word 3 - whisper

Part 1

Word: Whisper

Definition: to speak with soft, hushed sounds, using the breath, lips, etc. [...] to produce utterance substituting breath for phonation.

Quote examining the word (Citation included):
A secret is not something unrevealed, but something told privately, in a whisper.
Marcel Pagnol, (1895–1974) French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker

Goodness speaks in a whisper, evil shouts.
Tibetan Proverb
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Part 2

Artist 1 - Fujii Tamotsu

Paragraph Explanation of Reason for Choosing this artist:
Tamotsu's body of work "Akari" (Light) is quiet, and subtle... almost always of a singular character in a vast landscape, with a flashlight pointed back at the camera. It feels very silent... as if all communication is done by the light, it pulls the mind away from the fact that there might be sound involved at all. Even the visual elements, although rich in detail and color, seem subdued and hushed. The light that beams out of the darkness is in striking contrast to the surroundings, but doesn't seem harsh or loud at all.

Image 1 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

Everglades National Park, Naples, Florida
1995-2005, color photograph, size varied

Image 2 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

Fairbanks, Alaska
1995-2005, color photograph, size varied

Outside Review of Artwork/Interview: A 2-3 paragraph quote
The photos show a lonely person with a flashlight standing in different vast and otherwise deserted landscapes, photographed in places like Hawaii, Utah or Alaska. In the way Fujii describes the person as a very small figure in the panamoratic landscapes the photographs seem carry something unuttered which incites imagination of the observer.

First the photographs in “A KA RI” reminded me a little bit on Hiroshi Sugimoto’s conceptual “Seascapes” but a closer view reveals that Fujiis work is more open with varying angles of view, with a mix of monochrome and color photographs and even with some landscapes without any person. Moreover the captions in the back of the book disclose that some photographs are no real landscape photographs but were shot in a studio actually.

Bibliography of Review
"Tamotsu Fujii 'A KA RI'" Japan-Photo.info
http://japan-photo.info/blog/2006/07/22/tamotsu-fujii-a-ka-ri/

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Artist 2 - Rinko Kawauchi

Paragraph Explanation of Reason for Choosing this artist:
Quiet, soft, subtle images... these are moments of life, caught softly, like a bird in the hand, carefully, as to not crush it. I get the feeling that Kawauchi is always with her camera, always ready to capture images. That's the kind of sensitivity I'd like to have in my work.

Image 1 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

untitled, 2009, c print, 12x10

Image 2 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

untitled, 2008, c print, 40x40

Outside Review of Artwork/Interview: A 2-3 paragraph quote
kawauchi's themes
of family, human interaction with nature and the cycle
of life are photographed in pastel colours.
her work reveals exquisite delicacy, achieved through sensate
compositions, a careful attention to texture and the cultivation
of a beautifully clear, clean, often whitish light.
she interweaves sensitized ways of perceiving the world
around her, with the fleeting conflations of forms that make
you wonder how one photographer mangaged to be present,
attuned and ready to photograph so many pungent
observations. once rinko kawauchi said:
‘for a photographer, it's a necessity that you can shoot stuff
magically. accidents are necessary, but after I take a
photograph, it is not all done. I continue to work on it.’
she suggests that the editing and presentation of the work
is as important to the final image as composing and taking
the photograph itself. at times she presented her work
alongside her own haiku poetry.

Bibliography of Review
"Rinko Kawauchi" Design Boom

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Artist 3 - Hiroshi Sugimoto

Paragraph Explanation of Reason for Choosing this artist:
While choosing Sugimoto for this assignment seems a little too straight-forward, his sensitivity is the first to make me consider the power of simple compositions, minimal presentation. The power of a straight horizon line; sky meeting sea. Sugimoto's images are powerful indeed, and sometimes I feel like his work does the opposite of "whisper". The stark contrast between sky and sea is so rigid, so uncompromising. But some of his images are quieter then others... yet communicate just as much. Quiet, still, horizon softly blurred with atmosphere or time, I feel that these images evoke a sense of mystery or curiosity- elements that seem to go hand in hand with work that "whispers".

Image 1 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

Black Sea, Ozuluce, 1991, gelatin silver print, 152 x 182 cm

Image 2 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

Aegean Sea, Pilion, 1990, gelatin silver print, 153 x 182.5 cm

Outside Review of Artwork/Interview: A 2-3 paragraph quote

Do you think that 20th-century conceptual art will still have an audience in the year 2800?
It is very optimistic to think that 2800 will be witnessed by man.

When you are conducting your internal dialogues, do you tell yourself jokes?
My internal organs are always laughing.

When you design your exhibition installations, do you think of them as sculptures that a person can enter?
I consider these spaces to be more like architecture; unfortunately, most exhibition spaces have already been ruined by celebrated architects.

Which of your many series gives you most satisfaction?
I try to never be satisfied; this way I will always be challenging my spirit.

Which work of art by another artist in any U.S. museum gives you most pleasure? Can you explain why?
The Duchamp room at the Philadelphia Museum, because seriousness only lies in a lack of seriousness.

