Tea Ceremony Research Articles

The Moldflow Simulation Analysis of Injection Molding of the Tea Ceremony Electromagnetic Oven Baseplate

In this paper, the computer simulation software Moldflow was used to analyse the characteristics of cooling, flowing, pressure maintaining, and warping in the process of injection filling for the tea ceremony electromagnetic oven baseplate, which could guide the optimization of machining process. Meanwhile, the development cycle of products would be greatly shortened and the cost would be reduced, which could produce significant economic benefits [1-5].

Does Traditional Japanese Culture Help People Cope with Stress Using the Concept of Ikigai (Reason for Being)?

Many Japanese people in modern society experience stress that may contribute to various kinds of diseases, sometimes resulting in death. One important source of stress comes from an excessive need for approval from others, or sekentei. Recent evidence has shown that ikigai , i.e., a philosophy that establishes the meaning of life, is a more effective way to cope with stress than excessive sekentei . These attitudes are related to prefrontal cortex (PFC) function, which is more evolved in humans compared to other mammals. Ikigai and factors influencing it are common in traditional Japanese culture, and are expressed in traditions such as tea ceremony , ikebana, bonsai, calligraphy , waka and haiku poetry , Japanese painting, pottery , judo, kabuki, and Japanese-style cuisine. Many Japanese people in modern society have an interest in traditional Japanese culture. We discuss the potential significance of traditional Japanese culture on the role of ikigai by referencing previous studies.

The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga by Ōta Gyūichi (review)

Reviewed by: The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga by Ōta Gyūichi Morten Oxenboell The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga. By Ōta Gyūichi. Translated and edited by J. S. A. Elisonas and J. P. Lamers. Leiden: Brill, 2011. 520 pages. Hardcover €148.00/$197.00. Few people have captured the imagination of students of Japanese history as has Oda Nobunaga (1534–1582). Nobunaga was one of the three so-called unifiers of pre-modern Japan, together with Toyotomi Hideyoshi (1537–1598) and Tokugawa Ieyasu (1543–1616). He stood out not only as a military genius who succeeded in conquering half the country despite overwhelming odds, but also because of his rebellious youth and outlandish appearance. The most important source on the life and career of this fascinating figure is Shinchō kōki, written by Ōta Gyūichi (1527–1613)—who for almost ten years served on Nobunaga’s administrative staff. Ōta completed the work a decade into the Tokugawa period and thus some thirty years after Nobunaga’s violent death. All but the first of Shinchō kōki’s sixteen volumes follow the East Asian historiographical tradition of listing facts and events in a straightforward chronological manner. According to Ōta, the great majority of the facts presented in the chronicle are extracts from diaries that he himself kept—utilizing his privileged vantage point as a witness to this turbulent period. As Elisonas and Lamers, the translators and [End Page 121] editors, clearly point out, the first volume was probably never intended to be part of the chronicle and should be seen more as an anecdotal war tale. This does not make the volume any less significant, and its fantastic stories about the exploits of the young Nobunaga whet the appetite for what is to come. While the chronicle is filled with violence and mayhem as the author takes us from one battlefield to the next, it also serves as a highly valuable source describing the cultural pursuits of warlords during this historical period. Details of noh performances, tea ceremonies, sports competitions, arts, and fashion provide interesting diversions and serve to nuance the images of the ferocious warlords at the close of the violent Sengoku period. The chronicle should appeal not only to a select few scholars with a particular interest in Nobunaga, but also to a much broader audience. It shows how warriors navigated a complex and often lethal political environment, and it strikes a balance between two of the most common descriptions of Nobunaga: a Machiavellian prince of unsurpassed cruelty and an enlightened ruler with a keen mind open to new ideas. While Ōta is full of admiration for the accomplishments of Nobunaga, he also sees his subject’s flaws. On several occasions he criticizes Nobunaga for his merciless cruelty against his enemies, whether warriors, women, or children. However, Ōta also shows there were times when Nobunaga felt pity for his victims. He relates, for example, how on one occasion Nobunaga had a large number of women and children crucified and otherwise executed in revenge for their lord’s treacherous act. Despite having issued the command on which these terrible deeds were carried out, Nobunaga then expressed remorse upon hearing the reports of tearful warriors who were distressed over the deaths. Though warlords had to be ruthless, this did not always mean they were cold-blooded killers. The Chronicle of Lord Nobunaga illustrates the function of violence in politics at the close of the medieval period. Wars were not always won on the battlefield: they were won just as often through defection by enemy warriors overly concerned about their possible fate and that of their families, and part of Nobunaga’s great success was no doubt his ability to stage gruesome displays of violence. In other words, he was a master at using violence as a vehicle of communication. The fates of Nobunaga’s victims are generally described in much the same way as they are in war tales of previous centuries—not as pitiful but as the inevitable result of karma or bad judgments by the victims’ lord. Thus the killer is seen as the tool, or vehicle, of destruction, rather than as the direct cause. In this way...

