Konnichiwa from Tokyo!
I am trying to make laughing rooms a thing here but so far no one is buying it. On another note, I really dig this city a lot and I am always amazed by the inventiveness and resourcefulness of the Japanese. Time here over the past year has made me reflect a bit about ideas, innovation and creativity...
Akin to a painter's blank canvas or a musician's blank tape, I have to come to appreciate that film and memory cards, unmarked by light, are by far two of the most beautiful "possessions" I can seek to own. They are the very representation of 'infinite' possibilities to me. And I think one of the worst feelings when you are trying to express yourself through an artistic medium, is the gnawing voice that tells you that the content you unearth is not of substance or doesn't add anything to what already exists.
Often times 'we' talk about how there are no longer original ideas -that, to me, is essentially the equivalent of saying that all the people that could be conceived, have been. Photography, music and various other art forms are the very proof that 'realities' betray and ally with each other endlessly. Doubt is inevitable, natural and maybe even healthy... but, it can, as many say, also be a killer. However, the crux of creation lies in honesty in the process and being immersed in the now, and part of that is embracing doubt but not letting it be a distraction. It's often fruitless being more wrapped up in what something will mean in a time that hasn't yet arrived or that has passed - both of which, we are not present in. And I am learning that the birthplace of the textured, coloured, weathered and most lush stories and experiences is the middle, and without presence in it, we are merely living stagnantly in a static countdown to a finish line...
Art- in its various forms- is a mobius strip of how we experience the world around us through kaleidoscope lenses - our own and others'. From the instant we find ourselves faced with that view, our own perspective is then altered, whether we enjoyed that experience or not. As an audience and now a participant in that journey, whether we intend for it or not, we enter a stage where the dichotomous elements breakdown- mind/body, essence/appearance, subject/ object and spirit/matter. In other words, every photograph, song, painting, poem or form of artistic expression is an infinite portal- a window- to other windows onto the world. We need them all. Without these portals and in the absence of any one of them, we are limited in how we access the range of (so-called) realities present. A spectrum that cannot be captured by any one moment of (creative) expression and/or experience.
So when do we get that one photograph that will capture it all? That album that's going to make it the only one to take with us on that island far far away? Or that painting that we will stand in awe of and never want to move away from? It's simple, never. The answer will change moment to moment, person to person - that finite breaks and builds faster than we can blink. Think of many of the painters, musicians or artists who passed on without being 'justly' appreciated during their time (will they ever be?!) and we're still learning how to give them due credit. It was never a question of time-less-ness but rather, time-full-ness.
In other words, the middle is the 360 degrees that rolls on. It's all fleeting, but the beauty, in chasing a so called "transparent depiction/experience of reality", or in arriving at "the original" experience, is that it will never fully arrive because the spectrum extends and far outpaces our own capacity to take it all in. Every interpretation, past, present and future, beyond a single moment in time and space, is part of the ever evolving whole - no matter the angle, the colour scale, the instruments and the extent of its 'enhancement' or lack thereof. That goes from trying to figure out the absolute root to the absolute finish.
The idea in stumbling across these middles- these windows, was not to be trapped in their contents, their supposed meaning in a time that isn't their own, but rather to give us space to aerate and to look around. These middles can: raise our potential, expand our reach, take us to places beyond those that meet our eyes and minds... and, if are willing, bring others on that journey as well. Those are the moments that ought to be expressed, that are worth experiencing, witnessing and looking back on. You know, over the rainbow and in the "end"....