How would you respond to the suggestion that you are the photographer of things that aren’t?
I would have no complaints with that.
[...]
How important is it for the spectator to know the actual locations of your Seascape photographs?
It is very important to know the name of the sea and location where my seascapes are taken. I want the viewer to imagine the sea before it was named: What would you call it if you were the first to lay eyes on it?

Bibliography of Review
"Hiroshi Sugimoto, By Robert Ayers" ArtInfo

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Artist 4 - Helios

Paragraph Explanation of Reason for Choosing this artist:
Helios combines many different sound sources to create soundscapes that are both vast and intimate. Often utilizing found sounds and field recordings, Helios seems like he's only reordering the things he encounters around him, changing his perspective, thus revealing something altogether different, but still familiar and beautiful. He does so with great sensitivity and skill... not forcefully hammering things into place, but gently layering them and juxtaposing them.

Image 1 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

"Halving the Compass", 2006, sound and field recordings, 5 minutes, 27 seconds

Image 2 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

"A mountain of ice", 2008, sound, 4 minutes, 25 seconds

Outside Review of Artwork/Interview: A 2-3 paragraph quote

Keith Kenniff records pleasing music. Don’t hold that against him. His hopeful ambient work as Helios is the inverse to Boards of Canada’s shattered psychedelia. His new record, Eingya is a striking mix of field-recordings, computer synths, acoustic guitar, and his own piano playing arranged to masterful effect. That piano-playing featured heavily on Kenniff’s 2005 release under his other alias, Goldmund. Corduroy Road was an exploratory record. It saw Kenniff eschewing the sonically complex Helios compositions for a stripped down approach: usually only him and the piano that he was learning to play at the time. Stylus recently talked with Kenniff about his recording process, his influences, and the new record in advance of the release of Eingya.
[...]
What other kinds of found sounds have you used on your records? What do you think that these sorts of things add to the music?

A lot of the sounds I use are from around my apartment, a lot of field recordings, and nature sounds and whatnot. Most of the sounds I use for drum parts are taken from me sitting down and walking away from the piano or guitar before and after takes. It's nice not to plan out those sounds and just look for them afterwards and figure out, "Oh, that'll work nice as a snare, or a kick drum." I didn't do that a lot on the first Helios record, and it sounded a bit more cliché because of it. I think using found sound adds an individuality, or a certain uniqueness to a track—instead of just manipulating a program that has been written by someone else. Some people can do that very well, but it's hard for me to do that.

What feelings do you attempt to evoke with your music?
I don't know. I'm not really a fan of programmatic themes in music that instruct the listener how to feel about what they are being presented with. One person may have a completely different interpretation of something I wrote than what I thought about it when I wrote it (or after I wrote it, which is more the case), and I that's a good thing.

Bibliography of Review
"Helios: the Stylus Review" Stylus Magazine

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Artist 5 - Richard Brautigan

Paragraph Explanation of Reason for Choosing this artist:
Especially the work "In Watermelon Sugar", things are described so straightforwardly, so simply and understated... landscape feels hushed, not a solemn hush, but a hush of eager listening. There's even a day of the week when there's no sound at all, and the whole town of characters prepares a celebration, and waits with anticipation for that day to end, to explode into sound at the beginning of the next week, only to have the book end before that very moment.

Image 1 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

"In Watermelon Sugar", 1968, text, 138 pages


Image 2 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions
"Trout Fishing In America", 1967, text, 144 pages

