meeting tadao ando

I became aware that there would be a Tadao Ando exhibition in Osaka a couple of days before the trip. It was a part of Osaka Art and Design 2025. Based on what was on the event program, I thought it was going to be a single installation by the architect. I didn't expect to come to a big exhibition of his entire body of works. I certainly did not expect the man himself to suddenly showed up at the venue right at the time we were there. We were just finished going around the exhibition and was looking around the gift shop and he was suddenly there to sign his newly launched books. He also gave a short and intimate talk session.

Years ago there were protests against his work in Venice. I was at the Venice Biennale and around his exhibition people put stickers and protest leaflets. I can't remember what exactly the protest is, I would have to google it, but I know I agreed with the protest. And then there was this big model of a part of Venice that was made beautifully and very detailed by the young people who worked or interned at his office. There were photos of these young kids working day in and day out on the model. Seeing this evoked a certain disdain towards the architect. Because in my opinion to convey his ideas about the projects all the miniscule details on the models were not really necessary. This and knowing how working in architecture in Japan usually was, it felt like a form of exploitation. Although he gave plenty of credit to them it still felt rather distasteful to me.

So I wasn't particularly super excited about the exhibition, as I said I thought it was just a single installation. And also he's one of the biggest name in architecture, so I did want to see his works when I could. But then entering the exhibition, I read his note on the wall (third picture), and I was so moved by his writing I thought I lost whatever disdain I previously had. I was so used to architects and designers not giving proper credit and seeing how he put so much credit to the people around him, those who work for him and with him, collaborators, and even strangers, means so much to me. Architecture is often such an elite world full of people with ego and I really appreciate seeing someone big wrote a note full of humility and awareness. His whole tone of note I guess spoke to me to my current situation at the right time like I needed to read it. I only wished there was a translation for his talk so I could get an even better understanding of his thought and point of views.

osaka expo 2025

The Expo 2025 in Osaka was a lot different than the one in Milan ten years ago. We booked entry at 11.00 in the morning and we stayed there until closing hour at 22.00 and the total number of pavilion we got in to was five. Five pavilions and one common building (where countries who didn't have big pavilion had their own small stands). Compared to Milan where I got in to most of the pavilions. Most of the time we were there was spent queueing. To get in to one pavilion took about an hour or more in queue. In Milan I remember only queueing for some bigger and popular pavilions, such as Japan, and it didn't took like an hour just to get in.

My theory was that there were too few pavilions and too many people, because a lot of my favorite pavilions back then in Milan doesn't even have their own pavilions in Osaka, such as Chile and Vietnam. There were only a handful of big pavilions and a lot more smaller common pavilions. And in those big pavilions there were long interactive digital experience which took a long time, whereas before the designed experience was simpler.

The arena itself I felt was somewhat bigger. To get to another part of the Expo took a long time. And it being in Japan, the arena was very well designed. The famous ring designed by Sou Fujimoto provided shade, sitting area, and a beautiful upper level area. The overall landscape and amenities buildings were also well thought of. Even though it was very crowded it didn't feel suffocating, it flowed very well. And the thing I admired the most was at the end of the closing day, where ten if not hundred of thousands of people were going at the same time to the one and only metro station to get back home, there were no chaos. They kept us walking round and round for a long time and by the time we arrived at the station, we got in to the train and head back home. Tiring but no chaos, no uncertainty. Just truly astonishing Japanese organization.

luminarium

still on my current cyberpunk obsession mood, there was this traveling exhibition by architects of air, a group of artists from the UK led by alan parkinson, an artist working on inflatable structure transmitting radiant colors inside. now i've seen a lot of different versions of inflatable structure as a form of urban art, which usually comes as transparent space, but nothing quite like this. this one looks ugly and unappealing from the outside but once you stepped inside it was a complete outer space experience. when i was outside queuing in line to get in, i kept wondering what kind of lighting trick they use, turn out it was actually not as complicated as i thought. they use special translucent fabric and shot just some simple light source on several spots. it was a combination of the design of the space and the light cut-out that makes the experience of it. once inside i was surprise of how small the space actually was, from the outside it looked kind of gigantic. i was also surprised by how calming the whole atmosphere was, despite the striking colors. it was almost therapeutic. they did play an ambiance kind of music but it really was the light and the space that created the whole mood. now if only the audience care much more about the space itself rather than taking as many selfies as they could. i really am tired of complaining about living in a society which is really self-obsessed, where art has really been degraded into a pretty background to take pretty pictures. i hope this would change in the future. maybe in a million years from now.

quiet is the new loud

i lean back and let my eyes just go. floating now where they want to float. 
they seem to take to the horizon. 
i feel at home here in the middle of nowhere. 
i will never know the names of these places that I travel through. 



if there is any musician who i can listen to no matter how old the songs are, it must be kings of convenience. i just realized on this concert that the album quiet is the new loud is from 2001 and i'm still listening to it even now in 2015. the songs are the kind of songs i'd go for if i'm looking for a quiet mood to work or just to do nothing. imagine how ecstatic i was when i knew there will be a concert of their first album, which i know by heart, here in italy, and it's in a small venue in a small town, rather than in a big auditorium in a big city.

the town, monforte d'alba is three hours away from torino, we had to take two trains and a taxi (because apparently there was no bus on sundays) to get there. it is so small we can finished walking around the city in an hour and luckily encountered erlend øye walking alone around the main piazza without anyone even noticed.

from the concert i think i have a new favorite song of them (parallel lines is always a favorite). the song 'summer on the westhill' was played so beautifully on the concert and erlend explained that he wrote the song on a 27 hours boat ride from ireland to norway. a very long ride but it was cheap, he said. well.. it has been a very long wait but at least now i can say i've crossed another thing from my bucket list.

salone e fuori salone, milano.

some images from the salone 2015 back then in april. unlike two years ago where i was in milan only for three days, now i got the whole week to choose which events i wanted to go. and after series of visits to the fuorisalone, surprisingly i enjoyed more the salone itself. it's like i got overwhelmed with the amount of independent designers things and when i got to the salone, i got to see a more mature finished design and it made me feel good. and also it kinda made me miss my job somehow.

