The world after 800,000,000 years

[imomus]

The lecture I gave on Tuesday at Future University was about sound and music, but mostly about frames; how a lot of 20th century art was about repositioning frames. Someone asked why I was so interested in John Cage, and I described how I'd first encountered Cage -- at a Cage festival in Rome. It was under the Capitol Hill, in the open air. David Tudor came out to play the piano, but instead of opening the lid and playing notes, went round the back and ran a microphone up and down the strings. Cage and Tudor literally framed the piano for me in a fresh way that evening; they put a frame around the back instead of the front.

I illustrated the lecture with the piece I made (in collaboration with Florian Perret, currently teaching in China, as you'll see if you follow that link) for MoCA's Digital Gallery a couple of years ago, Suffusia. I picked Suffusia because it shows a lot of different frames. There's the slide projector screen, the framing device of the people watching (a masai tribesman, a woman scratching her bum), the looming presence in the background of Mount Fuji. By zooming the Flash file and dragging it around, I kept changing the context of the zany lecture depicted by changing the framing. A whole vista of topics opened up: context, irony, the relativity of meaning, whether the boundaries between different contexts are hard or soft, hostile or friendly, and so on.



The newest piece for MoCA's Digital Gallery is by Aya Takano. It's called The World After 800,000,000 years. (Switch off pop-up blocking when you go there, and switch up the sound, which, like the sound on Suffusia, has been compressed too much and is a bit woolly.) The plot is... well, I'm not quite sure. Aya says "After 800,000,000 years mankind was included too, all the creatures whom we knew fell for a while. However, the follows the way of the evolution agein. Curious things were done, and it evolved even to the creature who was about the same as the human being of the spider present." You just have to click through it, making sure you hold the mouse button down for a while (stuff happens). I like the alternative world it takes me into, a world where dreamy skinny girls seem to be the only remaining humans and sexy whimsy rules the planet. (No, not you, Lord Whimsy.) Wait 800,000,000 years for the real thing or live it now in Flash.

Speaking of Flash, I'm happy to hear that the first couple of Flash animations -- in which Click Opera readers animate Otto Spooky songs -- are nearing completion, 'Robin Hood' and 'The Artist Overwhelmed'. Expect to see something by the weekend or shortly after that.

Finally, as part of this journal's ongoing mission to convince everybody that Japanese women are the coolest people in the known universe, here's the Paris Hilton video by Mu. (As for Paris Hilton herself, I really have no idea who she is, what she looks like, or what she does. Let's reposition the frame to the song about her.)

Comments

[martymartini.livejournal.com]

That video is hilarious!!
In a totally different mood, but going along with the idea that japanese women are the coolest in the world, you might be interested in the works by Frederic Boilet, whose main subject is, of course, japanese women.
Here's a link to his website: http://www.boilet.net

[the-3am-blues.livejournal.com]

dur.. is that hilton link WORKSAFE?

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Yes. Guaranteed no Paris Hilton content. Just chicken dancing and people rollerskating and bouncing on beds by torchlight.

I'm not sexy? (snif)

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

I'm checking my shower for web cams. Again.

Ah, found it (For crying out loud, Nick--no one looks good from that angle!)

W

Re: I'm not sexy? (snif)

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You are being unneccesarily modest, Whimsy. I wasn't implying you weren't sexy, quite the reverse. As soon as I wrote the phrase "sexy whimsy rules the planet" I assumed people would get a mental picture of you astride a penny farthing, wearing a crown. It then became important to say that, in this instance, that was not what I meant. (No doubt an entry will arrive one day when it isnecessary to talk about that delightful scene.)

Re: I'm not sexy? (snif)

[lord-whimsy.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you. Powers returning...huzzah, sexy once more! Oh, sweet relief!

(Blast--shaved my chest for naught...)

W

Mu

[(Anonymous)]

Impressive/amusing video, but I wasn't too impressed by their newest album, 'Out of Breach'. The tracks go on too long without developing. And this is coming from someone who thinks 'Afro Finger Gel' is one of the greatest albums of the past five years. That had dense tracks brimming with musical ideas. What happened to all the tribal drumming?

Re: Mu

[(Anonymous)]

The tribal drumming got eaten by Mu, like probably everything else in this world if we let her. I like this album a lot better than the other one.
The girl looks voracious. Nick, i'm listening to this song like 5 times a day and i have had to reconstruct the real paris hilton through it (like you, i had only a vague idea of who she is)

mario

Objects.

[(Anonymous)]

isn't it just the objectification of Japanese women if you're not engaging them in their own native language? are they "the coolest" only because they look good and like you?

