RU Talk: Mark-making—Tracing its Cultural Roots

and Richard Bine who is an art critic a writer and Richard and N have known each other since you arrived here which was a couple of months ago and have spoken and developed you know a lot of ideas and so we thought it would be a great um project to bring you together so that you can share your ideas with us so thank you so much both of you for being here thank you thank you yes Nana and I originally bonded over JY and tonic at the Met which is um reminds me of the way the the art World used to be um so like you I'm I'm sort of you know intrigued by what's going on up here in the video um but before we get to that in order to give it a t context uh I thought I'd just asked Nana to talk about her background I mean specifically you know where were you born did you come from an artistic family what kind of school did you go to all of that okay so I I came from Japan I came from Japan and um until last year I stayed in Barcelona but yeah I it's a one year and a half and I started practicing choreography around the age of eight and I was also pring the piano at the same time so I think my childhood experiences were influenced by music almost and in when I was College University yeah I studied design but I I was always thinking about new interpretations of colography but I didn't was that graphic design or yeah graphic design and videos like commercial oh so yeah music videos yeah music yeah yes yes I made music vide and dance video dance video dance music video of D Bas dancer uhuh and I made some commercial something so so already time was a factor in your in your work yes it's more as we're going to see more of yeah this this movie this video spend the time for 40 minutes but when I was student is like only 30 30 seconds or 1 minute is very shorttime movies every time I made so mhm and and then you you mentioned barcelon that was also a Residency program yes I have a Residency program it's uh the name is Angar Angar is yeah Residency program I went six months and yeah it's it was very good experience for me like more like it's about the time mhm it's more huge prospection than when I during I stay in Tokyo it's more relaxed and can't spend Barcelona relaxed than Tokyo and what about New York what does it fall on that Spectrum yeah uh all right um so what maybe you can tell us what we're seeing here and um show what what yes but what exactly are we seeing it's oh I I'm sure exhibiting showing few pieces mhm so the first I made this kind of drawing on the ink on paper ink on paper but I this was work is I try to make more focuses on time so this video has three layers and it was it was like life drawing one layer is life drawing and another layer is past I made one day before so and when I when I live live performance M um like that's combined combined yeah like combined two kind of time like uh yeah so yeah let's just communicate something very basic that you see those numbers yes uh which indic okay what the numbers meaning yes is it's the time when I draw when I write the line MH so it was the line was measured by stop to from start it's point to point so the numbers indicate that the number of seconds that it took you to draw that that line um and there are basically two types the the thin and Swift and the broad and mushy and slower yes lines right um and and why are they so Mushy Mushy spread out um it's some spread thinks the ink has has of B and yeah so does spread or not it depends on the ink condition and how much water does in C and how much time does I use if I use a lot of time it's spread yeah so what I'm calling the mushy forms are more diluted the ink is more diluted and you take longer to make the mark right all right and some story or very fast movie is a past one it means the Past movie can control past can control so I the the present me was influenced by Past movie so so when you set out to make a drawing whether it's a small one like we see on the wall or big one on the floor um do you set yourself a time limit do you say I'm going to make this in 10 minutes or yes you do um it's not decide like 10 minutes but feels like feel like my feeling is I will spend the time a lot or mhm um so it could change in the process I you could decide oh I'm going to go longer because um and then be behind it you have a grid which I think car of pretends to be systematic you're telling me about one square in one second or whatever so yeah this movie is one grid is 20 cm but in here it's in in I don't know the 20 cm in in but it's okay yeah so I decide I assmt it as I was assumtion no what I decided 20 cm is 1 second so the great meaning is one second grid m in the screen so those artworks it's is my experiment my experiment experiment mhm um many kind of tie include many kind of time in same screen so this is uh this mean is great time of great I decided 20 second is 20 cm is 1 second and another time is uh social time it's measured one uh yes it's um for example is one 1 671 means 1 minute 60 second 71 I spend and when I and the third time meaning is when I draw one line it mean it means one so um yeah uh when we was talking earlier I I sort of compared it to to watching a movie um where you ordinarily have maybe three time frames simultaneously uh you have the actual mechanical running time of the film you know 95 minutes or whatever uh but then you have the depicted time which could