Culture is the new nature

[imomus]

Yesterday I decided to go out and make field recordings in Hakodate town. It was sunny and cold, and thanks to some accidental-on-purpose disorienteering I ended up on a bus that took me to the airport, when in fact I'd planned to go to the Yunokawa hot spa resort. Luckily, the two are quite close to each other, so a short walk around the runway perimeter fence and a stroll along the seashore brought me to Yunokawa, and the Kanko Hotel, which has an outdoor pool supplied by hot natural onsen water. I had the place to myself and it was bliss.



My friend Jean Snow (the other blogger who looks on the bright side of Japan's 'inevitable terminal decline') has a piece today on how the new Chubu International Airport in Nagoya is getting ready to launch an observation bath. The Mainichi News takes up the story: "The bath is located on the fourth floor of the passenger terminal building and covers some 1,000 square meters. The roof is made of glass and it has windows on the side looking over the airport's runaway. Bathers will also have views of the nearby mountains and Ise Bay."

This is a fascinating development, not just for bathing but for the Japanese concept of nature. Sentos, onsens and rotenburo always frame nature for the serene contemplation of the bathers. But recently I've noticed technology replacing nature as a subject for serene contemplation. For instance, at Osaka's Bishoen onsen the warm pool has a window framing the nearby elevated subway station, and at Tokyo's Odaiba supasento the outdoor pool provides spectacular views of jets coming in to land at Haneda airport. These seem somewhat accidental, but at Nagoya's new Chuba airport it's deliberate.

When I first explained my 'sound gardening' concept to students at FUN, some were confused about what they were supposed to be recording. Was I after natural sounds, or cultural ones, they asked? I said I didn't really distinguish between the two. Is the sound of water in a drainage system natural or cultural? What about air flowing through a ventilation system? We live in a world where the natural and the cultural intermingle, where nature has been primped by man, and culture often has the grandeur of nature. I salute the designers of the Chuba airport for acknowledging this; for framing jets as if they were cranes, and runways as if they were mountains!

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Looking forward to a series of essays with titles like:

- War is the new Peace
- Poverty is the new Wealth
- Lies are the new Truth
- Stupidity is the new Intelligence

and so on ...

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

Calling a false dichotomy (natural/unnatural) a false dichotomy is not Orwellian.

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

The Buddha, the Godhead, resides quite as comfortably in the circuits of a digital computer or the gears of a cycle transmission as he does on top of a mountain or in the petals of a flower. -- Robert Pirsig

syncronicity.

[j03.livejournal.com]

Seem's similar in theme to this article by Freeman Dyson (http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/05/03/issue/magaphone.asp?trk=nl).

Re: syncronicity.

[(Anonymous)]

If that isn't hypermodernist hubris, I don't know what is ...

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

But jets aren't cranes, and runways aren't mountains.

Given a choice, I'll take "nature is the new culture", thank you.

W

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

How about anthills?

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

I'm a molehill man. Ever try to make a mountain from an anthill? Takes forever--although you have to admire the craft.

W

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

I try not to choose sides.

(quip edited for spelling)

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

A quisling, I say!

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

My dear man, my sympathies are warm enough to extend to all objects, particle or wave.

[stanleylieber.livejournal.com]

Obviously your cheek has never been slapped by a falling stalactite!

[(Anonymous)]

the u.k. has some of those nature & culture lovers too, they're called trainspotters.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Just think how much nicer they'd smell after a long hot bath! Of course, they wouldn't want to get their notebooks and cameras wet, and they'd have to leave their anoraks in the vestibule. They would also have to sign a document committing them to change their official title from 'trainspotter' to 'otaku'.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Chubu airport just spells more trouble for that beautiful loser (http://www.japaninc.net/print.php?articleID=1181) KIX.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

I flew from Kansai last September, and in addition to the cheap flight (to Hong Kong), dramatic setting, and Renzo Piano architecture, I was delighted by the absence of other passengers. Who needs Heathrow-style chaos (let alone the vile carpets)?

Yet another example of how a nightmare for service providers can be a consumer's dream.

[sparkligbeatnic.livejournal.com]

Spoken like a true man of the eighties.

But I agree, KIX is a very pleasant and attractive airport. The girls at the information desks are so bored they are especially fun to flirt with.

And I avoid Heathrow like the bubonic plague.

[cutup.livejournal.com]

"Art, as it were, is nature; as nature, so to speak, is art."

-Confucius (Analects 12.8)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Our old friend Bjork has entertained the same idea, convinced that cars and planes were waiting deep inside a mountain for us. And the Italian Futurists reacted to machines as the Romantics had reacted to nature.

[cutup.livejournal.com]

I misread one of your sentences the first times as "...where nature has been pimped by man..."

[(Anonymous)]

"Confucius is a trainspotter."

- Chuang Tzu

[subvert.livejournal.com]

I love the sounds of my city, especially on a snowy night. I really shouldn't restrict my view just based on the season though. I've enjoyed it in a variety of different conditions.

Live wire

[bugpowered.livejournal.com]

I always liked the sound of sizzling power lines
(we have a lot of those where I come from, could
be due to poor maintenance).

[subvert.livejournal.com]

We occasionally have bad ice storms when limbs fall into the tranformers at night. It basically causes an explosion, but then you get these bright flashes of electricity scattered around the city.

nature mindzz

[(Anonymous)]

i would like to share this!:
**
call for entries for Nature Mind a book and wearables about
the force of nature on us.

Nature Mind would like 2 invite you 2 submit drawings,
images, &/or written word 2 transform in 2 a book/wearables.
much & most of nature mind is to bee discovered. sun, moon,
acorn, fern, coral, pine, cosmos, reflect on nature & discover!
Nature Mind has no set deadlines. as things come in they will
come together to make Nature Mind and go back out in to the
world. a loose idea of a short run small photocopied/hand
printed book will be made sometime this summer, as well as
small runs of
t-shirts from the things submitted. i hope you consider
submitting you make wonderful things.

peace,
www.and-and-and.com

Re: nature mindzz

[mostlymeat.livejournal.com]

Culture is the new manure.