Outside Review of Artwork/Interview: A 2-3 paragraph quote

VII A Lesson in Conceptual Criticism (See Photographs)
In the late fall of ‘82, I had made friends with a Scot named Roger Millar who had come to M.S.U. as a one year replacement for a sculptor in the art department. Roger thought Americans were fat, decadent and overpaid; he was also a big fan of Richard's work in Scotland, so I decided to treat him to an afternoon with the Captain. Before we left Bozeman, it was snowing pretty hard, but we bought a bucket of chicken for the Captain’s dinner and headed over Bozeman Pass on the interstate. When we arrived, Richard was a little stir crazy from being alone at his place, so he was in fine form. He flipped into a brief session of imperial mode and told Roger that his house was built on an ancient glacial moraine. He then brought out a baby's bracelet made out of small white beads with a name spelled out on them.
“I found this when they were remodeling the bathroom,” said Richard. “It belonged to the baby of the original owner of the house.”
Instead of showing the usual star struck awe in the presence of a great writer waxing eloquent, Roger said, “Bullshit, the fuckin’ thing’s made out of plastic,” (and I think it was). “And this isn't a fuckin’ moraine either,” said Roger “It’s just a little stream bed.”
Richard's eyes got kind of funny, like there were a lot of little dots in front of them, looked at me and said, “My, He’s a feisty little fucker, isn't he?” Roger picked up the gauntlet and ridiculed Richard on every stupid point, and the Captain loved it--so much that he gave him signed copies of several of his rare books. I drooled as he lovingly signed away a hardboard copy of Revenge of the Lawn. Soon Richard had a mouse trap out and was daring us to try to spring it without getting snapped. Roger said, “You fuckin’ gotta be kidding.” I stuck my finger in boldly and got it badly snapped. Richard stuck his in and got his badly snapped too. Roger tapped his foot and shook his head at both of us. “That's all you Americans are interested in, violence.”
“Ah,” said the Captain, “yes, violence,” and he darted to the utility room and came back with a .357 magnum. Roger suddenly stopped looking so feisty. He was getting a solid glimpse of American horror.
“What shall we shoot,” said Richard, looking intently at Roger. “How about that book of criticism you showed me yesterday,” I said. “Splendid,” said Richard. “Actually, I have two copies of it. “That way the hole will be a lot bigger when the bullet comes out through the second one.” The book is called In the Singer’s Temple, and it is by an author named Jack Hicks. The part that made the book quite shootable in the Captain’s eyes reads like this:
“It has become a popular critical pastime to dismiss Richard Brautigan’s writing as merely faddish, a more hip, barely weightier version of Rod McKuen’s maunderings. Brautigan’s poetry does little to discourage this sort of overreaction. It seems so uniformly slight; arch, almost unbearably naive, it is consciously unself-conscious (picture a moronic adolescent friend waving hello from a televised bowling show).”
“You shoot them” said the Captain. “I wouldn't stoop to paying that much attention to that crap.” So, as Roger watched in terror, I took the books out, lined them up and shot them right in the middle.
“Wonderful,” said Richard. “Talk about post-modernism.” He picked one up and pried it open. “When you open these babies up, there's a little round book that opens up and reads by itself where the bullet went through.” Richard was right. We took turns flipping through the little round book in the middle of the second book. One internal page read, “it in a black printed nicely the cover.”
“Conceptual criticism!” said Richard. And even Roger had to agree. It WAS conceptual criticism. After that, the Captain and Roger drank a pint of pure grain alcohol that had been sitting around Richard's kitchen for a few years; then, they went out on the back porch and had a good simultaneous vomit or “bok” as Roger called it in his Scot's dialect.
That night, I was stone sober as I drove Roger back over the pass, hanging his head out the window in the blowing snow and streaking the side of my Mazda Miser.
Later, I heard that Richard had signed the front copy of the book (the one with the smaller hole) over to Peter Fonda, but I still have the second one with the little book in it.
About ten years after this conceptual criticism when I was at U. Cal. Davis performing and giving a workshop with Gary Snyder, I met Jack Hicks, the author of In the Singer’s Temple. He was a nice guy. I didn’t mention that I was familiar with his work.

Bibliography of Review
Gorgo's Stories about Richard Brautagan
Copyright © 2002 Greg Keeler

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Artist 6 - Artist Name: Miwa Matreyek

Paragraph Explanation of Reason for Choosing this artist:
Miwa's work consists mainly of her shadow interacting with animations she projects onto herself. It's a haunting presentation, seeing the shadow of someone become the main subject of a story, and become the thing you align yourself with most. The animations are beautiful, and subtly bristling with life, and the interaction is quite clever, revealing that the artist has spent much time carefully building something that she would silently be a part of, something much greater than just herself.

Image 1 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

"Dreaming of Lucid Living", 2009, video, projected silhouette, 9 minute and 21 seconds (thesis edit)

Image 2 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

Myth and Infrastructure, 2010, video, projections, 11 minutes (abridgement)

Outside Review of Artwork/Interview: A 2-3 paragraph quote
Miwa Matreyek's work blurs the line between real and unreal. In live works that integrate animation, performance, and video installation, she explores how animation changes when it is combined with body and space (and vice versa). In her video projects, animation takes on a more physical and present quality, while body and space take on a more fantastical quality.

On one hand, Matreyek's performance can be viewed as a cinematic experience taking place on a screen. On the other hand, what is seen on the screen is a collapsed product of multiple layers of animation, objects and body. Her work exists in a juxtaposition of illusion and nonillusion. Matreyek is also a founding member of the performance media group Cloud Eye Control, which makes theatrical productions with cleverly integrated animation projections.

Bibliography of Review
TED Speakers Miwa Matreyek: Multimedia artist

notes:
http://juliantreasure.blogspot.com/2010/07/miwa-matreyek-interview-at-ted.html

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Artist 7 - Artist Name: Jason deCares Taylor

Paragraph Explanation of Reason for Choosing this artist:
Many aspects of these pieces warrant the work a place in this "whisper" list... they are underwater, their eyes are closed... they are spawning grounds for coral, which grows silently and slowly, they are meant to encourage life to return to areas that have been polluted or wrecked... this work even requires the viewer to be submerged themselves... placed in an altered state, gravity is less, outside sound is muted, the viewer will be much more aware of internal processes: heart pumping, breathing through an oxygen tank... all in all, a very clever piece.

Image 1 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

Vicissitudes
26 life-size figures. Depth 5m. Grenada, West Indies.

Image 2 of Artwork- Include Title,Year, Medium, Dimensions

La Evolución Silenciosa (The Silent Evolution)
400 life-size figures. Depth 9m Cancun / Isla Mujeres, Mexico.

