brainstorming ideas, for the artmaking (a must for erik, optional for matthew):
(nothing to be deleted from this page, can be strike through and/or moved down to bottom = below dashed line)
(in this brainstorming space, want to think very freely, not worry about practical or not, real goal is to figure out what it is we want to do or are trying to accomplish and then can work from there, in meantime every impulse no matter how wacky should be encourage, to vent from idea-generation part of mind into this non-reality but notated state)
project title: the sixty-nine [stages/stations] of the kisokaido
07.06.12.mt - each walking day (there are 21) we collect background graphics (tourist brochures?) and found material, and take photos of elements (trees, people, other objects) found in prints from the 69 stages of the kisokaido series, all relating to stages we pass during that day. at the end, we share all the photos (?), swap some material (?) and create collages (number to be determined) the old fashioned way (matthew) or the cheats' way (erik) back in our home countries (or possibly some in tokyo). erik is free to include matthew's work in a massive combined work to be exhibited at moma.
07.08.09.mt - if doing sixty-nine tasks each day is too much, we could make the tasks more substantial and do a limited number each day. mabe pick a few out of a hat at the start of each day.
07.08.06.es - look more at hiroshige, thinking woodblock prints; rank things; consider combinations
07.07.06.es - maybe we can dress as firemen instead of clowns?
07.07.07.mt - ok, points taken. but put yourself in my shoes for a minute. i've always felt like the junior partner in the art project. you've had most of the ideas. it was at your encouragement that i sat down and came up with that list. i thought you'd be happy that i was at last making some contribution. that i was bringing some ideas to the table. i was getting ready to debate them, but your reaction is that collaboration is over (just kidding?), that we're going to be doing two separate pieces. i don't think my response to your comment was over the top. you know my ideas about capitalism. they've found expression in work we've done together before, from bashing ronald to the drifts around nishi-sugamo (inspired by situationists = anti-capitalists). that's what i meant when i wrote "it's going to be reflected in whatever we do whether you like it or not". it wasn't a theat of any kind. sorry if you took it that way. by the way, i fully understand about your job, your intention to become a fulltime artist, and wanting to come out of the trek with a body of work. i probably would have compromised on 7) for that reason. but hiroshige probably isn't the best role model there. he wasn't a fulltime artist. even when he became famous he worked as a fireman of all things.
07.07.06.es - won't have time before sunday to properly respond, but briefly: no, i'm not a fan of compromise, i'm about finding the things both parties are passionate about. if there's no overlap, or something crucial to you is repulsive to me, or vice versa, then i don't think collaboration makes sense. so, the point of this wiki was meant to be slowly, over time, accreting ideas which one or both of us might be intrigued by, eventually narrowing it down to a few key things we both really want to do. that's not really how i read your recent wishlist, it seems like you're saying "this is what i'm really interested in." i don't think i know what i'm interested in yet, but criticising capitalism, for example, doesn't seem too compelling to me. i had an idea early on that as we both added thoughts, we could move them up and down according to shared preference, and i may have done that a few times after skype sessions. anyway i'm glad to see that you're thinking about the art, that there are criteria you care about. then there's some personal stuff which maybe we'll talk about sunday or maybe i'll write more next week. regarding having full-time jobs, i'm glad you're happy with yours, but you may recall that i view mine as a dayjob, fully intending to make my living as a full-time artist as soon as possible. so naturally my role models are people like hiroshige. i can't afford to spend any time or money on personal projects which don't directly further my goal of becoming a full-time artist. i wouldn't be involved in a trek like this if i didn't think i would end up with a body of work at the end. given that my goal is to subsist through artmaking, i accept that any art i create will be placed on the market, if possible. so, that is a goal which seems opposite to your sudden criteria. regarding "you'd better keep your distance" = are you ok? should i plan on walking the tokaido solo to avoid being bitten? and "whether you like it or not" - this is really confrontational, not collaborative. if you'd rather not do something together, that's fine. anyway i'm glad we're both engaged and figuring out what's important to us. that's the most i think anyone can really hope to get out of conversation, collaboration, shared communication, shared experience.
07.07.06.mt - Dude, I made it clear I'm prepared to compromise. Are you? Your Hiroshige/accessibility argument is a red herring. Nowhere have I said we should try to emulate his approach. Of course he sold his work. He needed the money. (Remember, though, that Japan was still a feudal society at the time, so he probably had few opinions on capitalism.) We, on the other hand, both have full-time jobs, which is how we paid for our airfares. Being critical of capitalism is a part of who I am, so chances are it's going to be reflected in whatever we do whether you like it or not. If you don't want that risk, you'd better keep your distance! I'm going to post this on the wiki. I propose we continue the discussion there.