Significance of Japanese Tea Ceremony Values with Ceramic Art Interpretation

Japanese Tea Ceremony represents harmony, respect, purity and tranquillity which we must embrace in order to achieve the main purpose of the tea ceremony. This event is unique as every process from the tea equipment preparation until the tea is drunk has a distinctive technique. Therefore the positive values are applied to the whole process of the ceremony without not only focusing on the tea as the end product which is essential to present a good value to perfect the ceremony in order to convey it to the guests. Statement of problem is in Malaysia, people value ceramic aesthetically but not the interpretation of it or the values they put in that made the artwork how it is. It is because the artist does not feel the importance of moral values to be the message of their artwork and mostly focuses on the artworks physical. The objective is to instil positive values in ceramic artwork and make it mean something. The values do not have to be labelled specifically for example for nature extinction, political or religious but so long that there are good values to be conversed to people. This is for it not to become just a beautiful artwork but also as a reminder of how important moral values are in the world today as it is being taken for granted each day. This study is based on observation of the ceremony itself. A case study from real life of Japanese culture derived through the comparison with stated in any publication. The summary of this approaches indicate a concept of an art hidden behind these ceremonies. The outcome is an artwork that can be a reminder for us in this grasping world on how important it is to preserve moral values which is the core to live a harmonious live. The Japanese tea ceremony gives a positive impact and teaches good characteristics that need to be instilled in everyone such as manners, beauty, simplicity, respect, appreciation, discipline, humbleness and kindness. The Japanese tea ceremony is a part of Japanese culture that has been kept for a long time and it's proven that the discipline came from this culture. These literature study then be applied as philosophical method in proposing an artwork based on cultural elements.

Internationalization of Culture through Traditional Arts: A Case of Japanese SMEs

There are two important subjects concerning internationalization strategies that are of interest to academia, the business community and society in general. The first one is internationalization of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs); the other one is internationalization of local cultures. This article provides insights into the specific internationalization strategies used by Japanese SMEs to export traditional arts to foreign markets, focusing on Japanese pottery for the tea ceremony. SMEs encounter difficulties concerning limited resources in their internationalization process, but what is the situation of SMEs whose business activity is linked to indigenous cultural factors? The findings have been obtained from in-depth interviews with pottery artists as well as qualitative analysis of websites and other sources and they suggest a new previous phase in the export of products with a cultural meaning. I called this phase the 'reverse prior phase' and I argue that it might be a suitable way to start the internationalization process for Japanese traditional arts.

Metaphysics of the Tea Ceremony: A Randomized Trial Investigating the Roles of Intention and Belief on Mood While Drinking Tea

This study explored whether drinking tea "treated" with good intentions would enhance mood more than drinking ordinary tea, under double-blind, randomized conditions. Each evening, for seven days in a row, volunteers recorded their mood using the Profile of Mood States (POMS) questionnaire. On days three, four, and five of the test, each participant drank 600 mL of oolong tea in the morning and again in the afternoon. One randomly assigned group blindly received tea that had been intentionally treated by three Buddhist monks; the other group blindly received untreated tea from the same source. On the last day of the test, each person indicated what type of tea he/she believed he/she had been drinking. Stratified, random sampling was used to assign 189 adults into two groups matched by age, gender, the psychological trait of neuroticism, and the amount of tea consumed on average per day. All participants were Taiwanese and lived in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and the test was conducted over the course of one week to reduce mood fluctuations due to changes in local weather and other common influences. Those who drank treated tea showed a greater increase in mood than those who drank untreated tea (Cohen's d = 0.65, P = .02, two-tailed). Change in mood in those who believed that they were drinking treated tea was much better than those who did not believe (Cohen's d = 1.45, P = .00002, two-tailed). Tea treated with good intentions improved mood more than ordinary tea derived from the same source. Belief that one was drinking treated tea produced a large improvement in mood, but only if one was actually drinking the treated tea, indicating that belief and intentional enhancement interact. This also suggests that the esthetic and intentional qualities associated with the traditional tea ceremony may have subtle influences that extend beyond the ritual itself.

