My story telling has been a little crappy lately. I get tired out from all this information absorbing and when it comes time to summarize, my brain is mush. But for archival purposes, and for your reading pleasure, I need to try harder.
So, I can`t remember last week too well. There was the field work and that was really exhausting (again because there is so much thinking to do), but good. On Saturday I decided to see this artpiece by Makoto Ishiwata, Vacuum Packing!: Heartbeat. I suggest checking out this link for the details and the concept behind the work. Basically, you put on a protective mask and climb inside this structure. The artist takes your pulse and a beat to the same time plays from speakers surrounding the structure. You are given a button to press. Once to the start the work and possibly again if you PANIC!


In Vacuum Packing!, the air is sucked from inside the structure and the membrane surrounding it starts to close in on you. The space inside gets smaller and smaller and you feel pressure from all sides. All you hear is sucking and the loud beat.


It was a really incredible experience. Scary at first, but very comforting inside. My biggest fear was that the membrane would pop like a balloon but that didn`t happen. Then Atsu, a friend from work who also came to see the piece, tried it and a piece of the membrane (or skin ??) did pop! It was quiet surprising but he was okay so that is good. Definitely a fun time. Ishiwata-san had an initial version of Vacuum Packing! that used a coffin/closet form for the structure. Here are some pictures of that.
After seeing the piece, I went to the Shimokitazawa area in Tokyo. I read that it was a popular area for artists and young people and that it was. Though there were not as many art supply stores as I would have hoped for. Still…pretty cool. It was similar to Commercial Drive in Vancouver, but bigger, more adhoc, and with more stores and people. There were also many more vintage stores and good ones too! Clothing was organized and much of it looked unused. I guess maybe some people prefer that soapy used feel…but I don`t like it when you finally find an awesome jacket and then you find the huge stain on the elbow. My final purchase: a belt. Yay! And I was lucky too…went to some non-vintage stores as well and tried some belts. Haha…yeah the Large size might fit but they do not stock them. I also found a Lush store but I didn`t go inside!! I can`t believe myself. The logic I used at the time was, “oh, that`s not new”…but now I am wishing I would have gone in to compare products and prices and possibly get some maaaahbar. Oh well.
Other highlights…I can`t think of so many right now. I spent Sunday at a 100￥ shop (there`s this awesome one near my apartment) and at home cleaning. Yesterday I was in Yokohama for some fieldwork. Most of my time was spent in Yokohama station and the surrounding shopping centres (which are also in the station as far as I can tell) but I also wandered the streets around the station a little too. My next step today is to analyze some of my observations from yesterday so I won`t get into them now.
I will end here with my next purchasing goal: a Nintendo DS Lite. I found an application for Japanese-English dictionary. Terrific! But very impossible to find (the DS Lite)…they get sold so quickly here. It will be quite the quest.