07.07.06.mt - Not demands, but a wishlist.
In my humble opinion, the project should satisfy the following criteria.
1) It should acknowledge the influence of Hiroshige, whose Sixty-Nine Stations of the Kisokaido initially inspired the project and who continues to be a key reference point.
2) It should reflect a critical or skeptical approach to capitalism and its impact on people and the environment.
3) It should not entail creating artificial barriers between us and the people we meet (i.e. no clown suits), nor should it impinge on our day-to-day interaction with people.
4) It should be fun.
5) It should be presented in such a way that it is accessible to as many people as possible (i.e. its appreciation should not require ownership of prohibitively expensive equipment or familiarity with a particular language or culture).
6) It should promote communication and participation.
7) It should not be bought or sold.
07.06.29.mt - it's june already, the sixth month. i believe hiroshige's prints were made to be as accessible as possible. they were mass-produced. ukiyo-e was not an elitist form of art. it was extremely populist. anyway, what i meant to say is i don't want the art project to be reliant on one form of (very expensive) technology (i.e. video ipod) that i believe would limit its accessibility. but reading your comments again i don't think this was your intention. as long as it's available in other formats as well (dvd, youtube, etc.) i have no problem.
07.05.29.mt - 
07.05.28.es - dude, we're on the same page! (ha! get it?) but i mean it. that's one of my core aesthetics, one i don't bring up very often, and a key reason i don't use text or words or language in my work. anybody should be able to experience it, just like we can still look at hiroshige's prints. so yes, very much, if verbal sound, the words irrelevant, but very much my intention is non-verbal sound. with verbal sound, though, if you hear someone yelling angrily in swahili or lithuanian (is that a language?) or korean, even if you don't understand the words, it's powerful and interesting to listen to. anyway i always avoid words and that is a great point. we're on the same page. as far as ipods go, in my view that's about as un-elitist as you can get. how do you want people to be able to experience art? have to go to a museum? buy a book or a dvd? i guess online would be it, but i have a hard time appreciating any net-based art, it just doesn't seem powerful, looking at anything in your browser window - people all over the world, millions and millions of them, download songs and videos of their favorite music and television performers and shows and so on. nobody thinks it's elitist. it's probably the most accessible way there is. that's precisely why i mentioned the ipod, trying to come up with something analagous to hiroshige's prints. they were in books, right? which had to be read? and many people couldn't read? i think a for-ipod or for-dvd project would be more accessible than hiroshige's prints were. anyway thanks for bringing it up and let's keep thinking. and that emoticon makes me want to hurl. almost deleted it but felt bad doing that. wrong.
07.05.26.mt - a thought i had today was to try to make the art as international as possible, i.e. ensure it can be appreciated by anyone regardless of nationaility, language, etc. although this may not be compatible with the "video and sound" idea. unless you mean non-verbal sound. also not so sure about relying on elitist forms of technology like ipod 
07.05.21.es - just do the [fourteen] [(or however many stops we end up making)] stages of the kisokaido. our journey, not hiroshige's. capture = powershot, also audio. hopefully either can dump to portable harddrive, say two 120 giggers. upon return, make into either dynamic (if possible) or linear (also makes sense) thingys which can be experienced on ipods. video and sound. short. our journey. narrative or abstract or any elements end up involved, all that gets worked out along our journey, during the making of the thing. how can we know now what we'll want to do?
07.06.13.es - go ahead and make something linearly time-based. why not? this journey will have a distinct beginning, one-way road, and end. make that reality a conceptual main point?
- something with a scroll (use traversed sections on map)
- filming entire walk, either real time or timelapse
- think about "when the work will be made" and "when the work will be shown" - could say all work will be completed before walk, or all work done after walk, or all work done during walk, for example)
- collecting various bits of paper during the course of the day, collaging with them upon arrival at destination spot (or making a collage at each station, with whatever we find there)
- taking pictures [at/between] each station, to collage on the computer or with printouts of those
- blog during walk, this could somehow become related to the art project (or not)
- some kind of head-mounted timelapse camera
- contact [gallery aoyama, johnie walker, klein blue, ps122] (create body of work in nyc to show during kisokaidoing, show kyoto/tokyo during; show kisokaido work in nyc after)
- letter to hiroshige.org
- big collage at end, or painting, or combination, with video projected onto each bit, showing our entire story - autumn-leaves-sized piece
- other people, anywhere in world, looking for similar scenes, uploading them to master .swf
- another version just for people walking the nakasendo or living near a station
- write email to hiroshige.org/uk and ask for permission to use those images
- cones of the nakasendo?