Making tea, making Japan: cultural nationalism in practice

Few practices are simultaneously as exotic and representative, esoteric and quotidian, instrumental and sensual, political and cultural as the Japanese tea ceremony. Making Tea, Making Japan: Cultural Nationalism in Practice uncovers how the practice became such a potent symbol of the nation while undergoing a radical transformation of its carriers, as what was once an aesthetic pastime of elite men has survived into the twenty-first century as a hobby of middle-class women. Simultaneously, the book offers an analytical bridge between the largely separate literatures on macro-political nationalism and micro-cultural enactments of everyday nationhood by examining their shared repertoire of action. This “nation-work” is visible not only during the foundational phases of nation-building, but also in the more mundane routines of nation-maintenance thereafter. Each chapter applies a different interpretive lens – phenomenological, historical, institutional, and ethnographic – to capture the ways Japaneseness crystallizes in the tea ceremony both during the fervour of nation formation, and in the moment-to-moment interactions within the tea room. The conclusion sets the practice in comparative perspective, drawing on other classic venues of nation-work – gymnastics and music – in Europe and Asia, and returning the different dimensions of the tea ceremony to the overall framework under which they are viewed: as an exceptionally vivid illustration of one of the fundamental processes of modernity, the work of making nations.

Attempt to learn life and culture through the Japanese tea ceremony experience.

Attempt to learn life and culture through the Japanese tea ceremony experience.

The Transformation of the American Food System, and Its Effects on Wellness

This study explored whether drinking tea “treated” with good intentions would enhance mood more than drinking ordinary tea, under double-blind, randomized conditions.Each evening, for seven days in a row, volunteers recorded their mood using the Profile of Mood States (POMS) questionnaire. On days three, four, and five of the test, each participant drank 600 mL of oolong tea in the morning and again in the afternoon. One randomly assigned group blindly received tea that had been intentionally treated by three Buddhist monks; the other group blindly received untreated tea from the same source. On the last day of the test, each person indicated what type of tea he/she believed he/she had been drinking.Stratified, random sampling was used to assign 189 adults into two groups matched by age, gender, the psychological trait of neuroticism, and the amount of tea consumed on average per day. All participants were Taiwanese and lived in Kaohsiung, Taiwan, and the test was conducted over the course of one week to reduce mood fluctuations due to changes in local weather and other common influences.Those who drank treated tea showed a greater increase in mood than those who drank untreated tea (Cohen's d = 0.65, P = .02, two-tailed). Change in mood in those who believed that they were drinking treated tea was much better than those who did not believe (Cohen's d = 1.45, P = .00002, two-tailed).Tea treated with good intentions improved mood more than ordinary tea derived from the same source. Belief that one was drinking treated tea produced a large improvement in mood, but only if one was actually drinking the treated tea, indicating that belief and intentional enhancement interact. This also suggests that the esthetic and intentional qualities associated with the traditional tea ceremony may have subtle influences that extend beyond the ritual itself.

Cultural Design Method on Multi-Sensor Technology Design: A Case of Interactive Lamp Design

Emotion has inalienablerelationship with culture. Nowadays, there is an increasing tread in designersto integrate culture elements in product designs. Based on previous emotional design theory,we made a thorough analysis from three levels respectively: visceral level, behavior level and reflective level and tried to work out a culturaldesign method with the purpose of integrating culture withtechnologically industrial design. Subsequently, to validate this method, we developed an interactivelamp design with multi-sensor technology, which called “Lightceremony”, inspired by a specialcultural element, tea ceremony.