Outside Review of Artwork/Interview: A 2-3 paragraph quote
The sculptures, showcased under the sea, are made from marine grade cement, sand and micro-silica. The artworks must coexist harmoniously with ocean life, and therefore, the materials must be carefully formulated. When Environmental Graffiti asked Taylor how much science or knowledge of science contributes to his art, he responded:
“I have no scientific background, so much of the research behind the sculptures has been in collaboration with marine biologists from the national marine park here in Mexico and also from Reefball, an artificial reef company based in the US. It is a very important aspect of the sculptures as the materials have to be exactly the right ph[-factor] to attract corals, deployed at the right time of year to co-inside with coral spawning and of course the exact placement defined, in terms of depth and location as this can attract various types of species."

"At the moment, I am working with scientists on propagating coral, where you take one species and use 'cuttings' like you would with a plant to increase overall biomass of the reef. Providing holes of a certain shape and diameter can also encourage particular species like lobsters or blenies.”

Aesthetics also factor in to Taylor's work. He has created hundreds of awe-inspiring figures of artificial coral, in seemingly natural human positions, casually living beneath the water's surface. Taylor fathoms such projects by "imagining a world where our streets and houses are all 50m under the sea.” Environmental Graffiti asked how human subject matter is appropriate for an underwater sculpture garden, and Taylor explained:
“I have chosen to focus on human forms for many reasons, firstly the shape of an object is rapidly changed underwater and if you begin with an abstract form it generally becomes completely unrecognizable very quickly."

Bibliography of Review
"An Interview with Underwater Sculptor Jason DeCaires Taylor", Environmental Graffiti

First of Three Words - Reverence

Word: Reverence

Definition: a feeling of profound respect for someone or something, honor or respect felt or shown, profound adoring awed respect
Merriam-Webster Dictionary

“If a man loses his reverence for any part of life, he will lose his reverence for all of life.”
- Albert Schweitzer, The Philosophy of Civilization, (translated from German)

Banksy
Banksy's anonymous, subversive and witty street art, has a flair for anti-establishment movement. His works seems to prick our sensitivities and slightly confound the viewer at times. His is the reverence of rationality and honesty. Using quite irreverent techniques; juxtaposing disparate images or colors he heightens the simple clarity, celebrates the core nature of things, longing for the end of corruption and deceit.

Glastonbery

Donut

Punk Mum

Excerpt from “Street (il)legal: Q&A with Banksy”, By David Fear, "Time Out: New York"
Do you see Exit justifying the idea that street art is equal to what’s hanging in galleries?What’s more subversive: making socially conscious art that smacks people out of their stupor, or getting paid and becoming famous from it?
I wouldn’t want to be remembered as the guy who contaminated a perfectly legitimate form of protest art with money and celebrities. I do sometimes question whether I’m part of the solution or part of the problem. For example: I’m getting pressure from my distributor to take out billboards for the film. Now, I hate billboards; they’re just corporate vandalism. And yet last week I was thinking, Well…maybe a couple won’t hurt.… There’s obviously nothing wrong with selling your art—only an idiot with a trust fund would tell you otherwise. But it’s confusing to know how far you should take it. I don’t read books or listen to music made by people in their spare time, so I guess the vandalism I look at shouldn’t be any different. I want it performed by professionals at the highest level.

You must get a lot of flak for that opinion.
People ask, How do I sleep at night? Very well, actually. Because I’m an alcoholic.

Is it now harder to cultivate anonymity instead of fame?
In today’s culture: yes. I don’t know why people are so keen to put the details of their private life in public; they forget that invisibility is a superpower.

Street (il)legal: Q&A with Banksy, By David Fear, "Time Out: New York", Issue 759 : Apr 14–22, 2010

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James Turrell
Turrell's work reveals a deep reverence for light. It's obvious he's spent tons of time getting to understand it, use it, have a relationship with it. His pieces seem as if he's painstakingly coaxed it to do what he wants. Like a bird eating out of his hand, any second light could fly off with a mind of its own. As opposed to an animal that a hunter has wrangled to the ground, left only with a still, cooling inanimate corpse, the light in Turrell's pieces seems to be alive and as curious about its viewer as the viewer is about it. Turrell seems to be obsessed with creating a relationship between his work and its viewers.

Bridget's Bardo, 2008, Begehbare installation

Wedgework: Milk Run III, 2002

Art:21 Interview, Season 1: 2001
ART:21: Why do you want to work with light?
TURRELL: Certainly when people describe near death experiences, they use a vocabulary of light. And also when we have dreams, a lucid dream that's in this color, that really is I think quite, quite astonishing. So, in thinking of light, if we can think about what it can do, and what it is, by thinking about itself, not about what we wanted it to do for other things, because again we've used light as people might be used, in the sense that we use it to light paintings. We use it to light so that we can read. We don't really pay much attention to the light itself. And so turning that and letting light and sound speak for itself is that you figure out these different relationships and rules. Now there's a lot to do with sensory synesthesia as well, in that the feeling of light in so many ways - you probably have seen or handled a lemon and suddenly felt the taste in your mouth. I mean it suddenly floods your mouth. The perception through vision actually creates the sensation in taste. The same thing can happen in sound and sound can change the perception of color.

