Method No. 13 (March 3, 2002) Guest: Yasuko Toyoshima The bulletin "Method" is an email bimonthly of free forwarding. The purpose is to pursue and exhibit method arts, such as method painting, method poem, and method music. If you have any trouble with receiving, please contact us. We will meet your wishes. - "Method" members: Hideki Nakazawa (artist), Shigeru Matsui (poet), Masahiro Miwa (composer) - Manifestos of Methodicism http://aloalo.co.jp/nakazawa/method/ - Japanese translation http://aloalo.co.jp/nakazawa/method/index_j.html Publishing in English by Hideki Nakazawa Guest's manuscript: Personal Space by Yasuko Toyoshima Guest's work: Saving Figures by Yasuko Toyoshima Members' manuscripts: Signs Instead of Color Dots by Hideki Nakazawa Purification of Poetry by Shigeru Matsui Music That "Could Have Been" by Masahiro Miwa Members' works: A set which consists of 180 palindromic numbers (Set No. 3) by Hideki Nakazawa 0225~0301 by Shigeru Matsui Propaganda Broadcast from the Head Quarters of "The New Era" by Masahiro Miwa Information, Editor's notes -- Method No. 13 Guest: Yasuko Toyoshima Publishing in English by Hideki Nakazawa This is the first issue of the bulletin "Method" written in English. So far, the bulletin has been published only in Japanese, but from this issue No. 13, we are going to publish the bulletin in English. Japanese translation will be put on the webpage as written above. I also have to report that Tomomi Adachi seceded from the members, and that Masahiro Miwa joined us instead. Adachi, the drafter of the Second Methodicist Manifesto, had been a member for two years. Miwa, the observer of the Third Methodicist Manifesto, was also a guest for the issue No. 3 as the first musician guest. Now I am glad to introduce Yasuko Toyoshima, an emerging Japanese conceptual artist. Her art works, like "Mini-Investment," often thrill us because we cannot find any evidence of art in them. That does not mean they are anti-art. Rather, I even consider they are the center of art in spite of, or because of, no evidence. - Yasuko Toyoshima http://www.h3.dion.ne.jp/~yasukoto/ Guest's manuscript & work: Personal Space by Yasuko Toyoshima In 1996 I happened to know "ONE STOCK MOVEMENT" which had appeared at that time as the citizen movement. It seemed to show well how to recognize things and how to treat phenomena. Taking it as accurate, I started my project named "Mini-Investment" in the very year I knew it. I opened my accounts at some securities (stock) companies. My aim was not to make a profit but to keep the stock just like as a part of myself. In order to understand oneself and surroundings, it is a right method for an artist to become an investor to live in the Capitalistic society. It shows we already unconsciously define our own value. By being an institutional investor, artists can be responsible for themselves and their own systems. In 1997, a voluntary closure of Yamaichi Securities (it was one of the four famous Japanese securities companies) was publicized, and also Sanyo Securities, Hokkaido Takushoku Bank and eight more companies like those announced their bankruptcy. I bought their minimum stocks that dropped suddenly, and then I attended one of the final stockholders' meetings. That was a significant chance for me to expand my recognition, as it brought about more value than I had thought. It can be said that my aim succeeded just when the formula I adopted failed because of its own constitutional reason. There does not exist anything unsystematic because the unsystematic itself is a part of the system as well. My project titled "Opening Bank Accounts" has also started since 1996. I have opened 55 bank accounts, but the present situation has changed because of their integration and closures. Now more than a few of my accounts are overlapped in some banks. The word "art" is a circulation system that shifts things realistic to iconic, specific to universal, aggregating to personal, and vice versa. As you know, "art" cannot invent nor create a new logic. It can only demonstrate a part of logic that already exists. The existence value of it can be confirmed only by showing paradoxically how it traces intangible external/internal customs. Saving Figures by Yasuko Toyoshima http://www.h3.dion.ne.jp/~yasukoto/sv.html