2b . The Imaginary Age

I’ve decided to re-start a technique I was taught in my MA programme about how to do artistic research - different, more efficient, perhaps more superficial from the academic research I was familiar with - by googling terms, scanning sources and writing small summaries of what I learn/find in that process.

Last week I selected two works to look into - the Exhibition Windowology at Japan House London, which was done in partnership with one of the critics/architects I am interested in - Igarashi Taro. The exhibition material discussed windows as a point of connection between people - an architectural element that took in the space between private and public - a display space for everyday life.

I used to do this, actually - in Oakland my sister’s house had a porch where we spent many hours hanging out, drinking, smoking, etc. While there I liked to look in the windows, I called it “watching the channels“ - one window looked into a guy’s kitchen and you could see him making food - a simple, semi-meaningless act that clearly had some strange intimacy in it - he pulled the curtains one time when it was obvious he was being seen. I’ve never been able to feel bad about it, and I connect it to this idea of windows as partially shared.

The other piece that I delved a little deeper into was an article from Urban Studies journal about Mega Events in Japan and the architectural aesthetic that goes along with them. I found it very interesting, especially with the focus on Tokyo rather than New York, London or other cities that I have more knowledge about. A lot of the sources I’ve explored to date have been American, with a US-centric perspective that is definitely fascinating, but there was a level of self-awareness to this article that I found really relevant to my experience in Istanbul.

One aspect that was particularly striking for me was a part about how expatriates wrote about what the writers call the “Imaginary Age,“ that is, a mythical time of benign provincialism and natural coexistence in Japan that has only vague connections to the reality of the country’s past. Some, apparently, take to the more or less typical orientalist route of lamenting lost beauty and are judgmental and accusatory about the Japanese government’s part in destroying “beautiful Japan.“ Another writer that they describe as self-aware to the point of suffering. Near-crippling self-awareness as an expat is something I very much relate to, so I’ve made it next week’s task to look into this piece and see how this writer tackles the subject.

Image property of Studio Ghibli - one of the sources mentioned for the fictionalisation of “beautiful Japan“