We think of color as a thing that we're receiving. And if you go into one of the sky spaces, you can see that it's possible to change the color of the sky. Now, I obviously don't change the color of the sky, but I changed the context of vision. This is very similar to simultaneous contrast, where you see a yellow dot on a blue field, versus the yellow dot on a red field. Same yellow dot will be seen as two different colors. The same frequencies come into your eyes through a difference of context of vision, and are perceived differently. We actually create this color. Color is this response to what we are perceiving. So there isn't something out there that we perceive, we are actually creating this vision, and that we are responsible for it is something we're rather unaware of. So I actually like to do that, and I look at my art as being somewhere between the limits of perception of the creature that we are, that is - what we can actually perceive and not perceive, like the limits of hearing or seeing - and that of learned perception, or we could call prejudice perception. That's a situation where we have learned to perceive a certain way, but we're unaware of the fact that we learned it. So this can actually work against you sometimes. Working between those limits and kind of pointing them out is something I enjoy doing because it's not just the fact that you are bringing the cosmos down into the space where you live, but that your perception helps create that as well. So that you really are this co-creator of what you're seeing.

ART:21: Can works of art impart a sense of spirituality?
TURRELL: People talk about spiritual in art, and I think that's been the territory of artists all along. You know, if you go into the great cathedrals made by architects and through the light of artisans, you have created a sense of awe that often is greater than what people feel when they read, or any sort of rhetoric by the priesthood. This is something that can be very powerful in a visual sense. And so the artists have always been involved in this; this is not something new. And I think that sometimes it's easier for people to approach that portion of the spiritual through the visual than through organized religion, and perhaps that's true today. But I also want to say that the senses and gratification through the senses, while it can direct you toward the spiritual, is also something that will hold you from it fully. That's the limits of art, and so I don't think that art is terribly spiritual, but it's something that can be along that way, be a gesture toward that.

Art:21: James Turrell, Season 1:2001

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Rinko Kawauchi
Rinko Kawauchi has said she's interested in things that have a short life-time: insects, flowers, clouds, children & elderly faces. This kind of quiet reverence is perfectly suited for this kind of work, and why I feel her work is so successful. She's not out colonizing with her third eye, collecting specimen for categorical analysis; she's a quiet observer, ready with her camera at all times, on the chance that different vectors of life will by chance meet in one place in one moment and she'll be there, snap the picture, and it'll all be over. Her work makes me feel lucky to have seen it, lucky that she was there to see it, and lucky that it happened in order to be seen at all. In the Schweitzer sense of the word, Rinko Kawauchi's reverence doesn't end with the life that each of those vectors belong to, but with the brief moments in which those vectors intermingle, quietly Cartier-Bresson's decisive moment.




Interviews/quotes
"[Rinko] describes releasing the camera shutter as being as much a part of her life as drinking tea."
- Asahi Shinbun, 2010年08月02日http://mytown.asahi.com/kumamoto/news.php?k_id=44000131008020002

Rinko Kawauchi has been described as "both heartwarming and unsettling at the same time". Photographer Kishin Shinoyama said: “Anyone who thinks her photos are designed to have a healing effect or produce some degree of happiness, which is trendy now, is making a big mistake. Her pictures are fearful. They are cruel and erotic.”
Click Opera, September 1, 2005

Interview with PingMag: Mayalina
Miss Kawauchi, your photos bring me into a world of quiet contemplation, your camera captures the most intricate details of every day life, transforming the ordinary into the extraordinary and revealing a lyrical rhythm to our daily lives and surroundings. Before I go into your motifs and motivation,may I start by asking you what cameras you use?
“My favourite camera is the Rolleiflex. The reason why I like the Rolleiflex so much is because every aspect of it, the soft quality of the lens, the feeling of it in my hand, the clicking of the shutter, feels just right. But I also use normal compact cameras as well because some things can only be taken with a compact camera. I love that moment when I feel something and press the shutter.”
- Interview with PingMag, August 11, 2006

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Daikichi Amano
Daikichi Amano creates fantastical, theatrical sets and costumes, stunning, and yes, reverent. His mastery of the brilliant fantasy of eroticism could only be achieve if it was something he himself beleived, something that haunted him, and indeed were the fabric of his dreams. An interesting, further evidence of reverence in his work, none of the animals used in his work as wasted. They are eaten by the crew after the shoot.




Interview with Toro Magazine's Louise Bak, Noember 29, 2009
Q: I had heard of Zoot & Genant, sex performers from the Netherlands being injured when they tried to have sex with a live octopus. Have you felt any subjective challenges in your photo processes, involving sexuality and creatures?
A: Of course. This is a challenge to my personal curiosity. Cockroaches are my worst enemy. I get goosebumps just looking at one, but nothing prepared me for the sight of those black bugs squirming inside Miss Bliss’s mouth. I think that’s psychologically scarred me for the rest of my life. It truly repulsed me to the bone.

Q: Would your actresses and models need to undergo particular preparations to work with various forms?
A: Before shooting, I talk with actresses about which living things are used in movies. They just have to be mentally prepared for that.

Q: Is there any concern for hygiene? Garnering of information from veterinary sources?
A: Basically, I use ones sold for human consumption and they are germ-free. I have never had any hygiene troubles.

