Learning from Japan

[imomus]

"Learning from Japan" is a theme I keep coming back to, a sermon I keep preaching. Opposed to the crude view I call "Japan Original Sin" (people who harp on about research whaling, war criminal shrines and textbook lacunae, and with whom one eventually, inevitably, ends up playing a futile game of Atrocity Snap), the "Learning from Japan" meme simply suggests that Japan's difference from Western practice is valuable, precisely, to the West. We can't learn anything from people who think as we do. For the same reason, men can learn more from women than they can from other men.



The architecture world will get a chance to learn from Japan -- and from a woman -- in 2010; SANAA's Kazuo Sejima has been chosen as the curator of The Venice Architecture Biennial. I'm pretty sure she's the first Japanese to get this job; she's certainly the first woman to do so. A clue to her focus comes in a brief statement she's released saying that "a significant point of departure could be the concept of boundaries and the adaptation of space... it could be argued that contemporary architecture is an afterthought and perhaps an easing of borders themselves." That's a fresh thought already; architecture as an easing of borders in a time when they're generally stiffening.



I blogged last week about a new book from Lars Müller, The SANAA Studios 2006-2008. Learning from Japan: Single-Story Urbanism. My title today comes from there. The blurb explains: "During three spring seasons between 2006 and 2008, Kazuyo Sejima and Ryue Nishizawa taught at the School of Architecture at Princeton. The SANAA Studios explored Japan's contemporary society as a context for architecture and considered its particular perspective on space, the personal and the public realm. Design exercises were situated within the specific demographics and social variables of three distinct sites in Japan...

"As an overall thematic it asks: What can we learn from SANAA?" Browsing the book at Pro-qm, I got the strong impression that what we can learn from SANAA is something to do with a relaxing, elegant lightness and understatement, something to do with minimalism and gentleness, and something to do with a feeling of calm that permeates Japan very noticeably whenever you spend time there. Iwan Baan's photographs of SANAA buildings filled with schoolchildren or middle-aged culture tourists made me think of Alasdair Gray's excellent maxim: "Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation."

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Momus, do you still buy music at all, whether it be a download, CD or LP? Or have you given up on it? What was the last piece of music you bought (ie not given to you or downloaded for free)?

Another question: what is your relationship with non-contemporary classical music? Would you ever sit down and listen with pleasure to a late Beethoven string quartet, for instance?

[(Anonymous)]

Yes Momus, we will learn from the Japanese! We will not mention the war! We will eat their ramen and fuck their women! We will visit their fine country from time to time! We will look at their pretty magazines, but not read them, since we can't read Japanese! We will refuse to learn their language, apart from guidebook pleasantries! We will force them to communicate with us in the master language, English! We will not read their books, because we can't and we don't want to! We will not live there!

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The last two CDs I bought were Arabo-Andaluse music in Madrid. I was disappointed when I listened to them (because I wanted the Atrium Musicae de Madrid, basically, and they weren't it) and left them at a friend's house, because they were cluttering up my luggage. I then proceeded to locate and download the actual Atrium Musicae de Madrid records I wanted via filesharing.

CDs seem ugly and over to me. I completely don't need them, have too many already, and find it annoying taking the plastic off -- or even carrying -- the ones people give me for free. They're a nuisance.

I don't like Beethoven at all. Complete deaf spot there, ha ha ha. I like Baroque and pre-Baroque, and I like modern from Schoenberg on.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You know in your heart of hearts that it's what the Japanese want.

[grzeg.livejournal.com]

Only look at the current Japanese architectural scene (http://www.japan-architect.co.jp/english/2maga/ja/ja0070/mainfr.html), regardless if they worked for SANAA, they all want to be like SANAA. Talented and hardworking students from Europe, North and South America, and Australia compete to work for SANAA for free (as is the custom for any internship at a Japanese firm, Japanese-native or not), and still get turned away because of the waiting list.

It is not a matter of whether the rest of architecture world has something to learn from Sejima – that’s been happening for a while (too bad it hasn’t been implementing that knowledge); it is time that she is given her due respect.

Gifu Housing Complex, Plum Grove House, 21st Century-Kanazawa, New Museum, Serpentine Gallery Pavilion… the curatorship of The Venice Architecture Biennial? Seriously: Give her the fucking Pritzker already.

[grzeg.livejournal.com]

The other thing...

learn more from women
learn from Japan
learn from SANAA

“Become like me, and I will respect your difference.”— Alain Badiou

[imomus.livejournal.com]

"The tolerance which tolerates only what's tolerable is both intolerant and intolerable." Momus

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Monarchs had, so to speak, materialized oppression: the democratic republics of the present day have rendered it as entirely an affair of the mind, as the will which it is intended to coerce. Under the absolute sway of one man, the body was attacked in order to subdue the soul; but the soul escaped the blows which were directed against it, and rose proudly superior. Such is not the course adopted by tyranny in democratic republics; there the body is left free, and the soul is enslaved. The master no longer says, "You shall think as I do, or you shall die": but he says, "You are free to think differently from me, and to retain your life, your property, and all that you possess; but you are henceforth a stranger among your people. You may retain your civil rights, but they will be useless to you, for you will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens, if you solicit their votes; and they will affect to scorn you, if you ask for their esteem. You will remain among men, but you will be deprived of the rights of mankind. Your fellow-creatures will shun you like an impure being; and even those who believe in your innocence will abandon you, lest they should be shunned in their turn. Go in peace! I have given you your life, but it is an existence worse than death."

Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (http://books.google.de/books?id=ZID9VvvWiaIC&pg=PA117&lpg=PA117&dq=toqueville+free+henceforth+stranger&source=bl&ots=mSqlKKlTsF&sig=1Y8tBXf4_RoQSelnTdgdiwq8I5E&hl=en&ei=3Fv5Sqe7JdTJ_galt6G-DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CAoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=henceforth&f=false)

[grzeg.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that’s a mantra that’s no stranger here... was actually going to quote it, but no need!

Like that lovely quote of yours, the idea that we should be told what to learn from difference and from who to learn it from, or even be told ‘learn from difference’ is itself contrary to the spirit of diférence, which is paradoxical/ironic…

‘Learning for Las Vegas’, ‘Learning from Lagos’, ‘Learning from Akihabara’ were provocations, not manifestos or imperatives. The "Learning from Japan" meme is still valid, I guess ‘Japanization’ (Kojève) is gaining ground, though I guess Japanization of the world as a type of homogenization is not a bad thing in your book (?).

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oh, as soon as something flips over into monopoly status it begins to be something I challenge and resist. Japanization is very far from being any sort of global homogenization, and I think never will be.

It's funny, I just spent the last couple of hours posing for a photo de:bug magazine (http://de-bug.de/) here in Berlin will use for their upcoming Japan special. I was interviewed talking about Japan-in-Berlin, and photographed sitting in a Buddha-like pose on tatami mats, wearing my Japanese carpenter trousers and tabi shoes. I suppose if Japan ever takes over the world I will look like an imperialist. But I only adopted this pose in the secure knowledge that Japan will never take over the world.

The end of geography

[(Anonymous)]

The world's eyes are on Berlin. Momus is in Manchester, via Japan!

We currently represent people in parliament using a geographical bloc. But do my opinions echo everyone in my constituency? Of course not. In the digital age geography has changed meaning. Formerly used to offer me some kind of voice, geography is now used to silence me, secure me in tiers of compromise as representatives get unnecessary. "You will never be chosen by your fellow-citizens" – why should anyone be? Perhaps they know that the president is just a king with a shelf life.

from shanghai

[(Anonymous)]

her latest work desu
http://www.mot-art-museum.jp/eng/2009/bh01/index.html

Re: The end of geography

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The world's eyes are on Berlin.

I found all those celebrations plastic and hollowly triumphalist. The message was very much "we have nothing to learn from the former communist nations that stood here twenty years ago and everything to teach them".

We should instead be looking at what was good, lasting and valuable about those societies, and trying to incorporate those elements into our own future. Because there were remedies being prepared in those prematurely-terminated societies which answer our gravest maladies with some acuity and precision.

[grzeg.livejournal.com]

“I like how I don't like how your mind works!” – (Google seems to attribute this to you)

Alexis de Toqueville’s Democracy in America, his commentary on nineteenth-century America, noted the tendency of Americans toward the organizational structuring of social life, and, this tyrannical idea of democracy, far from the fantasy/idealized idea of democracy, that, ironically, is being forced on the world (itself an irony… democracy at a barrel of a gun). Today, these tendencies of structuring social life or ‘democracy’ is shared across societies worldwide… the core thesis of his book is that the main dimensions of what came to be codified in the term ‘globalization’, is now so routine, that one tends to talk about social life in a global frame than in a local or national one, rather than “(t)he architecture world will get a chance to learn from Japan”.

What I guess I am saying is that it should not be ‘learn’, but ‘learning’, something implying that this is continuous and reciprocal, not as if it’s instructional, ‘good for you, because I say so’. 'Sejima', 'the Japanese', 'women' are not here to ‘teach us a lesson’ (also, who is this 'architecture world'? Who is this 'we' that can learn from SANAA?), that this binary of ‘they’ are going to teach ‘us’ (implicit hierarchy of who is instructing whom, who knows better, who has the Knowledge…) is more harmful than helpful.

kunokuniya reference

[(Anonymous)]

I have to thank you for the reference the other day. Visiting Kunokuniya made my trip to new york that much more meaningful. As you know, it's quite enchanting. living in Richmond, there are only japanese in sushi places. quite a transport. compared to greenwhich village or anywhere else generally in manhattan, kunokuniya was a much needed oasis of calm. ('oasis of calm': did i read that here?)
Ben
-even the lighting, which was refracted, speaks to the difference in aesthetics I think you're talking about in today's post. It may be small, but to me it's a world of difference.

heart of hearts

[pay-option07.livejournal.com]

I
Their spirits are quite good at sizing up foreigners and giving them what they want. It is very surprising and comfortable to grasp that they know us so well.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

“I like how I don't like how your mind works!” – (Google seems to attribute this to you)

Yes, that's one of mine! And you've situated it perfectly in this lineage / thread of quotes!