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another randomness from the past few weeks. haven't been sparing enough time to write about anything, oh well..

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some randomness from the past few weeks..

the body

sometimes when it's too tiring for the heart i'd make it even more tiring for the body. that way the heart wouldn't have to feel as much.

la biennale di venezia

the most thought provoking moment of all the time i was in italy happened here at the biggest art festival in the world, la biennale di venezia. and it was the longest entry in my journal. although over all i think i only had like three hours to browse through the event due to the limited time we had. i remember i couldn't stop writing about it while all of my friends were sleeping in our train compartment riding back for hours to perugia.

what had became my conclusion was that it really takes something else to be able to create. certain emotion, certain pain, struggle, or anything negative. i had been in italy for three months prior to the event and it came across my mind that italy inherited too much beauty from the ancient time, it's like you take all the beauty around you for granted, and there's no longer any necessity to create more beauty coming from inside yourself.

it was also here that i really realized how a city, a place where you live, defines who you are and what you become. i was a byproduct of jakarta. my attitude towards life was shaped there. but when i was in italy i was a completely different person. it was on cyprus pavilion when all of the sudden i missed my jakarta personality, the one who bothers to create, the one who's sensitive enough to the agony of living to be able to create. it had been so stable, so normal and functional in italy i don't find that pessimistic attitude towards life i usually had.

i experienced lots of great things here. it's impossible to record the emotion with pictures or words. there were works that made me say things like, "shit this is awesome, i think i can also do this kind of thing". there were works that really evoked deep thoughts and feelings, like the third picture below. the sculptures' faces radiated real human emotion while their bodies weren't even human. then there's this south american pavilion where they use smell to define the space (fifth picture), it was just genius. then there's also the one who really really portrayed one of my biggest fear: the ocean. for real. there's this vault where you could enter and walk on a bridge toward a large video display of the ocean at night time. i couldn't even approach it nearer as i almost lost my breath i needed to get out of there. it was like someone projected your scariest feeling for real. then the second last picture was an art installation on an artist research in an insane asylum before turning herself into one.

while some works impressed me a lot, some others not at all. i think that's what so great about art, it speaks differently one person to another. you got to choose what's more comfortable for you.
 
"it is a major achievement to realize that the body is only a vehicle for the soul."

milano, lombardia.

Was in Milan for Salone Internazionale del Mobile, which is like one of the biggest interior design / furniture exhibition, and also for fuorisalone, the extended events spread all over the city outside the Salone. What's so great about being in Milan is that I get to see the works of some of the big names in the industry, Daniel Libeskind, Jean Nouvel, Arik Levy, Patricia Urquiola, Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl, Massimiliano Fuksas, though I missed the ones by Karim Rashid, Tom Dixon, and my favorite Ronan and Erwan Bouroullec.

I used to put myself more on a conventional and traditional side having a self prevention to not fall into the stream of technology and gadgetry, but I guess in the past two years I've seen changes as I began to put a lot of admiration on motion graphic and electronic music. Having said so, of all that's happening on the events, what fascinated me most is the use of light, not in a conventional way but combining with advance technology and materials it created ambience which I think couldn't be transferred on pictures but only by being there feeling the nuance. But here's some of my attempts capturing.


Milan as a city didn't fascinate me the way Perugia does naturally, but as an escape to a more design-conscious environment, it served me well.

swing kings

Been quite a while I haven't really listen to a solo violin, that night I experienced a very brilliant one from a virtuoso named Miroslav. It could go so intense it felt like someone grabs your arms so tight leaving bruises on your skin, it could go so soft it felt so good almost like someone touches you and whispers to your ear.

Two days before Sigur Rós I went to this MPO Jam-Busters casual formal (which means you have to follow a dress code) concert. I was expecting a rather casual classical performance, it turned out to be a casual but brilliant swing-jazz one, playing tunes like Django Reinhart's, Duke Ellington's, Cab Calloway's , a number from a Slovakian composer and some originals. The venue was amazing, I only realized when I went out after the show that it's actually at the feet of the twin tower. It was one of the shows which I wished was never going to end, I wanted to just stay there absorbed by the music and vaporized, never go back again to all the shits life gives.

ps. Photo taking is totally prohibited but it pretty much looks like this - a photo from last year's event from the internet.

transfixed.

It was as if someone put his hand inside my chest, grabbed my heart and started squeezing it, beat by beat, so hard, telling it to keep on beating and not to die yet. The picture of the hand came so vividly in my mind, blood running all over. It kept on pushing me I could feel great energy flooded my veins. The orgasmic sensation like something so powerful was craving to get out of my body. All of me shivered and transfixed.
 

Sigur Rós - Popplagið

Everyone there at Fort Canning Park knows how ethereal that night was when the sky turned orange at 10.30 pm and how insane the atmosphere was as if Sigur Rós possessed the godly power to control the weather. It was raining cats and dogs just before the show, but not one drop poured during the show until right when they finished their last song. Then it showered like crazy during the encore and stopped right after. It was complete madness.

Words can't never described how epic it was and no electronic media could transmit such a great impact of a show. And I know I would burst into tears now every time I listen to Hoppípolla.