To save figures, I collect some former currency issued under hyper inflation. Paper money here presented, donation by a Yugoslav artist, are a 100,000,000-dinar bill, and a 500,000,000-dinar bill, etc. The Milopsevic Administration issued them in 1993 as an inflationary policy. (I will appreciate some donation or exchange of such currency in case you have some from other countries. Please contact: toyoshimayasuko@hotmail.com) Members' manuscripts & works: Signs Instead of Color Dots by Hideki Nakazawa The structure of bitmap computer graphics (CG) is simple. It is nothing but an accumulation of colored pixel-dots. A white canvas in bitmap CG is an accumulation of white dots. To paint something red is to change the color of the dots from white to red. An image of bitmap CG results from the difference in color of the dots, such difference as between white and red. Thus the structure of bitmap CG has two properties; one is multitudinousness of dots, the other is multifariousness of dots. The impressionist theory is similar. An impressionist painting is an accumulation of brush-strokes, that is, color dots. Remember Seurat's pointialism as utmost impressionism. The so-called touch division is multitudinousness of dots, and the color division is multifariousness of dots. We can apply this theory not only to the Venetian school's paintings, but also to Demokritos's atomistic view of the world. The structure of this world is an accumulation of atoms, and wood and iron are each composed of different atoms. The essence of atomism is also multitudinousness and multifariousness. Yes, the theory of color paintings from Venetian school to bitmap CG has a connection with atomism in its structure. In my art works I use signs, such as numbers, letters, coins, weights, etc., instead of color dots. An art work of mine is an accumulation of signs which includes some different characters. Thus its structure is the same as that of a color painting. It has multitudinousness and multifariousness. I indicate that there are two standpoints in thinking about color; one is to stand on physiology, the other on structure. The former is of retinal sensation, such as of red. If you stand on the former, a flat covered by only red can be called a color painting, in spite of lack of multitudinousness and multifariousness. If you stand on the latter, an accumulation of signs can be called a color painting, in spite of lack of retinal sensation. I think the twentieth century's reductionism, or modernism, pursued only the former. But nowadays we should pursue the latter, because everything is made of signs, 0 and 1, in the age of "from atoms to bits" (by Negroponte). So let's discard physiology and choose structure. That is why I use signs instead of, or as, color dots. And that is why I declare my works to be of "today's impressionism." Purification of Poetry by Shigeru Matsui What is poetry? We have been asking this question again and again everywhere for a long time. It seems that asking this question itself is poetry, but there have been two common knowledge that has been existing since the time immemorial like the question for poetry. Someone says, "Poetry is rhyme," and the other says, "Poetry is lyric." Rhyme of poems is a selection of codes that is structured by the visual and auditory senses. This is the method of selecting letters for the poems. Lyric of poems is a sequence of codes that is structured by narrative time. This is the method of making rows of letters for the poems. It is unnecessary to say, but codes of poems are different from the languages used in our everyday life. In other words, the meaning of poems is not as same as what is written in letters. The structure of a universal form is what the poems mean. I can define that poems are the universal forms of rhyme and lyric, and I have been composing "Pure Poem" based on that definition. This poem is composed of the most minimal principle of poems but has the maximal potential of realization. That meaning that "Pure Poem" has more possibility of poems than any of those. I have been composing "Pure Poem" since January 7, 2001. The series are 27 cantos by March 1, 2002. Each title is a composing term. For example the latest canto is "0225~0301". Each canto consists