Q: You’ve mentioned that some creatures like the sea slug gives off a peculiar stench. Are you interested not only in the surfaces of your scenes, while also imparting a sense of what it would be like to be in erotic presence with such creatures?
A: I don't really want to let people know how it is, but people who watched my movies want to know how it feels and how it is like in details during shooting and ask me out of their curiosity. I have strong memories of all my works and it brands my mind with the smell in some cases. They have surprisingly strong vital energies, too. I think that the photography feels alive.

- Interview with Toro Magazine, Noevember 29, 2009

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Amy Jenkins
Amy Jenkins' work focuses on the home domain. She truly reveres the home, and the characters that are found there. Pieces commemorate relationships that have ended and celebrate as new ones begin. Her use of scuplture as a "screen" to project her videos on further enhances this reverence, as the sculptural elements serve more as momento elements of home.

From the same water, 2009, projected video, stand

Ebb, 1995, projected video, miniature bathtub

"Miniature Awakenings", Jennifer Dalton reviews "Ebb" by Amy Jenkins for Performing Arts Journal
A miniature bathtub is lit from above, sitting on a low, tiled table in a dark room. The light and the sound of water splashing draw you towards the object, and as you approach it, you see the projected image of a woman bathing. At first, the bathtub is filled with water that is eerily tinted red. The nude figure slowly begins caressing herself. The movements of the woman, though fluid, seem apprehensive and tentative. Her hands approach her pubic area but seem too shy to explore further, as though she is afraid of what she might discover. A few minutes go by and the redness of the water condenses and apparently flows into the woman through her vagina. Thus fortified and empowered, she climbs out of the bathtub leaving the water clear, and walks out of the projection. The illusion of the image projected into the miniature tub and the accompanying sound are so convincing that when the woman stands, you expect to be greeted by not a real woman, but a real holographic apparition. You realize you've been teased with the idea of what is "real." But most of all, Amy Jenkins's video installation Ebb (1996) leaves you uncomfortably remembering how it felt to begin to discover your own body.

Trained as photographer, Jenkins began using video as a static element in her photographs in 1990 in a body of work called the Telerotic series. In many of these dark images, a television screen cast dim light on one or two naked human forms. The photographs juxtaposed a video screen image--often of an eye--with partial bodies engaged in vague acts, not explicit but unmistakably intimate. In this work she spoke to the increasing conflation of private and public and our individual and societal fantasies about being watched.
- "Miniature Awakenings", Performing Arts Journal, PAJ 56 (Volume 19, Number 2), May 1997

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Takagi Masakatsu
Takagi Masakatsu gets most of his inspiration from growing up in Kyoto, Japan and the nature he finds there. His reverence for light, family, childhood, the countryside, and the innocence of youth is clearly evident in his work.

Light Pool, 2006

Pia #12, 2001

"Kyoto POP Artist Speaks Through Light & Shadow", Interview with Hanami Web, July 26, 2006
"When I first started making videos, I was always reacting to light. I was obsessed with light, and captured everything with light", the Kyoto artist said in the beginning of the interview.

Takagi Masakatsu travels around the world and records people's everyday lives, and when he returns to Japan, he molds the recordings into an aesthetical multimedia work that moves the audience in all levels.

Indeed, Takagi's works reflect light and shadow, white and dark in human beings and society. Human or animal forms often emerge in his videos, and dissolve into abstract colors and shapes. Music and video are having interactive conversation - constantly sensitive and changing. Takagi stops audience to listen and see the sublime and gentle psychedelics - created with such a fantastic artistic sense.

His video works are truly amazing, both with technique and content. Screen turns into a moving painting of watercolor and mixed technique - sublime, relaxed and so fantastically fresh and stylish.

Questioning and thinking about relationship between city and nature is one of Takagi's themes, as well as wondering the humanity and also the inevitable dark side of people. His works are dreamy but still have the cutting edge of the reality - like in fantastic video of Birdland, where bird shapes appear to wires. Perhaps the wires symbol the Tokyo's street scene (where you can see those hanging wires hanging almost everywhere). Takagi is often called as "multimedia documentarian" or "renaissance man of our times".
- "Kyoto POP Artist Speaks Through Light & Shadow", Hanami Web, July 26, 2006

A fantastic profile piece on him-

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Know Hope
Getting back to street art, with a different perspective, Isreali street artist, Know Hope, pastes up scenes of characters making connections, reaching out to each other, and the viewer to build bonds that will create sympathy. The undestanding of people's need for connection, companionship, shows a reverence for humanity. He's quite young, I hope he contiues on with his world view and call for hope and peace.

The Things We Hold Dear, 2010

No Hard Feelings, 2007

Young, thoughtful and determined to share his message, Know Hope has garnered much attention over the past year with his paste ups and in situ installations as well as successful group shows in the U.K., NY, L.A. and Norway.