Re: Objects.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

You really think language changes everything? All the communication that shoots out of Aya Takano's Flash piece, or the Mu video, or a Yoko Ono performance like "Cut Piece" or the clothes worn by the girls at Cafe Soso, you think all that can be discounted? That a few words of nihongo would not only be more 'real' than that, but would transform people from objects (bad, right?) to subjects (good, right)? My friend, you not only over-rate language, you attribute magical powers to it.

Re: Objects.

[imomus.livejournal.com]

The Specular Self (http://www.livejournal.com/users/imomus/61117.html) was rather a good entry. It makes the point that one of the places misogyny is inscribed in Western culture is precisely in our tendency to over-rate the verbal and to under-rate the 'specular'. We do this by aligning language with things like 'depth, substance, content, conviction, authenticity' and appearances with 'surface, superficiality, form, deception, inauthenticity'.

Re: Objects.

[(Anonymous)]

For you to call Momus' interest in Japanese women (and not just women...many things Japanese) objectification, then I think it's safe to say that you haven't interacted with or befriended many Japanese women. Even if you take away language, you can still get to know the person well through other means of communication and by their mannerisms and overall aura. Some of my most meaningful connections are with a family and friend in Japan, and my girlfriend, who recently came to America from Korea.

Besides, there's no need to pretend that you don't take physical appearance into account. What's wrong with being attracted to black hair, a slight build, and pidgeon-toedness! Everyone has their preferences. And they are "the coolest," actually.

Patrick

Re: Objects.

[33mhz.livejournal.com]

No? How is it any more flattering to their worth as humans restrict your contact with the wild Nipponese Josei to select island game preserves in the sea of Japan?

[thetikigoddess.livejournal.com]

I never knew pop-ups could be so interesting!
I kept getting "Fantastic Planet" flashbacks.

[ortho-bob.livejournal.com]

If only I could achieve that blissful state where I didn't know who Paris Hilton was or what she looks like. (But I still don't think anyone knows what she does, or what she's for.)

momus on pictures

[(Anonymous)]

on the topic of animations, momus, I still would like to do some comics with your lyrics. but like I told you, I only know the old stuff. no chance for me to get otto spooky by now, here in brasil. any chance you publish the lyrics somewhere?
odyr

Re: momus on pictures

[(Anonymous)]

http://www.imomus.com/ottospooky.html

permission denied

[(Anonymous)]

when I click the 800000000years link I get the message: permission denied. or I get a black page with no futher options to click.



erio../

Re: permission denied

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Try disabling pop-up blocking.

on dark

[(Anonymous)]

does 'dark' always have to mean being bogged down by weighty gestures and Importance and tortured bloody hearts thrown about like scary molotov cocktails.

is it some kind of biased western skew to find mu's distorted howling - "leave michael jackson alone you stupid bitch!" - dark? or the zombies and giant disembodied heads and bloody girls in chiho aoshima works? i mean, these things are very playful and exuberant as well but at the very least, it seems hasty to reject the 'dark' signifier altogether as opposed to maybe thinking about how it's being deployed in perhaps unusual ways (maybe it is so far from brooding pj harvey song 'dark' that it can no longer be constituted under such a term... but i'm not sure about that).

Re: on dark

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Oh, yes, I wouldn't for a moment say there's nothing 'dark' in any of these women's work. But I think there's an embarrassment in the West at what the work is much more commonly about -- childishness, a kind of avant garde whimsy, cuteness, eco-themes, peace themes, sex themes. And I think this embarrassment leads us misconstrue the work, misread it wilfully. Reaching for an acceptable adjective, we all too easily find the word "dark". Reaching for an acceptable metaphor, we all too easily come up with "Godzilla". This is a great pity, because not only are we blocking out the messages in this work and disregarding the artists' intentions, we're refusing femininity itself at a time when we desperately need it.

Re: on dark

[w-e-quimby.livejournal.com]

Is there something wrong with "darkness?"

[(Anonymous)]

also aya takano has this one painting which is simply a bloody tampon. so that could be satire or a satire of the tendency towards satirical readings or the distinctly female positivity of menstruation?

see:
http://www.marichan.com/img/pf/men.gif

[imomus.livejournal.com]

Well, there's no way I'd call that a 'dark' image!

Aya/Drop Dead Cute

[newterritories.livejournal.com]

no doubt you've already seen this-- it includes aya takano, and is indeed as "cute" as the title promises, but i can't help but feeling like the editorial bits are a bit bland.

http://www.chroniclebooks.com/site/catalog/index.php?main_page=pubs_product_book_info&products_id=4885&store=books