Teaching Asian Art: Content, Context, and Pedagogy

Teaching Art: Content, Context, and Pedagogy Chung, S. K. (Ed.). (2012). Teaching Art: Content, Context, and Pedagogy. Reston, VA: National Art Education Association. 246 pages; ISBN 978-1-890160-52-4According to the United States of America Census Bureau (201 1), over 40% of foreignborn populations in the US in 2008 or later were and the top five countries of birth of immigrants in the US were Mexico, China, India, the Philippines, and Korea. Notably, four of these countries are in Asia. That is, the population in the US grew faster than any other ethnic group between 2000 and 2010 (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012). This substantial increase in the population of the US suggests that American educators should pay special attention to the cultural and social contexts of and aesthetics in order to translate them into practice not only for the increasing number of students, but also for American students. In today's global society, learning about and aesthetics can help American students better understand their personal, social, and cultural identities as well as that of others (Anderson, 1 995), eventually helping them to bea member of the global community.A new anthology, edited by Sheng Kuan Chung and published by the National Art Education Association, Teaching Art: Content, Context, and Pedagogy (201 2), is the first book designed to providea pedagogical and contextual discussion of and culture for American educators. Chung invited contributions by educators, artists, museum educators, curators, historians, and philosophers with a variety of connections to and culture. Represented among the contributing authors are natives working in Asia (indigenous-insiders), natives working in the US (indigenous-outsiders), and Americans or internationals with direct and/or indirect experience with and culture (external-insiders/ external-outsiders). With a focus on pedagogical concerns, the chapters in this book cover a wide range of and culture from such countries as Bhutan, China, Indonesia, Japan, Korea, Laos, Malaysia, the Philippines, Taiwan, Thailand, Tibet, and Vietnam, as well as the island of Bali.A native of Taiwan, Chung has extensive teaching and research experience in both Taiwan and the US, making him a well-qualified editor for this anthology. Chung was an elementary school teacher and artist in Taiwan and earned an MA and PhD in education in the US. He currently serves as an associate professor of education at the University of Houston and has published on multiculturalism and aesthetics in education within a social constructivist perspective. Based on his bordercrossing experiences asan artist, teacher, and education faculty member in two countries, he introduced American educators to Asian artistic practices/traditions and addresses concepts and issues related to understanding and teaching art (Chung, 2012, p. vii).The anthology is divided into four themes: Contextual Explorations, Aesthetic Forms and Meanings, Spiritual and Religious Practices, and Crossing Boundaries. The Contextual Explorations section offers scholarly discussion on issues and concepts related to and aesthetics in context. Through a critical review of literati painting, ink painting, calligraphy, and tea ceremonies, the first six chapters of this section examine how the and aesthetics of East countries such as China, Japan, and Korea are historically and culturally interrelated. The last two chapters of this section examine the indigenous of Taiwan and the Philippines. The contextual nature of these examinations leads the reader to understand how and aesthetics (e.g., copying and imitation of the style of masters) differs from Western aesthetics (e.g., emphasis on originality). For American educators in particular, Mara Miller's nine objectives and effects of teaching East and aesthetics in the US serve as meaningful guidelines for American educators planning curricula on East art. …

A passage to Tokyo: The art of Ozu, remembered

The most appropriate analogy for the art in Yasujiro Ozu’s films – particularly Tokyo Story (1953), the subject of this article – is Zen Buddhism, as it is for traditional Japanese arts, crafts or skills such as painting, gardening, archery, the tea ceremony, haiku poetry, Noh drama, judo and kendo. Zen is not an organized religion with social and political concerns like Shintoism (itself devoted in part to nature worship, to the cultivation of a harmonious relationship between man and the natural environment) or Christianity, but a way of living that has permeated the fabric of Japanese culture for well over 1300 years. The fountainhead of Zen is a fundamental unity of experience in which there is no dichotomy or discord between man and nature (in western terms, this comes close to pantheism), and which thus permits the attainment of transcendental enlightenment through meditation, self-contemplation and intuitive knowledge. The great threat to this communal oneness, it could be argued, has been ‘modernization’ in the wake of the industrial-technological revolution, especially as such modernization affected Japan during the post-World War II period: precisely the period during which Tokyo Story takes place, and which forms a quiet but nonetheless meaningful backdrop for its action.

Gathering for tea in late-Meiji Tokyo

Early works on the history of the tea ceremony during the modern period emphasise the roles of the modern industrialist elite and their connoisseurial appreciation of tea objects. They argue that their aesthetic value derived from the history of the tea ceremony and that the space provided by tea gatherings played a critical role in the collection and display of art objects in the modern period. This article focuses on the social life of the elite in Tokyo during the mid-to-late Meiji period and examines how the tea ceremony generated new socio-economic networks and cultural institutions. It suggests that the modern development of the tea ceremony was influenced not only by the modern industrialist elite, but by a broader set of actors from various social groups, with differing motivations, that transcended nationality and gender. Towards the end of the Meiji era, the tea ceremony prompted the emergence of new institutions and became a medium for public diplomacy.