be you know a week is portrayed in the story um and then you have psychological time if it's a boring movie it seems to go on forever if it's an exciting movie you have a sense that time is going very quickly um and and all of those factors come into play here as well um and another thing to note is that even though we have the times that it took to draw each of the lines adding those numbers up does not tell you how long it took to make the drawing because they don't account for the pauses in between and the pauses in between are very important for you and traditionally in Japanese culture you have this notion of moo yeah can you explain a little bit of moo moo oh the Moon is Mo mu mo mo is nothing right okay mother sorry sorry sorry ma yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah Ma is yeah the ma is very important thinking of Japanese tradition culture mhm so um the M um in Asian calligraphy often say like Bron space is bron bron is space and like universe so I can yeah is well it's a it's a it's a kind of emptiness right in both space and time in in traditional East Asian composition um uh you know if you think of you know many classical Chinese Landscapes or whatever you very often have these areas that are empty um and it's a bit paradoxical because on the one hand there's nothing uh and on the other hand a great deal is implied by that emptiness uh the you know the cycles of nature the passage of uh long periods of time uh a sense of the earth enduring um all sort of mysteriously combined in in that sense of SP space and emptiness oh so the ma is I I change I my I my my thinking of ma is GD in my artwork is the grid yes it's the cre um the initial inspiration came from the way how to practice craphy the Chinese characters has basically no not chines character every character has basically partical and horizontal and to became aware of this practice in B in Boris folding paper vertically and horizontally to create gr for writing mhm yeah so with continues practice one naturally becames aware of the particle and horizontal while creating my work I realized there was an invisible GD in the space before I I used gr which I also saw the representing time so I use great to explain both time and space okay um Asian calligraphy and in some Asian painting also has a performative element sometimes I mean you you have the final product H and as you've noted um when you look at the final product you have the impression that you can tell how quickly the characters were made or how quickly the scene was painted um and that Rel relates to the notion of the flow of cosmic energy of chi going through the body and in the brush um but um you also have the physical creation of the work and and sometimes calligraphers or certain kinds of artists will do live demonstrations and that's um so it presents an interesting kind of metaphysical question um finally what is the artwork I mean is the artwork the drawing is the artwork the process of drawing or is the artwork the idea of the drawing uh for me it's process of drawing it's the process process because I that's why I made like kind of this and also I made another artwork with yeah like I shown the process how to make one line where yeah it's it's the work it me the work is no um usually one line drawn by one people but the artwork made by two people in performance I I was performance uhhuh last year okay so it's the process artw work I want to I wanted to show process how to made one line so I made one line by two people so it's it's very difficult for me how how it's how to make it's incude performance but it's not performance like yeah to come at it from a different angle altogether let's say I'm a vulgar uh American collector and I want to buy this work um um uh how do I buy the the process um if the if the work of art is the process how do I take it home with me as a purchaser how well I think um how you take well I think you give some Clues with the you know once once someone understands what the what the numbers represent and um the business about the dilution of the ink um and the relative speed of the lines um the process then becomes comprehensible comprehensive understandable understandable someone can understand Mark by by Mark how you made this work yeah although I guess they don't know which Mark you made first and which you made second oh um it is not important for me but it's more important of my artwork is how much time and how many kind of timing curs on the same screen so but it's um the traditional calligraphy it's very important the how how made how does it make like the from where to Second where is the second part where is the third part and the people can imagine people can understand when we um when they see the one character because it's we can image mhm like the move or brush but my artwork is more it's it's a the construct of calligraphy and I want to explain everything like how much time I spend mhm um what I'm making what I drawing and I draw one is the most smallest number and language and and about the space I made a GD it's a space that this space has each one second the grid is each one second so yeah my work is it's more it has more distance it's has distance of traditional one but the basement it's the it has traditional way M yeah I I think in the west we're very accustomed to thinking about how forms relate to each other in a composition and