Know Hope's work is based on the need of momentary connections we all search for in our everyday lives... "and when we can get our heavy hearts to love lightly; this house of cards will become a home."
- Anno Domini Gallery, October 2008

"What i like about the lanterns is that it deals with the frail temporary aspect of putting up art in street.if i take the best case scenario (that nobody takes the piece after a short while and there are no extreme winds or rain) then the longest life span of these pieces will be that of the candles, which is probably just a few hours. therefore, when someone runs into it on the street they know that it was placed there not so long ago and they, by coincidence, got there in the small time frame that the piece was "active", hopefully giving them the feeling that it was placed there especially for them, and maybe guiding them,following them home and subtly lighting up their way."
- "KNOW HOPE's Beautiful Candlelit Street Art", Wooster Collective, JUNE 5, 2007

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Kumi Yamashita
Use of light, shadow; seems like light and dark have become bedfellows with Kumi Yamashita, and she's gotten to know them quite well. While the simplicity of the concept is easy to grasp, Yamashita has certainly mastered it. All kinds of reverence seem to be at play here, but perhaps most of all is reverence for storytelling. As is often the case with street art, in one image of light and dark, Yamashita reveals just enough of a story to hook the viewer. An intriguing technique, masterful execution and a touching story.

City View, 2003

Clouds, 2005

"The Mysterious Shadows That Lie Behind Everyday Objects", Simone Preuss for Environmental Graffiti
Simple? Not really. Says the Japanese-born, now New York-based artist about her motivation:
“Through my work I wish to remind ourselves of how we preconceive what is around and inside us. It is easy to passively turn to prepared information. Knowledge, ideas, and values are too often accepted without questioning.”
Call it visual trickery or manipulation, but the beauty of Yamashita’s objects lies in their simplicity, symbolized by the materials she uses: paper, wood, aluminum and most importantly, light.
Though born and raised in Japan, Kumi Yamashita has spent much of her adult life abroad, starting with a high-school exchange to the US in 1984. She then graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 1994 from the College of Arts in Washington and with a Master of Fine Arts in 1999 from the Glasgow School of Art in the UK. Since then, she has taken part in close to 30 group exhibitions and was featured in more than 10 solo exhibitions around the world. She’s also won numerous awards for her work.
- Enviromental Graffiti

Pretty epic video of her guest appearance on a Japanese TV show-

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Chunky Move
CHunky Move combines body kinetics with digital manipulation in a remarkable stage performance. A deep understanding and admiration for digital processes and the human locamotion is on display in each of their pieces.

Mortal Engine, 2008

Glow (excerpt), 2006

"Humanity meets technology (successfully, for a change)", Merilyn Jackson, Boston Street Review, September 27, 2010
Mortal Engine provided many mesmerizing moments between the dancers and the shadowy video that swathed their bodies, either in solo or in combination with others. These shadows began by outlining the dancers’ splayed limbs on the steeply raked stage like crime scene chalk in reverse. They shimmered like coal dust on the pale moon of the stage. Panels in the stage opened from time to time to create a vertical plane against which dancers moved as if they were graphite particles magnetized on a page.

The themes included mirror images, attraction and repulsion, and images that suggested a regression to the protozoan stage of life. In one duet, the woman dancer experiences a kind of electro infusion from which she cannot escape until her male counterpart covers her with his body and takes some of the infusion into himself, diffusing its power. In the most riveting scene, one dancer’s shadow seems to crystallize and shatter into thousands of small fragments that cascade down the raked stage, draining the life out of her.

Connectivity, both organic and electric, was another motif, with dancers joined only by their forefingers, lit with a pinpoint spot that, as it diminished to darkness, suggested a disconnect.

The soundscape consisted of many noises we are accustomed to hearing in this age: the beeping of trucks driving in reverse, Velcro unripping. But it was the light, especially the neon green light that limned the dancers’ bodies near the end that gave the Mortal Engine its otherworldly atmosphere.
- "Humanity meets technology (successfully, for a change)", Boston Street Review, September 27, 2010

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Jonsí
Jonsí's latest body of work, "Go" a collaboration with composer Nico Muhley brims with energy, vitality, and honesty. Jonsi writes about youth, innocence, growing up, relationships beginning and ending. Another masterful storyteller, another artist who's work drips with reverence for life.. which brings up full circle, back to Albert Schweitzer, and although he might have had the idea leap to his mind observing a group of hippos in an African river, I think he'd be proud to see how some of these artists approach life and reverence in their own way.

Animal Arithmetic, 2010

Listen to any piece you'd like from this body of work.

Pitchfork Review
Jónsi Birgisson doesn't do small. As the lead singer of Sigur Rós, he's starred in several of this century's most epic songs; with their penchant for instrumental swells, feedback, and weight-of-humanity wails, the Icelandic band has practically set a new, near unreachable height for melodramatic art rock. But after perfecting this style on 2005's Takk, Jónsi and his mates have had some trouble finding a way out from beneath the burden of big. Their last album, 2008's Með suð í eyrum við spilum endalaust, tried to temper the bombast but occasionally got bogged down in aimless balladry. Jónsi's subsequent Riceboy Sleeps LP with Alex Somers offered largely voiceless ambiance, akin to Quentin Tarantino directing a silent chamber drama. But with his solo debut, Jónsi fights huge with huger.