Tea Ceremony as a Space for Interreligious Dialogue

Abstract This paper explores the potential of Japanese tea ceremony to be an aesthetic space for inter-religious dialogue. Through a study of historical encounters that took place between European Jesuit missionaries and Japanese tea masters in the late 16th century, this paper elucidates the missionaries’ experiences of tea ceremonies and discusses the validity and limitation of a tea house as a space for cross-cultural and interreligious dialogue. The fruit of tea ceremony in terms of interreligious dialogue includes a shared sense of aesthetic communion that is attained through communal enjoyment of the beauty of nature and drinking a cup of tea in an isolated tea house, where guests are invited to cast away worries of everyday business, as well as their social and religious differences; whereas its limitation pertains to marked indifference toward verbal communication that is characteristic to the way of tea, and thus the historical missionaries’ experience was limited to aesthetic paradigm and did not lead to logical understanding of doctrinal differences between Buddhists and Christians.

Kōdō — Its Spiritual and Game Elements and Its Interrelations with the Japanese Literary Arts

In Japan, there are many kinds of dōs. The term has diverse and profound meanings, making it a challenge to define. Simply speaking, dō is a way for people to train the spirit by following specific practices, with the purpose of mastering life. Prominent examples of dōs include chadō / sadō (〔 茶 道 〕 so-called “tea ceremony”), kadō (〔 華 道 〕 so-called “flower arrangement”), shodō (calligraphy), and bushidō (the ethical code of the samurai). There are also sport practices such as jūdō (judo), kendō (kendo) and aikidō (aikido), all of which are also connected with the culture of dō.

Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts by Haruo Shirane (review)

Reviewed by: Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts by Haruo Shirane Elizabeth Oyler Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons: Nature, Literature, and the Arts. By Haruo Shirane. Columbia University Press, 2012. 336 pages. Hardcover $75.00/£52.00; softcover $25.00/£17.50. Japan and the Culture of the Four Seasons is an ambitious and wide-ranging exploration of the way spring, summer, autumn, and winter became thematized in the arts and lives of the Japanese from the Nara to the Edo periods. Here, Haruo Shirane has crafted a sustained engagement with the poetic tradition (traced primarily through waka, renga, and haikai/haiku), and he has also contextualized these genres within the nexus of cultural practices in which they became culturally embedded over time: screen painting, flower arrangement, tea ceremony, performing arts, and food culture. Although primarily a study of the past, the book also points to the enduring vitality of the complex and ornate system of seasonal representation. One of its surprising pleasures is the way it brings into relief the relevance of the past to the present, providing histories of practices that seem far removed from, yet were deeply shaped by, their earlier incarnations (the Hina Matsuri, for example, or the names of sumo wrestlers, or the yearly schedules of kabuki performances). This important work will undoubtedly make a lasting contribution to the way we conceptualize (and teach) premodern Japanese culture in relation to contemporary Japan. As he has in his earlier works, Shirane demonstrates remarkable insightfulness and clarity; in particular, he synthesizes a complicated tangle of influences and trends into a lucid but multivalenced view of the broad cultural significance of images associated with the seasons. Opening with a discussion of seasonal references in early poetry collections, he sketches the layers of complexity that they take on as they are shaped first by Heian aristocrats; then by medieval warriors, poets, and painters; and finally by urban commoners during the Edo period. Over time, Shirane argues, things that [End Page 107] seem on the surface to represent opposite poles in fact worked in productive dialogue to create Japan’s fabled love of nature: the pastoralization of the countryside by aristocrats versus the often confrontational engagement with nature by provincial people working the land; a close association of natural images with the changing seasons versus the “trans-seasonal” (p. 21) talismanic nature of some of them; the interiorization (and domestication) of landscape in the home versus increased movement to and through actual landscapes made famous in poetry and art; and the spread of artistic practices like renga and haiku to urban commoners versus the increasing complexity of rules for their composition. The overarching themes of the work are the ways in which nature from very early on became interiorized (both mentally and architecturally) in Japanese culture; how it was organized seasonally, with various flora, fauna, and atmospheric conditions coming to represent each season or part of a season; and how seasonal references expanded, contracted, and became objects of experimentation and parody over time. Underlying Shirane’s argument for changes over time is the status the seasons have held throughout Japanese history as an organizational principle that has allowed meanings in life and in art to change while simultaneously remaining within a recognized framework. Shirane’s primary interest is the development of “secondary nature” (p. 4), an engagement with the natural world mediated by multiple cultural lenses. His argument aptly opens with a discussion, in chapter 1, of poetry and the way it represents the seasons. For example, the Kokinshū builds on seasonal associations transmitted from China (and found in the Man’yōshū) in ordering its first six chapters by season. Specific words evoke each season (willows and plum in spring; the cuckoo, summer; the moon and falling leaves, autumn). This structure continued in the imperial anthologies throughout their history. Within the developing affective poetic tradition, each image was also shot through with emotional meanings. Thus poetry, and the codified group of seasonal and natural images that grew from it (especially references to plants, animals, and atmospheric conditions), became a primary mode of expressing emotion in Heian Japan. The author...