how colors relate to each other in a composition uh we're not so accustomed to thinking about how time or the or the time of fabrication um interplays in creation of a an image um but we have a a parallel in music where you know you have whole notes and you have 16th notes and you have adjo passages and you have very slow passages um so um that's an art form where time is of the essence um in the very structure of the work as well as the listeners experience um in Japan you have a tradition of theater that's often in based on very slow movements yeah like Ki or yeah and um yeah I think well I yeah I for me I didn't think of it I didn't I don't I didn't I don't have this way but but it's yeah I realized about this when last year my friend of Barcelona asked me about meditation but like I think Japanese people it's not it's not a know it's don't the meditation is not often common no way I think a few people of course do this but but sometimes when I draw one line sometime I spend only this this one line 30 minutes or 40 minutes it's it's my feeling is I realize it was made ation like I saw only one point and it's it does it doesn't move but it move a little bit so you mean it's like so this way is kind of meditation I think but yeah I just realized about that so you say about like SL SL Mo SL movement through move is I I we we we the Japanese people has has this kind of thinking MH in like yeah be before no yeah uh well I think uh at least in part uh in in those forms of theater in part it has to do with conveying the beauty of the gesture like the gesture is performed very slowly so that the audience can contemplate it in its duration um and here in the west you know we we've had this uh phenomenon of uh endurance performance uh certain artists who would lock themselves in rooms or you tie themselves together for a year um uh but endurance performance always has a certain edge of uh masochism you know like uh there's a certain amount of suffering that's implied in an endurance performance um I don't get the sense that you are suffering even though you might be making a line I me taking 30 minutes to make a line that's 4 in long um what what is the psychological process for you while you're while you're doing this psyches is oh yeah um like um the ancient colography is corro the Stone so can think the black R can could be think of Shadow so like when I drew the r it's my feeling is more I went more deeply place like yeah it's under the on on under the floor what so um how much formal training in calligraphy lies behind this did you spend a lot of time in formal training yes I yeah from 8 years old then I think 16 or yeah eight years I spend time practice spend time a lot yes because I I really liked to practice choreography it's it's just my time I can yeah I can use all of time used for me it's more technical it's how to hard it's to use the brush to use very real right mhm and copy the the ancient characters right well I know there's another concept you've talked about and I won't try to pronounce it but it's like a three-part process uh of learning um where you begin with the rules and following the rules and the Traditions very strictly and then move on to making slight variations and then there's a third stage where you are essentially liberated to to try to make um what is that expression sh yeah um yeah the shuar is in Japanese like Japanese the ceremony and material Arts like candle there is a concept called sh Shu means to adhere or protect M it IM inous Fair ad hiring to forms and techniques mastering them completely and how means to break or detach it involves contem temp prating teaching from other Masters or schools incorporating what is valuable and Ting one skills and Le means to read or transcend it involves departing from a school or tradition to establish something new and unique yes um so yeah and that's my practice is right now I I still studying like sh is protect but I'm still still studying about traditional craphy but in my artwork I try to make like and how and re it's it's broke and re means leave and all time I yeah yeah um I know you've mentioned another concept that's related is a do um door is it's yeah door is a like calligraphy Asian calligraphy called Sho is a calligraphy Lord of calligraphy like and Tea Ceremony same it's te ceremony called sad is that though I think it's very similar to shuar but yeah yeah but it's also applied to other things like I do it's a do do means like more I think it's contain like meditation feeling and and Shar meaning like more like very typical Japanese thinky thinking fearing so but yeah um I think we should not feel too bad about our uh puzzlement over time um it it has defeated the best of Minds remember uh St Augustine in his confessions said um I you know I feel I know what time is until someone ask me and um the answer that he ultimately came up with was to sort of equate time with change um if there were no change there would be no time um and the only changelessness in the cosmos for him was the Divine was God um all the rest of us are subject uh to change and to time um it's what is different with about time between Japanese thinking and American thinking because I stayed here stayed here right now I stayed only for mons so I I still not understand about the time in America yes um well there are National differences there are historical differences you know