Julianna Yau’s blog

This is the last video I have of Theo Jansen’s work. It took me a while to get it ready because I had to edit the footage to under 1GB. The creature is the Animaris Ordis, and this was a sculpture that visitors to his exhibit were allowed to move around the room. The simplicity and functionality of the joints was amazing.

These are photos and video of Animaris Modularis by Theo Jansen, exhibited at Hibiya Patio in Tokyo. Content posted with permission by the artist.

Here are short videos and a handful of photos of more of Theo Jansen’s creatures from the exhibit at Hibiya Park. These are again posted with the permission of the artist.

Animaris Rhinoceros Lignatus

Animaris Sabulosa Adolescens

Animaris Vermiculus

Animaris Vulgaris

Animaris Percipiere Rectus

Here are some of Theo Jansen’s creatures which were on display at Hibiya Patio in Tokyo. I only have photos of these (no video), and they are taken and uploaded with permission from the artist.

Unidentified species:

Animaris Currens Vaporis

Animaris Rugosus Peristhalti

Animaris Geneticus

After nearly two months since visiting the Theo Jansen exhibit in Tokyo, I’m finally getting around to posting photos and videos. These will be compiled into blog posts over the next few hours (and perhaps days), but I intend to get everything online before the week’s end.

The exhibit was phenomenal, and I’m still extremely glad I went to see it. Seeing such elegant engineering and design was as mind-boggling as when I saw the Blinkenlights display at Nuit Blanche.

Here are some photos of the exterior of the building, stuff from Jansen’s shop and trinkets from the play table. All images are posted with the permission of the artist, and more can be found on my Flickr page.

During my visit to Tokyo, I visted the studio of Fujiwara Tak and Fujiwara Yuko. I finally edited and uploaded the videos of the studio visit for viewing.

Work in progress by Fujiwara Tak, planned for CAFKA09:

Work from Fujiwara Yuko’s exhibition, Scenery:

I’ve been back from Tokyo for almost two weeks and am only now finding time to blog about it. During that trip, I finally came to terms with the fact that I’ve been overextending myself for too long. In the two months before the trip, I had been struggling with having downtime in which I wasn’t doing anything—even without watching movies as part of my own historical cultural education through film. But in Tokyo, it really hit home when I was spending half my time there sleeping.

Learning to not work all the time is a difficult thing. My main purpose for going to Tokyo was visiting the Theo Jansen exhibit. The exhibit was totally worth the flight to Tokyo, but after I visited the exhibit on my third day in the city, I was asking myself “now what?”.

The city was great, but I definitely didn’t experience it properly. Having been to Hong Kong for two full summers, Tokyo for me was like a cleaner, more polite version of Hong Kong. Travelling alone, most of my time was spent in quiet contemplation (apt for Tokyo, I suppose).

Akihabara was definitely my favourite tourist destination, and I was surprised by my ability to restrain from unnecessary purchases. Thanks to the internet, I was able to confirm that much of what I wanted was available in Canada and, surprisingly, at a similar price.

I was glad to have stayed in Ueno, as it was home to places like the Tokyo National Gallery and Tokyo Sculpture Museum. What was disapointing? The Tokyo Sculpture Museum is closed from April 1, 2009 until March 2013. 2013! I hadn’t anticipated the closure, and didn’t go to the museum until April 2, only to exchange looks of shock with a group of Japanese women who also wanted to visit the museum.

Photos and video from the Theo Jansen exhibit will follow. Here are my picks of my pics, and the full set of photos can be found on Flickr (Tokyo tag or by set).

Today, I finally visited the Children’s Museum of Waterloo with Adriana, my partner in 2Picas. Going through the museum, I felt like a kid again (and wished there were places that cool when I was younger).

Their exhibit, Andy Warhol’s Factory, was totally worth the price of admission. Although not all of the appropriated work was good, we were both amazed by Devorah Sperber’s After Warhol, which is comprised of 698 spools of thread and viewed through an acrylic globe. Sperber’s thread spool works are superb examples of appropriation at its best, where the impact of the original works are integral to the new work, but the appropriating artist brings her own artistic brilliance to the recasting of the work.