A Distributed Intelligence Approach to Multidisciplinarity: Encouraging Divergent Thinking in Complex Science Issues in Society

The scientific issues that face society today are increasingly complex, open-ended and tentative (Sadler, 2004). Finding solutions to these issues, not only requires an understanding of the science, but also, concurrently dealing with political, social, and economic dimensions that exist (Hodson, 2003). For example, 40 years after the first congressional hearing on climate change held by Al Gore in 1976, the 2012 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report states that climate change is still getting worse, despite efforts by governments, businesses, social actors such as Non-Government Organizations, and scientists. With the top minds in the world, across all disciplines, backed with government and corporate funding pursuing the same goal of resolving human impact on climate change, why haven’t we resolved the situation? What strategies might be employed to increase effective action? Author/Artist Bio Jarod Kawasaki is currently a doctoral student at the UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies, his dissertation focuses on teachers' beliefs about the purpose of science education and their relationship to teachers' instructional practice. Kawasaki's research interests focus on ways that K-12 education builds the capacity of students to engage with science in their everyday lives. Kawasaki is interested in the design of learning environments that encourage students to creativity to address controversial and public science issues. Before graduate school, Kawasaki was a science teacher at an urban high school in Los Angeles and completed a MA in Educational Technology from Cal State Northridge. Currently, Kawasaki is working for the Teacher Education Program at UCLA, conducting research with a 5-year US Department of Education grant investigating the effectiveness of an urban teacher residency program in preparing pre-service teachers and evaluating teaching quality. Previously, Kawasaki worked on a Spencer Foundation grant that examined the use of student data by teachers to inform instructional decisions in small pilot school in Los Angeles and at the UCLA National Center for Evaluation, Standards, and Student Testing (CRESST) developing assessments aligned with the Common Core State Standards. Kawasaki currently lives in Culver City, CA with his wife and two daughters (5 years old & 6 months old). Dai Toyofuku was born and raised in Los Angeles, where he also lives and works. He has a profound interest in the cultures of animal and plant communities that share the Los Angeles urban landscape. The artist received a BFA from California Institute of the Arts and an MFA from the Claremont Graduate University. Dai has collaborated with biologists and other artists in order to explore the relationship between art and science. In 2011, he had his first solo show at Steve Turner Contemporary. In 2012, He and seven other artists collaborated with a biologist to create an exhibition supporting endangered species at the College Art Association's 100th annual Convention. He is currently working on a body of work combining the four seasons and the Japanese tea ceremony, growing an indoor California-native Bonsai garden, and cultivating plants to feed caterpillars endemic to Los Angeles. In the near future, he hopes to breed Neurergus kaiseri, a newt that is now extinct in the wild

