Response From Gravity: March 2009

Monday, March 9, 2009

Photographing Japan

Yurie Nagashima 長島有里枝

(Image borrowed from
www.scaithebathhouse.com)

In class we were given a project to research of list of selected Japanese photographers who grasp Japan in their work. Researching the list I came across Yurie Nagashima, who maybe the hardest one to find out about on the internet and in the library I had difficulty finding her books. However from pictures selected from her works that I found on online exhibit listings I fell in love…no I fell curious to know more about her work.

It is said that Nagashima is Japan’s first leading female photographers who opened the doors and encourage or amped the female participation in Japanese photography.

Nagashima got her first recognition while still attending college at Musashino Art University in 1993. With the debut of one of her first pieces displaying family portraits…in the nude, gained her much attention and was received the Parco Award at the Urbanart #2 contest. After graduating in 1995 she continued her education but moved to the United States and attended California Institute of the Arts and graduated in 1999 with an MFA degree in Photography. After living in the United States for a few years she eventually moved back to Japan and started her career as a photographer.

The subject of Nagashima’s work isn’t a certain place, activity, or simply Japanese people. Her work is concentrated around the people who are closest to her, the people who are an influence in her life and creation of the culture and the world in which she lives in. Who she experiences Japan with and who she speaks Japanese to.

Family, boyfriends and even she are all people, Japanese, working, living and breathing but in her photos she captures people in the raw…seeing how most her portraits are shots of the subjects themselves in the nude. A bit of a photo book portraying everyday people…except without clothing. It it is the people she wants us to see, to appreciate and connected with. Not their clothes, their style or even lack thereof.

In my mind her photos are vivid and clear.

(Images borrowed from http://www.switch-pub.co.jp/library/photo/026/)

Nagashima’s work in relation to Japanese Visual Anthropology is difficult to describe because she steers away from symbols, labels and bold statements but shows the people themselves in every day environments. What is interesting is that if she is said to start the wave of Japanese female participation in photography…why this? And why did it become such a trend?

They are not capturing culture but their antics describe it. Nearly representing what young female Japanese adults would want to photograph. What in this culture made nude, simplistic images so important? Maybe to young Japanese females the timid aspects of love, family, and the people around them is what occupies the mind the most.

I feel Nagashima represents Japanese people in relation to culture as simply people and not a gimmick of where she comes from.

So many mainstream marketed ideas and symbols can be said about Japanese culture.

Hello Kitty, Temples, Samurai, Pokémon, Ninjas, absurd fashion, kawaiii and hentai/pervert culture.

Strict laws and seemingly everyone obeys, not obscenity, stand in place, and low crime.

How do those blend, how do those juxtapositions hold hand in hand in this country?

I feel like Nagashima is ripping Japanese people a part from these associated attributes of Japanese culture and defiantly showing them back as people

With lovers, homes and lives.

(Image borrowed from www.wavephotogallery.com)

(Image borrowed from http://www.fujifilm.co.jp/photomore/interview/nagashima_200507.html)

In her photos they are no longer adorned with mainstream Harajuku fashion and traditional sushi dishes alongside Geisha. Or whatever any travel book or foreign lens TV segment would show.

With nudity she makes people simply people and lashes out towards to the thought and laws of Japanese discrepancy in a back handed sort of style.

And in that aspect, in that artistic grasp of capturing the people who so happen to live in Japanese and obviously being a part of culture…she is very successful.

From her photos I feel more drawn to the people who contribute to culture than what I think culture has done to the people.

Can I write and pit out a million adjectives that properly describe Japanese culture from looking at these pictures? No.

But can I feel in what ways they are similar, shared but all the more different from my own.

(Image borrowed from w3art.es)

For information about the Photographer I used

Although her personal website
http://www.denshikosodate.com/

seems to be down

Sunday, March 1, 2009

Japanese Pop-Culture : Visual Kei

This is going to be difficult as is explaining anything in the music and fashion world. What is alternative and who is elite enough to describe its essence…

This is Visual Kei. Wait. Correction…this is about Visual Kei. Some say it is music and some say it is a particular sense of fashion or combined its illegitimate child.

I am hesitant because this is a music genre and clothing element I like to incorporate in my life and have been since I was in high school. However, despite how many years I think I may know, it is always different from another or another can think it is different because people tend to think their own opinions are best. Although, this is not about my feelings on how arrogant some people are about subculture but I will give fair warning that this is just my personal observation and if there are any other point of views or even corrective critical reviews please comment!

Okay.

Visual Kei.

A genre that branched out in Japan what is said in the 1980’s popularly lead/birthed by the band X-Japan. It is a style movement that incorporates music and fashion/image. It is called Visual Kei after all…and Kei in Japanese meaning style it is a very visual, eye catching and complex looking style.

What can describe this as a fashion sense is that is takes influence from Punk/Rock/ Gothic but in a much more clean sense with everything much more elaborate and planned out. Taking an average outfit and multiplying it. Bigger hair, taller shoes, more accessories, more layers and different patterns, styles etc…

Its rebellion. Cuts, hems, hair etc are not in order or form but asymmetrical and eccentric. Visual Kei can be described as dark, edgy but glamorous.

The music began as rock and over the 90’s became influencing but a lo t heavier and darker, goth influenced. But has progressed to many types of punk, mental, pop-rock that spreads over many types of genres.

But what is pop-culture? Especially in a country that absorbs all sorts of it very well. Or it seems.

Influences characters in movies, manga/comic books and attitude, rock and roll lifestyles and body modification…All in a tough but glam and flashy aesthetic. These influences like seen in the pictures bounce of their audience which is generally a younger generation searching for this niche and cliques that they feel comfortable with or accepted by.

The first photo is of a girl standing outside of a very famous, and crowded, brand store called Sex Pot Revenge that makes clothing suited towards a Visual Kei interested crowd with a lot of black, chains, punk stamp-age and pre-made tears and rips put together with safety pins…which is why it is so pop and media based because it is a theme mass produced and easily bought image. It is cool, looks interest and does take a bold person to wear it but this how I see an example of pop-culture in Japan. That in the states if something that’s supposed to rough and punk is sold in bulk it’s seen as a joke and fake. But in Japan its okay, how else would you get it? What you do doesn’t justify the clothing but having it and wearing it with confidence is important. Having the attitude and having the look. Relating to darker ideas but don’t have to perform them.

When you think pop-culture, the word pop must mean or seem that is expected by society. But Visual Kei is kind of a rebellion to be different, out of suits and uniforms although many of these people end up dressing the same and creating their own “individual” group. So the line of what is pop-culture and what is mainstream seems a bit blurred. As much as it is different, so are many other types of Japanese fashions but this , fashionably, seems to be less about the body and how to flatter it then how to transform it and create the image of something outrageous and daring. Within this pop-culture clothing and image is very important, that is why it is visual. These fans and supporters almost create an allegiance together. Meeting up in the style, going out together in the style, hanging out watching each other.

Visual Kei has created its own culture and society.The second picture is a group of friends, who probably busy with school and part time jobs have this opportunity to dress in that they think is best and meet up and feel a part of this group but succeeded in looking different to the mass outside as well. The second half of this phenomenon, Visual Kei, is the music but like other music people get creative and create their own versions which lead to sub genres and more.

But Visual isn’t reading, it’s the eyes experiences. So I have created a list of Youtube videos from bands I like, and bands that come from different sub genres that are known in the Visual Kei scene.

Bands known to start the revolution