Wednesday, April 02, 2008

First pillars

This is it. My first blog.
Name: Stone Bytes.
Took me a while to get it finished, even if it's been in the box for quite some time, and yet it's very light in content and functionalities at the moment (still looking for neat plugins).

I could celebrate its inception with a million of happy things, but instead, I think I'm going to stick with ruins (oh noes). :D

So, with the doom and gloom topic settled, I needed something appropriate to look for, something with substance and style.
Like nice looking lithographs. Cool ones. Hokuto No Ken sort of cool, with all its leveled cityscapes.

The picture below is part of the Neo-Ruins series, by Motoda Hisaharu: Prints mostly featuring post-apocalyptic renditions of Tokyo.
Here, we observe the aftermath of an hypothetical cataclysm, which resulted in the urban death of Ginza Crossing.

Here's what the author has to say about his work:

If you think of Japan, you may have a strong image of beautiful nature and oriental culture. However, after experiencing the period of the high growth of economy, Japan now suffers environmental disruption everywhere. When you come to Japan, you might not even find it beautiful. It is a pity, but it is true. Recently, the government and local government took it seriously, and started to consider creating a nature-friendly-environment. The awareness of people is not enough yet, though.

Japan was defeated in the World War? Then, the Japanese culture and the way of thinking of Japanese people became more westernised. The Majority of young people in Japan don't know much about their own culture. I was born and grown up right in middle of the period of high economic growth.

As far as art is concerned, I believe that an expression of an artist will be different depending on the environment the artist has been living in, or has grown up. I have been searching for the way of expressing myself with Printing.
My work always has something to do with Wabi and Sabi which are the concept of the Japanese Tea Ceremony. Wabi means ‘austere refinement’ and Sabi means ‘quiet simplicity’.

There is a Japanese saying ‘anything is impermanent’. Perhaps, I want to send a message “Anything is impermanent” through my work. And, I feel beauty on such fragile things, and would like to express it in my work.

This speaks to me. As a whole, there are many aspects of cities which just put me off. Sure, they're great centers of socialization and awareness, shaping our societies, and still remain most appreciable for catching the latest gossip and technotoys, but many of them are extremely filthy and noisy. I am assured to get a headache if I wander too long down their streets and their pedestrian hallways. We just never get enough greenery.
And blue skies.

Sympathetic derailing aside, this blog will be a place I’ll use to drop comments about video games and related topics. Most will be nonsense and not particularily highbrow, but who gives?

/me out.

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