Artwork from Takashi Murakami at the Hong Kong art fair 2010

Sailor Moon (1992 – 1997) transcended Japanese anime and reached a pure state of corrosiveness. Sailor Moon is an artificial flavouring substance: depthless, highly satisfying and addictive. It is more than any artwork of Takashi Murakami the best illustration of his superflat art movement, depicting “the shallow emptiness of Japanese consumer culture”. The original manga is a little different from the anime and somehow more spiritual. The anime version expunged its scenario of any particularity, leading to the ultimate stereotype of the Japanese girl, flanked with kitsch accessories ready for merchandising, cheap love stories and consumerist lifestyles. The characters were designed as for any animes to appeal both to girls and perverts thanks to a quota of ‘subliminal’ underwear scenes. Their transformations into self-centred wonder women are the climax of every episodes (otherwise rather mediocre in their drawings). The same scenes of transformations are shown again and again, becoming objects of cult, obsessing and hypnotic. They saturate the narrative with their superflat symbolic.

There is a before and an after Sailor Moon, the series imitated many other predecessors, and has been often imitated, but it was the first to reach that level of depthless consumerism worship.

The main female character of Vivre sa vie (1962, Jean-Luc Godard), played by Anna Karina, dancing to escape the boredom of her prostitution.

The final scene of The 400 blows (1959, François Truffaut), the story of a boy exerting his freedom until the very limit.

Scene of love in Breathless (1960, Jean Luc Godard). Contradictory feelings and the intimacy of a couple have rarely been so well captured in a movie…

I was very impressed by the Miyako Odori Geisha dance when I was in Kyoto last year. The music was fascinating because of its expressiveness and sophistication, broken purposefully by exclamations that added to the feeling of restrained eloquence. It gave me the idea to post few videos of Japanese music, here they are!

The soundtrack of Akira (1988) had also parts of classical Japanese music…

There are great Japanese music concerts in Europe, I attended to one few months after my trip to Japan at the Japanese Culture Institute of Cologne (it was played then by Kikuchi Naoko and Carin Levine). There seems to be a well established practice of playing the koto in disruptive ways…

Walt Disney Studios in Paris opened last year a new section called “Toy Story Playland”, which will also be launched soon in Disneyland Hong Kong. The area features a series of rides designed for children and based on the characters of the Toy Story franchise: RC Racer, Slinky Dog ZigZag Spin and Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop. Why choosing Toy Story for a new section of a theme park instead of the many other Disney franchises? There are many good reasons to pick it up, such as its popularity and the obvious merchandising opportunities of its toys. I would like to speculate here one more reason that might have led to that choice. Disney did consciously or not a very subtle cultural exercise in promoting cars, consumerism and the American army, in a politically correct way of course.

Promoting cars is not new for Disney theme parks; they did it openly and multiple times in rides such as Test track (Epcot) or the coming Cars Land (Disney California Adventure). It was thus not surprising to see the RC Racer ride in the Toy Story Playland. I can only regret this American obsession with cars and the disastrous environmental consequences it will have on our future. Disney is visibly committed to glorify this mode of transportation to children all over the world, at least as long as it pays off with sponsors. Parents seem neither to realize nor to object to that vision.

Promoting consumerism has always been an implicit and powerful message in all Disney theme parks. Toy Story Playland is about toys, and children encounter consumerism for the first time with toys. It is coherent for Disney to encourage consumption of its products by emphasizing the pleasure that kids get from their toys. It is a logical and predictable consequence of the commercial nature of the Disney corporation.

The novelty comes from the Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop. As far as I know, Disney theme parks never tried before to glorify the image of the American army. The subject is too difficult, associated with war and violence. It could not be addressed directly. Toy Story is a very clever idea in that respect because it adds layers of abstraction. The film is not showing the army, but a toy about war and the army. The Toy Soldiers Parachute Drop ride is not about the army, but is a ride about a film about a toy that is about war and the army. The three layers of abstraction make the connection with war barely noticeable and allow Disney to treat the subject without any problems. An entertaining representation of military forces is presented to children and parents. The ride is not meant to be taken seriously of course. People enjoy the association made with the green colours of military uniforms. The positive experience helps undoubtedly building a positive image of the (American) army for children and their parents.  Magnificent!

The movie confronts the reality of human condition to its modern idealization, culminating in a final scene where jazz and spiritedness defeat the order so preciously orchestrated, at least for the time of a dance. Play Time is a post-modernist masterpiece because it plays with the paradoxes of human existence; humour and derision being the only possible postures.

Here is an interesting text that I’ve read at the Kaj Franck exhibition being held at the Design Museum of Helsinki:

In the mid sixties, the idea of anonymity with functional objects inspired a lively debate. In 1965, the Nuutajärvi Glasssworks announced that it would cease using designer’s names in cunjonction wth mass-produced commodities. This was based on the idea that the designer was putting his or her name to products for which he or she could not solely claim the credit or, in negative cases, be blamed. Artist director Kaj Franck: “A serial production design should not be one of which people grow tired. it should be so relevant that it ‘lasts’ for years and decades, and so unobstrusive that the user doesn’t start to wonder who designed it. The factory’s mark should suffice as the producer’s name”. (Kaunis Koti magazine)

The Nuutajärvi Glasssworks resumed using designer’s name in marketing in the 1970s. Franck too turned his back on his anonymity concept.

A series of conferences about climate change were organized few weeks ago by the Perelman centre from the Université Libre de Bruxelles. Here are two observations from François Gemenne:

• Climate refugees are most often treated as if they were victims unable to adapt to the climate changes occurring in their region. They play the role of “canaries in a coal mine”, signalling the rest of the World what is to come. We should instead recognize that emigrating is a legitimate adapting strategy to climate change, and that climate refugees are far from being victims without any capacity to act. Displaced populations are only one aspect of the problem. We need to better understand the conditions that lead to the decision to either stay or leave an affected region.
• More a country is polluting, more it has weight in climate negotiations. Model pupils are not the ones who need to change their behaviour, polluting countries impose their conditions for change.

See also the Toronto or Elsewhere video that I did in 2006. I didn’t see the film of Alain Resnais back then but I realize now that the theme was somehow very similar.