in in agrarian society you know your notion of time was you know built on the seasons rising in the setting of The Sun each day you know these kind of extended periods with nuances along the way um but with the Industrial Revolution time became very segmented and you have the things like the what was his name Taylor who did work motion studies for Henry Ford and others so that the people on the factory floor and on the assembly line uh would not waste a single second or a single motion as they were putting together their model um so human beings really became the slave of time in the situations um and now we have the digital world uh and um I'm not sure what kind of time uh the digital world reports this nwork is about digital influenced by digital world because yeah it's um for example the internet or um TV or some shows or something it's everything can control the information can be controlled by someone so um these are works I say yeah I say that but they have two kind of time past and present present time and past time and past time is what control before I performed and the when yeah so it's it was influenced by yeah it's a digital world it's all time influenced by past things and May yeah as someone who recently retired I can tell you there is no greater freedom than control of One's Own time and conversely no greater unfreedom than having someone else control your time uh so artists have always been rather fortunate in that regard um so maybe we should open up to see if there are questions from people here um I'm curious about how you the time is that the time that you 01 369 what is that it's a 1 second oh it's the one second no no no 1 minute 1 minute 36 seconds so for every every uh Square you put the number of seconds every sorry every every second right so how do you calculate the time it's um another people calculate the time when I draw one line and yeah it's those atart Works me calculate by me but this is this means it took 1 minute and 36 seconds yes for her to draw this one so I was thinking of yeah yes there's a kind of a some kind of relationship with time as well you know when he would send his postcards every day yes with the exact time so I don't know you know that's kind of the notion of time Rich saying sort of in a different it's kind of I think but it's it's different it'ss so it's just I'm just thinking of it's um my work is like influenced by more traditional Japanese choreography so it's um when we see some characters like the outworks not one calligraphy works we can image how much it's we we can't understand exactly what how many times does the artist use but um about this I want to explain about this I want to explain how much time do I used I get it so that's why and yeah yeah it's kind of curious that we at least think of you know Japanese traditional culture as being U rather meditative and you know the um the Artist as sage and and all of that but when performance came to Japan it it sort of came in the form of gutai which was you know people wallowing around in the mud and and punching the canvas of a painting and breaking through paper doorways um which is a very eruptive um introduction to to the idea of performance um yours I think would we would say it's more of the meditative sort so yeah I like yeah I made a distance that's kind of performance outwork because I'm not performer I just what is drawing what is ex expression of ancient human so yeah so yeah I'm planning one exhibition next month so it's like I will try to explain with sound artwork and some seramic art works with another artist it's more I try to more deeply explain about what is what is expression of human ancient human moving or yeah way or something so and that will be in Manhattan or where in Manhattan in SoHo so so yeah what's the name of the gallery it's Gallery but it's it's just a phrase yeah it's my my my project so I first time I will do c where so everyone should come yeah uh it's not necessarily a question but I just I'm curious I to ask about like if you can talk a little bit about this idea of vertical and horizontal because when you are talking about your work and time and measuring distance like it's like I don't know it's like a linear like horizontal about when you talked about when asked you about the process and you talked about the when he started as a he started as a stone carving and also when you're saying you are drawing a line at 30 minutes you think about going deep into like into a floor that's my understand understand it correctly so for me it seems like really interesting like Hy is a parallel of vertical and Al like horizontal line like time or the time in terms of horizontal time and also vertical time and also in terms of like the space as horizontal and vertical and like so I just I just wonder like when you are doing this is motion and you you're saying like you are going deep me to di whatever you're doing and what's your what you're thinking and then what like and also even like when you layering this like three different layers of time there also like X um can you talk a little more about this like idea of like layering and going deep into it's it's um almost of the idea came from conation like um the constellation made by ancient people and like the ancient human decided each stars on the same front screen and they connect one very simple rhyme but they have a different time it's very