What was absolutely awe inspiring were Warhol’s Details of Renaissance Paintings: Sandro Boticelli, Birth of Venus works. We only saw 5 of the 18 works, but both sank into the couches across from the display from the sheer impact of the silkscreens. The colour, detail and highlight variations showed obvious intention. I couldn’t get over how neither of us knew these works existed, and they are some of Warhol’s finest work.

After seeing Sperber and Warhol’s artwork, I’m dying to take a trip to Pitsburgh to visit the Warhol Museum. I also want to visit the Mattress Factory, a museum of contemporary art that I’ve started following on Twitter and is doing awesome things with social media tools like Brightkite.

Photos from our visit:

I’m glad that I’m not as crazy about sticking to plans as I used to be, as my plans for Tokyo have changed several times since I booked the trip.

After my disappointment over the difference between my assumption of and the actual exhibit of Theo Jansen’s work, I had assumed I would simply go to Tokyo and explore for a week. Since then, I have been asked by Gordon Hatt of CAFKA to meet with Fujiwara Takahiro on his behalf. Fujiwara’s Into the Blue was very well received at last year’s Nuit Blanche. Although Stereoscope was by far my favourite of Nuit Blanche, I was definitely mesmerized by Into the Blue as it rotated softly in the Eaton Centre.

It also turns out that I’ll be arriving just in time for Roppongi Art Night, which is the first year of Tokyo’s Nuit Blanche type event. And by just in time, I mean I arrive in the afternoon of the 28th, and will have just enough time to get settled into my hotel, have dinner and head out for some crazy art escapades. After a 16 hour flight, I’m not sure how long I’ll last, but I expect I’ll be so exhausted on Sunday that jetlag will be the least of my concerns.

During the week, aside from meeting with Fujiwara and going to the Theo Jansen exhibit, I’ll mostly be visiting galleries and museums and possibly venturing into other areas of Japan. Thanks to the wonderful world of internetz, I’ll be using things like Tokyo Art Beat (who are also on Twitter!) and the cool people at the Sculpture Forum to help plan my trip. I will, of course, be spending some time at Akihabara to ogle the latest gadgets I can’t afford to bring home with me.

So I’ll armed with my EeePC, a JR pass, a camcorder and a total thirst for adventure.

My friend at Open Studio sent me the article What can we learn from the “netbook” from The Artful Manager. The article was a good reminder for me that not everyone in the cultural community is as immersed in technology as I and many of my new friends from Twitter. Based on the interest in the Technology in the Arts conferences, I would agree with Andrew Taylor that integrating the use of netbooks into a cultural manager’s daily routines could take some work. But there is certainly no shortage of people already using them.

Photographer Sean Puckett picked up an HP tablet a while ago (which I, naturally, ogled) for use as a super digital-photoframe. If I didn’t already have my EeePC, I probably would have gotten one too. Not merely is it a fully functional computer (albeit too lightweight for gaming or for intense audio-visual work), but it’s an absolutely charming option for a portable portfolio. Less clunky than hauling around photos; more practical than having everything on a flash drive and hoping to have access to a computer; more instant than giving someone a card with your website on it.

Amrita, owner of Tinku Gallery, recently acquired an iPhone so she could easily show her artists’ work to others when she’s away from the gallery. Because of the size of the screen, the iPhone was a much better option for her than a BlackBerry. A netbook, on the other hand, was more than she needed, as she already had a full-sized computer.

I’m almost always equipped with a travelling office, with either my EeePC or full-sized laptop, my BlackBerry, occassionally a digital camera (if I know I’ll need it) and more flash drives and SD cards than I can fill. Unlike Sean and Amrita, my gadetry is mainly for administrative work. Although I have photos of all of my work on all of my devices, my BlackBerry keeps me in contact with people from the arts admin work I do, and my EeePC is used to its intended purpose—a connection to the internet (and a glorified note-taking system). For someone who is currently loving connection, being able to access all of my contacts (and not just their contact information) and any information available online makes my life a lot easier.

The question, still, is how to keep up with it all.