Helping to realize the mini symphonies in the singer's head are two key collaborators: pianist, composer, and arranger Nico Muhly-- who has become the de facto solution for artists like Grizzly Bear and Antony and the Johnsons when in need of unique, showy flourishes-- and Finnish percussionist Samuli Kosminen, who can be seen literally banging on old suitcases in an in-studio video on Jónsi's website. The conspirators balance well; though Muhly's manicured arrangements could have come off stiff in this context, their combination with Kosminen's unbridled wallops brings the orchestration dizzily whirling forth. But what truly elevates Go is Jónsi's voice, which still has the ability to stun a decade after Agætis Byrjun introduced most listeners to his alien bleats.
- Pitchfork

one word - Peace

“Peace is not something you wish for; It's something you make, Something you do, Something you are, And something you give away.”

“Maybe we should develop a Crayola bomb as our next secret weapon. A happiness weapon. A beauty bomb. And every time a crisis developed, we would launch one. It would explode high in the air - explode softly - and send thousands, millions, of little parachutes into the air. Floating down to earth - boxes of Crayolas. And we wouldn't go cheap, either - not little boxes of eight. Boxes of sixty-four, with the sharpener built right in. With silver and gold and copper, magenta and peach and lime, amber and umber and all the rest. And people would smile and get a little funny look on their faces and cover the world with imagination.”
- Robert Fulghum, American author, 1937 -

“Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.”
- Malcolm X, African-American Muslim minister, public speaker, and human rights activist, 1925 - 1965

“Deep experience is never peaceful.”
- Henry James, American author, 1843 – 1916

Buddha mind in Contemporary Art -Jacquelynn Baas, Mary Jane Jacob
I haven't read this book yet, but it seems like it would fit the bill nicely.
[from Amazon] Elucidating the common ground between the creative mind, the perceiving mind, and the meditative mind, the contributors tackle essential questions about the relationship of art and life. Among the writers are curators, art critics, educators, and Buddhist commentators in psychology, literature, and cognitive science. They consider the many Western artists today who recognize the Buddhist notion of emptiness, achieved through focused meditation, as a place of great creative potential for the making and experiencing of art. The artists featured in the interviews, all internationally recognized, include Maya Lin, Bill Viola, and Ann Hamilton.

Click here for excerpts on Google books.

In an ongoing attempt to reinvigorate my sense and desire for my art to be edifying, uplifting, and refreshing, I've chosen “peace” as my word for the week. Perhaps there is a zen-like quality to harnessing the peace and stillness I long for myself and instilling it into my work. Hope, Peace, and even love- is it possible to make work like this? Is Rothko's work peaceful? How about Sugimoto's? Bill Viola = peace? Are there universals in art that result in a majority of people reading a certain piece to be peaceful? Perhaps just a select few will receive peace. Perhaps they are the ones that need it the most? Maybe the word i should do is "calm"?

Mark Rothko

Bill Viola

Hiroshi Sugimoto

How about Risaku Suzuki?

Rinko Kawauchi

Orie Ichihashi

Junko Ohara

Do the Japanese have monopoly on peace?

How about James Turrell

Does it matter that some lady was so enraptured by his work that she lost her balance and broke her arm? Is it possible to break a bone peacefully?

And back to sound, what do you think of this piece? Peaceful? or just sleepy?

How about this one?
GlassMarimbaFrogCaller by stephenvitiello

Does this video piece make you feel peaceful?

Sigur Rós - Svefn-G-Englar from Sigur Rós on Vimeo.

Artist Blog Post - Rinko Kawauchi

Rinko Kawauchi's photos have a quiet urgency. The work is intimate and sublime, I love that she says she's interested in things that have a short life-span: insects, flowers, clouds, children & elderly faces... It's extremely romantic, and I know that the washed out color palate got huge and now seems cliché, but I'm still drawn to it. She's showing continuously & internationally, just wrapping up a show in Brussels (at the time of this writing). She has a sense of really believing in her work, and following her heart with it. Being personally and deeply invested in her subject. While I'm working through determining my perceived value of art, weighing personal expression vs. political/activist work that seems to have more worth because it "makes a difference", Kawauchi's work is refreshing is detailing the beauty and emotion in every day life. Viewing her work is a quiet and positive experience, with many commenting that her work is "refreshing". While it seems that much of the work I've seen lately is a response to tragedy, repression; or springs from cynicism, I'd like my work to be refreshing.

Rinko Kawauchi was born in 1972 in Shiga, Japan. She discovered photography whilst studying at Seian Junior College of Art and Design. Kawauchi gained international acclaim in 2001 with the simultaneous release of three photography books with Little More publishing : Utatane (catnap), Hanabi (fireworks) and Hanako, for which she was awarded with the 27th Ihei Kimura photography award. In a matter of a few years she published another three significant books : Aila (2004) with Little More publishing; Cui Cui (2005) and The Eyes, The Ears (2005) with Foil Publishing.

‘I want imagination in the photographs,’ she once remarked. ‘A photograph is like a prologue. You wonder, “What's going on?” You feel something is going to happen.’
- Rinko Kawauchi, in interview Sean O'Hagan, The Observer, Sunday 7 May 2006

“It is not accidental that our greatest art is intimate and not monumental.”
- Max Webber, 1864 - 1920, German sociologist and political economist

Link to an interview with the artist or a review

Link to gallery representing artist

Link to artist website (Link to Foil Gallery's website, which seems the be the most current, comprehensive online presence for the artist.