different time but about conation of human not hum constellation made by human is like a like a like just drawing so yeah my idea came from that like a con everything single think like a conation and connect with some connect with everything but they have diff e each different time and like it's very complicated so that's why I need many kind of perspective like deep thinking or time or another perspective and dimension or [Music] horizontal like so still I thinking about ex new it's not new but like another expression about um it's not craphy but it's kind of craphy way so yeah it's right now is my thinking is very separate but it's they ex they are they were include included at the the same time right now so uh are these compositions strictly 2D two Dimensions or do you see a third do you see depth when you're creating these it's three dimensional it's three three no no it's not it's true the craphy the Asian craphy often say it has three dimension or more because white Brank is a space and like yeah it looks like two Dimension uhhuh but they say it's not two Dimension it's it's a space okay yeah it kind of makes sense because when write liy like the movement is not only just like one layer it's also you de in and then you lift it and then there's a vertical movement of writing chines as well yes yes yes I think am I right to assume that the marks themselves don't carry meaning like in traditional thei formed a pictogram that convey a meaning yeah there's no particular meaning to the shape itself my outwork the mar you like describe as the bushy it's um for me is those Ry meaning one one just one line yeah it's um yeah when I made this Pro when I started this project I wanted to torture it separate traditional way but um I couldn't separate only one things um like I didn't I didn't write abstract things it looks like very abstract of many people say it's abstract artwork but for me it's it's not abstract yeah it's because one line I I draw one language the character one and everything calculate calculated calculate measured everything measured yeah and oh oh it's yes and and well are the are the compositions preconceived I mean when you go and make the first Mark do you already know what the next three four marks are going to be or does that develop as you do it better do it as you do it the formal choices that I really love are that you chose to use like Indo Arabic numerals and included the milliseconds and that thect that the people that are making the marks are dressed in black and in English there's this word play between character which means that the that the letter they're doing in character like a play and I like how when I'm watching this they seem like kanji too the thing that I'm interested in in my own work that I resonate here is this balance between the referential reverence meditative silence that Richard defined no theater in the Japanese culture and then the Absurd um that I see in Japanese culture in Kabuki and the kind of silliness and all those slapstick um does any of that resonate could you talk about like the French talk about M do you think of the Absurd I mean there's some absurd decisions no you don't think about that yeah it's the me yeah for me it's I I wanted to just explain everything like how much time where is space what is space I I decide everything like this on this paper I made great like a god it's not God but I decide the great meaning one each one second and yeah question like Richard talk about the meditation feeling of your work and I was like giving me a feeling that the D Garden in in Japanese culture like they having mon like I read about it they having mon spping the sand to form the uh like I just look it up it's called like C this kind of thing and I know I read something like like sweating in like really slow motion and also to like create a different kinds of pattern and like it's a way of the like not sitting there but like through the sweing they meditate and they're all also on the floor so I'm thinking about whether your work is like cuz like I I wrot Chinese CRA as well and like some certain like the one you draw the metal this kind of shade and is not like happening a lot in Chinese craphy and recently but only in pretty Asian like the Chin Dynasty col or Fe so like I'm curious about like the shape or the pattern but also on the floor SC whether it's connected to the same like wow well thank you but I think about well it's U for me it's my next next step my next project is I want to connect with another culture like um for example another culture like um like Latin American culture or African culture with another Asian another Europe culture they um I be believe I hope to find the same expression as a human in basement in basement or Bas basic basic basic some basically okay so before before culture before being culture like ancient expression it's like a like a um like a lome is everything connect with something so it's my yeah it's my purpose to make another expression so would you ever be tempted to do figurative work or representational painting uh you know pictures that look like a tabletop or represent no never good thank you so much yeah that's [Applause] time okay that wasn't that

Channel: Residency Unlimited

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Id: roB5hqogGj0

Length: 53min 39sec (3219 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 28 2024