- have a passive camera (always on) and an active camera (shoot only when we want to)
- have live-updating e-exhibition with brick & mortar element at another space
- [carry projector and laptop so can project in hotel rooms or various locations en route]
- take inflatable battery-powered cone as talisman
- we meet up with high school photography/video classes at each station and teams shoot footage before/after we're there, do masking in aftereffects, build massive video online recreation of each of hiroshige's original stations
- people anywhere submit components for [video or photo] online collage-recreations of hiroshige's work
- breadcrumbs
- john cage wheel painting track
paste deletes below
- maybe one or two train or bus rides, a shinkansen ride from tokyo to kyoto, and/or a local train/bus ride? maybe even round trip? after spending two weeks to walk from point a to point b as bipedal organism, using machine technology to traverse 330 miles in a few hours, could be really interesting, fun for to sit there and watch past experiences whiz by - like when the tokaido line from tokyo to nagoya goes right by my old apartment building in numazu, i can glimpse it, and there's a flash of memories, lived there a year and a half, gets somehow jolt-distilled-imparted in seconds [maybe want to work this into the timeline - maybe upon arrival in tokyo hop on shinkansen and do round-trip one day?] [this to be an erik-only aspect of project if decide want to do it]
archive (like to keep record of thinking-stages in process of creation of work) (stuff we maybe thought about, didn't decide to do, still impacted our thinking, or maybe we reach back into here another time and bring something back into what we're doing)
franklin furnace 100-word application project summary:
My project will involve walking from Kyoto to Tokyo, a trek of roughly 330 miles. Hiroshige’s series of woodblock prints “The 69 Stations of the Kisokaido” (1834-1842) set along the same route will provide the compositional basis for my work. I intend to make digital collages, replacing all the elements in each of his prints with photographic and video imagery of the same geography present day. The individual pieces will subsequently be combined through time. For example, the background of #43 could be paired with elements from foreground of #32. This dynamic collage will be viewable online.
rhizome 500-word application project summary
My project will involve walking from Kyoto (the ancient capital of Japan) to Tokyo (the modern capital), a trek of roughly 330 miles. Hiroshige’s series of woodblock prints “The 69 Stations of the Kisokaido” (1834-1842) set along the same route will provide the compositional basis for my work. I intend to make digital collages, replacing all the elements in each of his prints with photographic and video imagery of the same geography present day. The individual pieces will subsequently be combined through time. For example, the background of #43 could be paired with elements from foreground of #32. This dynamic collage will be viewable online.
When approaching artmaking in general, or any specific project, the questions “What is timeless?” and “What is contemporary?” are always considerations. How can I make something relevant to people today, interesting to me, which pays homage to artists of prior generations?
Currently, when initiating any new project, I also have a few basic ground rules, which could be broken, but more often than not I adhere to: 1) it will be a two-dimensional piece of visual art; 2) it will utilize technology to create a work which would not have been feasible in 1971 (the year of my birth); 3) it will constantly change, so although the work will remain identifiable, any time it is seen the viewer will see something which has likely never been seen before (by anybody) and will likely never been seen again (by anybody). As far as we know nothing in the universe is static, and the same can be said about clouds or a waterfall, which do indeed provide me with inspiration, but this is part of my still-developing criteria which enable me to paint despite having grown up at a time when paint appeared to be marginal and irrelevant, an era of Atari and Star Wars and M*A*S*H.
When considering the Kisokaido trek, and Hiroshige’s work, the following seemed pertinent:
- Hiroshige’s work was largely accessible, mass-printed for widescale distribution, not hidden in galleries or museums seen only by a select few (which led me to say “this project will be viewable online”);
- What he basically did, I believe, is firstly observe, and secondly, present his observations (of what was there, what was beautiful) to those who couldn’t take that kind of time or pay that kind of attention;
- The method of woodblock printing involves blocking out very clearly-defined areas of form and color in space, layered one on top of the other.
It then occurred to me to use whatever is currently visible on the Kisokaido trek as elements in collages based on the composition of his works.
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