Japanese Contemporary Garden - Mirei Shigemori 重森三玲

Ryoanji, Kyoto

Tofukuji, Kyoto - Mirei Shigemori

枯山水 - Karesansui

I had never questioned the meaning of Karesansui, one of the three types of traditional Japanese garden. It is described as "rock garden" in western world but it is literally means "withered mountain and water garden". It is interesting to see the contradiction behind its concept. The garden is described as "the death of nature" uses non-life materials to represent a range of imaginative live features like water and surrounding landscapes in motion.

I love this power of abstraction through dialectical representation between optical observation and imaginative perception, unlike Moholy-Nagy's work or any cubistic art. (may be because motif is not figurative...)

I thought of it when visiting a photographic exhibition on modern Japanese Garden by Christian Tschmi and Christian Lichtenburg at Bibliothek Basel today. It is all about Mirei Shigemori whose work influenced Isamu Noguchi and other modern artists and architects.

I noticed in most of his work that the abstraction of the image from which he was inspired, are represented, in such a way, to directly communicate with the observer. The pattern making of the garden can be very expressive that sometimes looks like they are on a verge of kitch and extravagant.

But few of his works like in Tohukuji are exceptionally beautiful, an imaginative composition of stones within a thick carpet of moss directing your attention to and from. It has such a power that it triggers many thoughts in different areas. How the moss is grown around the edge of stone creating convexity and concavity on the ground surface, eventually disappearing into the sea of white stone and trees. It looks as though you are viewing a vast landscape from a high point looking down at some human settlements in the forest and the disappearing topography fading into the sea. This is only my perception of this garden and it is super fantastic the way it draws out your imagination.

I am starting to think I might like the thing that has a small morphological transition on a surface which is able to draws out a vast topography of imagination.

Illusion of Space - László Moholy-Nagy

I Just came across a book of Moholy Nagy in my office library today. It brought back a memory of what I was going through in University of East London. I only realised sometime later that the methodology of teaching was adopted literary from Bauhaus which was already then 80 years old. Still today, we can see some artists going though similar thinking process as those days, but done with more contemporary manner. Moholy Nagy's has always been one of my idols with his transcendence work with objects, images and paintings. His photogram through the transformation of the object into an obscuring image makes an interesting representation of a condition in between material and the image. I feel its so mythological. One day, I would like to make an image that represents my mythological counterpart.

"Composition Z VIII" (1924)

To achieve the illusion of space, in these work an objects altering from foregrounded, background, translucent to opaque, light to dark. Moholy-Nagy stated, "Tearing apart the old visual conception, the cubist painters originated a new means of rendering, as well as a space articulation.

"Construction" (1932)

Not only a depth of space, but movement, floating without sense of gravity. He expressed in 'vision in motion, floating objects in space, no longer grounded, but achieving a new harmony in a state of equilibrium. Eventually Moholy-Nagy saw the limitation inherent in pigment on canvas and worked towards the use of light as a means of achieving new imagery and qualities of abstraction. Moholy-Nagy began working with light-sensitive technique, the photogram. Exposing light to light sensitive paper revealing a translucent shape: literally "painting with light.

Black, White, Grey" (1932)

A Moment - Olafur Eliasson

I have always been interested in Olafuer Eliasson's Olafuer Eliasson's work, but until now it has never really deeply touched me. It all changed when I recently visited his exhibition at Kunsthaus Zug , in Zurich. His work of Lava is extraordinary as your perception of it increases gradually as you look at it more carefully. The sound also made by walking on the lava sand plays a sensational game with the exhibition space, echoing within the museum's white cubes. His video emphasises the significance of the moment which only exists when our presence is the counterbalanc to its phenomenon. It is great to hear 'this is not here when we are not here' The magic lies with the extrapolation of discreet component of its phenomena and perception/sensatoin.

The magic is... signification of descrete component of its phenomena/sensatoin.

from iheartphotograph

I found this image at http://iheartphotograph.blogspot.com/ by Daniel Whibley. Its quite interesting how single image is broken up into few segments and composed in a way that has story in three dimensional field, of course helped by graphical trick.

To start

I have decided to make a record of my inspirations and thought of my everyday life that started to become a little regular.25.11.07