Saturday was a funny one. I had to work in the morning - 9:30 till 12:30. I left my house with ample time knowing it is much easier to negotiate the bus, tube, train trio on the sabbath. However what i failed to realise was that we start at 9 on saturday (although i was on chat to a bud who was far too preoccupied with his latest Larry Leven discovery or some such bollox to answer my enquiry as too when we do start on Saturdays!). Anyways, further setback ensued when the district line changover at Notting Hill was somewhat setback by a complete closure of this part of the station. I am a goose here - I do not know how to put this city together at all - so when i encounter an event like this i am not sure what to do. I call my pal and suggest telling the boss I will be late. I am late - 1 hour late. It did not go down well. I was scolded with words from boss man and my defence of being a foreigner went down as well as Chris Langham's "research" plea! A great way to start the weekend.
So that was all fine, really boss man is a good egg - he is just trying to whip us into some form of french cuisine and that understand.
After work I headed to Hyde Park on 'the other side of town' in the early afternoon. The Serpentine gallery has an Anthony Mc Call exhibition on at the moment. Featuring 'Line Describing a Cone' (of course) along with other works of this nature, a few videos and the planning sketches for various pieces all of which was an immensely satisfying 1 hour in the West.
At this point i decide to walk around Hyde Park and noddle around with my recently aquired digital camera (the last digital camera I owned is now somewhere deep in the ocean having been lost in the sand one new years eve at Venus Bay during Rodney Coopers somewhat legendary burning o the Wicker Man!). Anyway walk, snap, walk, snap, adjust, learn, fail, snap etc... What did strike me was some 'lads' in the park 'donning' Australian Flags, 'downing' Fosters and 'kicking' the footy - what the? I had heard this side of town is where most Australians migrate too but what was this? it soon dawned on me - Australia Day. I had been mocked earlier in the week by a card at work: "What you doing Sat Mark?", "Wear some Zinc Cream?", A few pints at "Walkabout?" etc ...
So it dawned on me that these boys were embracing a culture that is in vast minority here and bringing it to the english with all the tact of a Will Smith feature. Anyway, whatever, but it continued everywhere i went, Notting Hill, the Tube stations, the Streets were packs of Ouzstralians sinking fosters (?) - c'mon cats look further you can get Coopers here - Fosters is shit! And of course they got louder and looked more ridiculous as the day progressed. It was the colonial equivalent of 'The Ugly American' and all of the calls that have been made to me by mates, peers etc all came into focus. This is the Australia they see. It's the Australia that Australia likes to export, it's fine for some, but holyfuckamoly it can be frustrating when witnessed over here with so many curious cultures on display.
Anyway to be excpeted I guess. No surprises here, moving right along....
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And in more farewell news, David Day - the founder of The Monks shuffled on last week.
This video of The Monks live on German TV is a cracker indeed:
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On occasion I prefer uploading a video or image with no explanation. The one above I have decided otherwise. I put this on here as I see this as a wonderful contemporary example of 'the uncanny'. The video is by Rina Katase, a Japanese lady that specialises in "Kigurumi" as a fetish exploration for those that way inclined. I am not in this way inclined but i do find the strange atmosphere created by this video compelling.
Kigurumi is a japanese phenomenon in which the person wears a full body suit to look like anime: "The outfits consist of a full bodysuit that covers the whole body, usually a fleshtone color. Some performers use suits that cover the full face, and some have an open face or eye holes only. Next comes a character costume with accessories. Some characters are not based on a particular anime, so they may use regular clothing as well. Finally, the kigurumi mask covers the head, and a wig completes the look".
I am fond of this video due to it's unnerving character, the border between life and death, the artificial and real is so finely attuned that one is unsure what they are actually watching. This is enhanced by the slow, odd movement of the girl on the far left at the start of the video, emulating the movement of a animated character. There is an entire industry in Japan and elsewhere dedicated to explorations of the human form in this nature. The Uncanny Valley is a theory which was introduced by Japanese roboticist Masahiro Mori in 1970:
"The uncanny valley is a hypothesis about robotics concerning the emotional response of humans to robots and other non-human entities. Mori's hypothesis states that as a robot is made more humanlike in its appearance and motion, the emotional response from a human being to the robot will become increasingly positive and empathic, until a point is reached beyond which the response quickly becomes that of strong repulsion. However, as the appearance and motion continue to become less distinguishable from a human being, the emotional response becomes positive once more and approaches human-to-human empathy levels".
Initial information obtained via Dennis Coopers blog feature on contempory Japanese sexual subversion. Thanks!0Add a comment
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