of four hundred letters that used to be written in Chinese characters at the beginning. I used three Chinese characters, "1" "2" and "3". These can be called pure letters which writing action corresponds with meaning to the characters. The Chinese character "1" is a horizontal line, "2" has two horizontal lines and "3" has three horizontal lines. This year I stopped using Chinese characters and started using with Roman vertical lines of "I", "II" and "III", to solve a translating problem. Now that the Chinese characters changes international letters with keeping symbol. Four hundred letters consist of three codes and are placed in Japanese manuscript paper whose unit is twenty blanks by twenty blanks. Therefore writing action corresponds with Japanese sense. Japanese space-time is a square. A square is an everlasting truth against the change from horizontal lines to vertical lines. "Pure Poem" consists of international letters with national form. Music That "Could Have Been" by Masahiro Miwa Some time ago I sent a message to Mr. Nakazawa saying "I have started method music." It was when I had just completed a piece for harp called "For All Time". I felt that way because this piece was merely a composition created purely with computer algorithms despite the definitions often cited when "promoting the method arts." For this piece I devised note selection rules that determined all that should be on the score for the entire composition including pitch and of course rhythm. This could be done without using random numbers as long as the initial values were established. On the score that I passed to the harpist were notes written according to traditional western musical notation and anyone who looked at the composition would think that it was a piece of music written by a composer. However in actual fact this was not music in the normal sense of the word and maybe could not be called a true composition either. It was really no more than a memo that told someone to use an instrument called a harp in a certain way. I am merely the someone who found and used computer technology to define the basic principles that could dictate the actions of a harpist. Yet as long as I myself am sure that somewhere on this earth this kind of music "could have been", it is music even if only to me. "Music that could have been" was based on two basic principles, namely the music could be performed, and that someone in the world could have come up with such music without using computers. In other words in order to be "music that could have been" the composition must have been structured so that it was possible for a human to perform it. That is, it was a way of representing the music, traditions or way of thinking of a race of people on this earth that would have existed even if there were no computers. The fundamental theories of chaos and fractals can be explained with pencil and paper but actual research into these theories did not progress until the evolution of the computer. In the same way, the "method music" that I am working on is new music made possible for the first time by technology, music that focuses only on performance rules. It is an attempt to think of music as the method of an action. A set which consists of 180 palindromic numbers (Set No. 3) by Hideki Nakazawa http://aloalo.co.jp/nakazawa/method/work013.html I chose one hundred and eighty palindromic numbers, like "12321," using a simple rule for this set. It is an accumulation of numbers, and these numbers are different from each other. Suppose each number is like a colored brush-stroke. Can you imagine a certain sensation of logical color, in spite of lack of real physiological color like red or blue? 0225~0301 by Shigeru Matsui http://www11.u-page.so-net.ne.jp/td5/shigeru/no027.html This work is no.27 of the searial "Pure Poem." Propaganda Broadcast from the Head Quarters of "The New Era" by Masahiro Miwa http://www.The-New-Era.org/ I have been thinking about the ultimate presentation form of algorithmic compositions for a long time. As a possible solution, I am fascinated with the idea of broadcasting the output of a computer live using streaming audio; especially in the case of realtime algorithmic compositions. I have actually tried doing this. Not only the algorithms