly evangelists in the 1980s - everyone was doing it - but not a single artist has spoken out against the Taliban - who forbid girls from school after age 8, blow up Buddhist monuments - the list is endless.

When did pop music get so morally disgusting?

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, I've certainly spoken out against the Taliban! (http://playgroundmag.net/especial/5214/escandalizando-al-taliban-del-buen-gusto-momus)

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[(Anonymous)]

Interestingly the Dutch forces in Afghanistan, stressing reconstruction, civility and aid rather than force, are the only group who gained and held ground - where the US, and the Russians before them, failed to. Sincerely apologise for ruining someone's mulberry grove and you've got a village on your side. Post-bombastic combat?

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[(Anonymous)]

you can't sincerely apologize to people who sincerely want to rid the world of your infidel ways,
and put your women in garbage bags with two holes cut out for eyes, and keep them house-bound with the windows boarded and nailed shut. somehow, i don't think they'll accept anything less than that...

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[(Anonymous)]

You wouldn't act with civility to the local tribes, with no strong allegiance with the Taliban, even to get them on your side?

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[(Anonymous)]

sure. that's a different story. and in fact, there's been talk recently that the local populations are getting fed up with the taliban's shenanigans themselves.

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[(Anonymous)]

dont know about musicians' speaking out against the taliban, but i love the story martin amis tells about how he asked an audience to raise their hands if they felt morally superior to the taliban, and he recalls how only a couple of people could muster the courage to do so.

talk about sniveling, spineless, apologist liberals...not even willing to pass judgement on the fucking taliban!!!

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Feeling morally superior to anyone puts you in grave danger of what the Christians used to call "spiritual pride". It gets worse when rich people sit around in a room feeling morally superior to poor people, and worse again when rich people sit around in a room feeling morally superior to poor people they're currently at war with. And when the "smugness conductor" standing at the "smugness podium" is Martin Amis, well, it's vomit time, folks!

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[(Anonymous)]

And yet you could be one of the few people who come across as even more professorially smug in your opinions than Amis. Come on Momus, surprise us! Write about something admirable in American culture, and then pirouette into a nice neat binary about how the Japanese get the same thing all wrong.

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I'M NO FLIP FLOPPER!

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[(Anonymous)]

as you know, the christians have no monopoly on spiritual pride. you're showing your cards, nick.

funny, too, your spinning it into a "class thing"---how about affulent muslim clerics and poor progressives? they don't fit your argument, i see.

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[(Anonymous)]

they're not sitting around feeling morally superior to the Taliban because the Taliban are POOR. get serious, man.

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

To be fair, the war is at least *supposed* to be against a group of religious fundamentalists, not the entire population of Afghanistan. You can, I think, feel morally superior to those attempting to harness another nation for their own reasons without extending that feeling to that nation's entire population.

Not that I have any time for Amis.

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

You don't have to feel superior in order to be superior. You don't need an excess of pride in your ideals in order for those ideals to be the right ones.

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Because these days, if you don't have the platform to speak out in a nuanced way, you risk emboldening stupid pointless imperialist politics of the West as well. Sure, pop artists could come out against the Taliban, but do they really want to risk coming off as apologists for the USA at the same time? It's a much trickier proposition than railing against televangelists.

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

Well, this is the whole issue.

Certainly under Bush, most pop people didn't want to *appear* to be on the side of neoconservatism. I certainly didn't. On a purely aesthetic level, the memories of the moralistic chairidee records of the 1980s - disavowed in the '90s and never re-evaluated - are also enough to make most pop people who were children when they were made come up in a rash. I couldn't dispute that pure moralism almost always leads to bad music.

But there is also the fact that a lot of pop people - certainly all those who'd regard themselves as on the Left - are embarrassed about what cultural and aesthetic side - that of neoliberalism and the erosion of the public sphere in the West - their music tends to be on in practice, even if not in theory. In the UK there is also an underlying sense of post-imperial inferiority. So the point you make is definitely true - some pop people would rather be seen as pro-romanticisation of those who rebel against the West than pro-neoliberalism, even though the latter encourages and promotes pop whereas the former usually suppresses it, *precisely because* they can't face what their own music has become.

Had it been Gore leading the US campaign against the Taliban, there may have been more of an anti-Taliban stance in pop, because the US side of the debate wouldn't have been led by someone who seemed every bit as anti-pop as the Taliban, just for Christian Right reasons.

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[krskrft.livejournal.com]

Well, it's also kind of a hallmark of the conservative right in America to call for denunciation from those who are least responsible to do so. Silence doesn't mean that you're okay with whatever is happening around you. There are a lot of things that pop stars could denounce, but honestly, I'd much rather see my politicians and journalists do that, since their role is tied pretty directly to making and commenting on policy. Also, being against the Taliban is just obvious on its face. Asking people to denounce it--just like asking people to denounce Saddam Hussein, as if, pro-Iraq War or not, anybody ever loved the guy--is pure blowhardery. Its only function is to make it look like you've "won over" the artist class, that you've been successful in spreading your warhawk ideals to yet another subset of the population. Silence is golden in this type of situation.

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

Yes.

Aesthetically, almost all the best pop is made by those whose "moral" stance - even when it comes to questions of whether or not pop itself would be allowed to flourish - is ambiguous at best. I don't see how it could be any other way, and I wouldn't want it to be. Entertainers making Big Statements is usually a way of hiding far bigger cracks, especially among the political elite (this applies to any country where such a thing happens, btw).

Re: Telly-ban(?)

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

Which Eurythmics song was that? Took me a while to remember, but I'm guessing "Missionary Man" (though I initially thought you'd got confused with - shudder - "Jesus He Knows Me" by The Phil Collins Band, as they were by that time).

As I say below, all this stuff is deeply politically ambiguous, and opens a million questions about the posturings of pop, and the radical chic that has developed in certain pop circles around the romanticisations of regimes that wouldn't allow *any* form of pop.

[fishwithissues.livejournal.com]

i liked that trailer. very self-conscious in a not annoying way.

[(Anonymous)]

I dont see the Japanese having any more "love" for their surroundings; fervent exploitation of natural resources seems quite ok with the population of the world's second largest economy.

[subalpine.livejournal.com]

seeing Otomo in this trailer reminded me -
i'm curious if you've ever been told you bear any resemblance to Axel Dörner?
last year when i was at the Ftarri Festival, i thought for a moment that i saw you (from across the room) - of course as soon as this man stood up and turned out to be much shorter (and holding a trumpet), the resemblance was gone..

i doubt anyone would mistake the two of you up close (esp. while your head is shaved!), but..

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Hmm, not really seeing it (http://www.dinamo-festival.com/imagens/axel_doerner.jpg). If I look like him, I look like half the population of Germany!

[subalpine.livejournal.com]

ok, true enough!

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

The strange thing is (and I experienced it myself, though not for hippie-ish reasons) that home schooling in the UK - or home education as it is more usually known here - has tended to be the territory of a certain sort of idealistic leftist, often living in mid-Wales, who want to give *more* time to the study of art and music than the inflexible, arch-utilarian current school setup here allows. Certainly that was a freedom my mum took advantage of, though not at the expense of (the then-new) National Curriculum.

There are some US-style Christian fundamentalist parents who keep their children out of school because they think it is an agent of an anti-Christian state, that it promotes multiculturalism etc., and Peter Hitchens (perhaps our most right-wing newspaper columnist) has been trying to drum up support for home schooling based on those criteria, but I cannot see Christian fundamentalism dominating the home education movement here to the extent that it appears to in the US. We simply don't have enough of them.

[robincarmody.livejournal.com]

For which I am eternally thankful, of course!