I agree with you about "knowledge exchange" rather than "teaching", though we veer dangerously near, here, to curatorial clichés about "establishing dialogue" and so on.

[(Anonymous)]

You talk about challenging yourself and learning from those who think differently from us. You've mentioned Japan in that context a good hundred times at least. You surround yourself with people who already think like you (despite living in a predominantly arabic neighborhood your relationship with that neighborhood seems to be mostly that of a tourist, what with a large Japanese influence in the house and your "work-place", such as it is, being dominated by people on your exact wavelength).

Try going into the pit of a hardcore punk show this weekend. Try going to an auto-dealer and trying out a fast car. Try getting a part-time job as a manual laborer. Get involved in grass-root politics. Make a conscious effort to like an artist you've always hated (it can't be sort-of-liked-him - it has to be someone like Damien Hirst)

And most important of all: Stop handing out maxims when you're unwilling to commit to any serious change yourself.

[(Anonymous)]

From an '81 interview with David Sylvian:

D: I am interested in this "society" thing of Japan. I think up 'til now in all the countries I've been it's the only country which have been doing a well society. It's a deeply interesting thing. I see why Japan has been a well society, and also I can understand why young kids dislike growing up in Japan's social environment. For a social system to run smoothly, usually sacrifice will have to be made though you won't realize it when you're young. In Britain there's completely no discipline between one another, and there's no feeling of community.

Q: I think it's probably because individualism has been too widespread and overdone in Britain or in Europe……

D: Yeah, it's been overdone. Everyone is all after freedom which is in fact unnecessary. Because people have always seen themselves as free, therefore being free also has been considered to be the most important thing. But it's not so at all. People have been depending too much on being an individual and the freedom to choose what one wants to do. To me, I don't think these things are important. I think I can go on living in a community environment if I could be one strong enough person. I believe no one would want their characters to be repressed by others. But I feel that people whose minds aren't stable, themselves can't do anything but to prove that they are independent individuals.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, Momus! Go hang out with some neocons for a change!

On another note, why do you think Japanese women have sexual capital in the West, but Japanese men have none (not in a heterosexual context, at any rate)? What do you think that says about the West?

Also, what do you think Japan has to learn from the West?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

And most important of all

Well, you raise some good points, but they're all likely to become tail-chasingly paradoxical when examined a little more closely. I'm reminded of the Howard Devoto maxim: "My mind ain't so open that anything could crawl right in". Which he followed, incidentally, with another one: "The last place to loose yourself is in the world where we all... swim, swim, swim, swim..."

If absolutely anything can crawl right into my mind, is it still "my mind", or is it just a swamp and a sponge? I think the next line provides guidance: loose yourself rather than "lose" yourself, but don't do it in the crowd, the place where everyone else is doing it. Choose somewhere somewhat marginal. But didn't I choose this giver-of-advice carefully so that he would give me the advice I was already inclined to take? Certainly! And that's exactly how I would expect my own maxims to be received: by people who basically agree already, but hadn't quite formulated their beliefs as neatly as that. I long ago gave up trying to battle and bully people (on bully-tin boards, for instance) around to beliefs they find toxic.

Nevertheless, and with all that said, the Japanese do think differently from me. My respect for them is based on a mutual complementarity, not on overlap. I really do "like how I don't like how their minds work". And I'm quite proud of formulating it that way. It was useful to me to encapsulate quite a complicated relationship in nine words. It might even be useful to you, who knows? You might end up liking how I don't think the way you do, rather than being irritated by it, or trotting out the umpteen billionth charge of HYPOCRISY.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Those are big questions!

The "why Asian guys can't get girls in the West" question is dealt with in some depth in this Click Opera entry (http://imomus.livejournal.com/451895.html).

Japan learns from the West on a daily basis. Everyone learns from the West on a daily basis, because the West is the current -- but dwindling -- hegemon.

[(Anonymous)]

Such a shame. I really want to live there and learn all there is to learn about their language and read all their books and bring my children and teach in an university, but I know in my heart of hearts they don’t want me to :(

(but I’m going anyway)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

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On re-listening I see that it actually says:

The last place to lose yourself is in the world where we all cling

So I heard what I wanted to hear, basically.

Re: The end of geography

[(Anonymous)]

The more Soviet and east European culture I see, the more I think that their lives paralleled the west much more than we admit (a Sixties full of optimism, a Seventies with housing shortages and strife. I've even seen 1980s Soviet films return to 1950s retro, which I thought was a meme only the West had) but with security, equality and so on.

(Although didn't some pro-west east German say, upon the demise of the intelligentsia, "You don't need academics when you've got Greenpeace" ie capitalism uses action not theory).