Negotiating Public Spaces: A Conversation with Members of the STAG Project

The fight over Hong Kong space is one of utmost intensity, not only in everyday encounters. It is a leading point for many artistic practices and activist movements. Most public are taken over and strictly regulated by commmercial companies and government authorities while less and less space is left to individually run cafes shops, Or art studios. Swiss architects, researchers. and artists Geraldine Borio and Garoline Wuthrich from Hong Kong-based Parallel Lab are especially sensitive to the Lack of proper public in this metropolis and address the situation in their artistic research project STAG(2012), over the course several months, they invited people to reappropriate and see with fresh eyes what they Call the edge public spaces of Hong Kong, situate in between the densely packed skyscrapers of the island. During its first our events, the STAG project the name referring to a mutation of a stool phus a bag, invaded Hong Kong's narrow veins and pulled participant into their vibrant buzz. Happenings such as an evening movie screening, an afternoon tea ceremony, and a nighttime DJ show introduced people to Hong Kong's back alleys in poetic and organic ways. Finally, independent but in line with the previous events, the multimedia installation Voltae (2012) brought a different dimension to this experience in the remoteness and quietness of the gallery space. Facing a video loop of abstractions, one was deprived of seeing any image except pure computer-generated light contrasted by deep shadow. Drawn away from the familiar pictures and immersed instead into vivid acoustic data, one's sensorium was retuned to receive a fleeting, yet intimate and intensely present story of the city. As Borio and Wuthrich envision it, the cityscape on our metnal map melts to liquid and allows us to color those uncharted black spots. Borio and Wuthrich co-founded parallel Lab, an architectural and laboratory for urban experiments around Asia based in Hong Kong. Instead of concentrating on the big picture the cit they intensify the direct relationship between people and space by exploring the different modes of space appropriation around the world. Their artistic and research projects redistribute urban space on a micro-level by employing various media and designing plastic tools and mobile structures that are tuned to the specifics of he local cultures and thus engage people's sensitivity and immediate response. Besides their work at Parallel Lab Borio and Wuthrich are the Chinese University of Hong Kong respectively. NEVENA IVANOVA: Let us start with a short introduction to your creative process and points of inspiration. How did you choose your artistic strategies and the ways to intervene into Hong Kong's urban space? GERALDINE BORIO: Seven years ago we started with a similar project in Bangkok. It was our intention to interact with the city at a micro, human-oriented scale. Caroline and I met at the Swiss Institute of Technology of Lausanne. Switzerland where we were each about to write a master's thesis, we both wanted to do something outside of Switzerland. We chose Bangkok because there was not enough research about its urban development. Unlike other Asian cities such as Tokyo or Beijing, it was a Fresh case with a lot of things to discover. Another reason is that Bangkok is a young city and fast developing, so one can observe in a short time the changes in its infrastructure. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] CAROLINE WUTHRICH: The cities we choose to intervene in have a free form, apparently developing without urban planning cities with no beauty, with a certain mess, which nobody is interested to explore. What captures us in such places is the opportunity to observe with fresh contextual eyes. GB: Even the Thai or Hong Kong people don't really know how to represent their own cities. CW: This is also the key point in our original methodology. We take interest in cities with no written documents, so we go directly into the streets and observe. …

Strange Nuptials: Matthew Barney's Japan in Drawing Restraint 9

Matthew Barney's 2005 film-cum-performance-piece, Drawing Restraint 9 (DR9), portrays a budding romance between two individuals he terms the “Occidental Guests,” played by Barney and his real-life partner, the singer Björk, aboard a Japanese whaling ship. In the film's climactic scene, the Guests, dressed in imaginatively construed Japanese wedding dress, engage in a bloody orgy of violence and cannibalism that reveals they are both part whale. In addition to the costumes of seaweed, fur, and shell worn in this scene, DR9 prominently features Barney's creative reinterpretations of traditional Japanese ritual and material culture, including tea ceremony, festivals, and pearl divers, while providing an opaque statement on the issue of Japanese whaling. Clocking in at two hours and fifteen minutes, yet containing only a scant few lines of dialogue, the film has received an uneven and confused reception by art and film critics alike. Critics familiar with Barney's work tend to focus on the artistry of his characteristically rich visual images in DR9, rather than deciphering and contextualizing his suggestions about Japanese “tradition” or the historical relationship between Japan and the West, especially the United States. This review essay attempts to understand Barney vis-à-vis a lineage of Western artists and scholars who have interpreted Japan in diverse ways. It asks whether and how Barney is echoing the Orientalist tendencies of earlier artists and whether and how globalization and the accompanying increase in borderless cultural flows have influenced Western hegemony in transnational artistic circles.

Making Tea in Place: Experiences of Women Engaged in a Japanese Tea Ceremony

This paper reports a small-scale qualitative study involving women who participated in the occupations of tea ceremony; an essential part of Japanese culture. Interviewing the women revealed the importance of using special tea implements in a performance comprising a series of occupational procedures from making the tea and hosting guests, to putting things away in a special place. Findings showed how engaging in tea ceremony enabled the sharing of common emotions, a sense of ongoing personal development, concentration, and a feeling of presence. The women's stories showed how the values espoused in the tea room, which is a special place in Japanese culture, gave meaning to ongoing participation in this tradition. These findings reveal that specific places have the potential to influence presence during occupational engagement and encourage the suspension of usual routines, learning new skills, and connecting with others who share common goals.