for generating the music, but the configurations of the computers for live streaming were all parts of my musical work. Information: from Yasuko Toyoshima -"Melbourne-Tokyo, Magazine / Exhibition Project : Gloss" from March 14 to April 21 at NADiff (Tokyo) and CCP (Melbourne). Curators: Larissa Hjorth, Eri Otomo, Itaru Hirano. Artists: Martine Corompt, Candy Factory, Larisa Hjorth, Akira Mori, Saki Satom, Natasha Johns-Messenger, Masato Takasaka, Yasuko Toyoshima. Publishing magazines and a traveling exhibition. -"NOT to be general" from June 3 to 25 at Sai Gallery (Osaka) and from June 8 to 30 at Media Shop (Kyoto). Project: Shinichi Yanai. Artists: Hiroko Ichihara (Japan), Noelle Cuppens (The Netherlands), An Seebach (Germany), Yasuko Toyoshima (Japan). Collaboration group show. http://www.table-b.net/2s_yanai_e.htm from Hideki Nakazawa - "program seed" from March 8 to 24 at Kyoto Art Center ...I will show a new work using 149101 coins. See info from "Method" about the concert. - Solo exhibition from April 6 to 27 at Gallery Cellar (Nagoya) - "Japan and Korea Contemporary Prints Exhibition" from May 17 to June 9 at Gallery OM (Yokohama), with Yayoi Kusama, Kim Hyung-Dae, et al. - "Spring Permanent Exhibition" at Kitakyushu Municipal Museum of Art. - Yuji Takahashi will play my piano piece on April 16 at Casals Hall. - Shigeru Matsui et al. will realize my work. See info from him. - An essay on Yutaka Matsuzawa in February issue, and a review on Experimetal Workshop and Syuzo Takiguchi in March issue of Bijutsu-Techo. - Class "Methodicist Manifesto" from May to July at Bigakko. - The bitmap 3D software "Digital Nendo for Mac" is now available free. - Further info http://aloalo.co.jp/nakazawa/info_e.html from Shigeru Matsui - Conversation with Takashi Shinkawa in "Gendaishi-Techo" March - Contributed to "suigyu" http://www.ne.jp/asahi/suigyu/suigyu21/ - Exhibition "Poetic Free" on March 9 at space EDGE (Tokyo) http://homepage2.nifty.com/poeticfree/ - Exhibition "BIENNALE DE POESIE VISUAL, 2002" May 15-25 (Tokyo) - Concerts. Detail will be announced soon. from Masahiro Miwa -Flutist Dogen Kinowaki will play "Song of Imaginary Island of Far East II" for Flute and Piano (composed:1992) on March 30 at Daikanyama Classics, Tokyo - New CD's "Silhouette of Words, or Alleluia" (Steinhand) and "The New Era, Songs of the Believers" (Syoten) are now available at TowerRecords and NADiff, Japan - Further info http://www.miwa.to/2CD.html from "Method" - "Method Music Concert and Talk by Masahiro Miwa and Hideki Nakazawa" as a related event of "program seed" 1:00-3:00 pm on March 24 at the auditorium of Kyoto Art Center. Admission free. Cast: Masahiro Miwa (composer), Hideki Nakazawa (artist), Kazuo Amano (assistant prof. of Kyoto Univ. of Art & Design, for the talk only) ...Miwa will carry out "Shooting Star Worship," Nakazawa will present new pieces of monophony. - "Second Method Art Festival" in April in Tokyo. Detail will be announced on the webpage of the members soon. - Back numbers are under translation from Japanese. See http://aloalo.co.jp/nakazawa/method/index_e.html Guests up to the issue No. 12: Motoaki Shinohara, Toshiaki Furuya, Masahiro Miwa, Akira Tatehata, Kenjiro Okazaki, Haruyuki Suzuki, Tatsuhiko Ishii, Yutaka Matsuzawa, Yuji Takahashi, Shin Tanabe, Shigeyuki Toshima, Yasunao Tone. - Those who want to subscribe for this bulletin, contact the members. Editor's notes: Publishing in English has brought about much more trouble than I had imagined! The fact we chose the language in spite of such trouble does not mean we discard our mother tongue. I think we can find our own language more through some other language, ...like a method poet can compose method music. Anyway we want to pursue method art more internationally. (HN) -- Bimonthly Bulletin "Method" No.13 published on March 3, 2002 Publisher: Hideki Nakazawa, Shigeru Matsui, Masahiro Miwa nakazawa@aloalo.co.jp http://aloalo.co.jp/nakazawa/ shigeru@td5.so-net.ne.jp http://www11.u-page.so-net.ne.jp/td5/shigeru/ mmiwa@iamas.ac.jp http://www.iamas.ac.jp/~mmiwa/ Although you can send on this bulletin freely, each writer still holds the copyright. Corruption and appropriation are prohibited. Your sound judgement is required in forwarding this bulletin to others.