Chris Meigh-Andrews

Recently retrieved photos and documents have shed some light on a previously mysterious period in my Grandfather’s early life. After leaving the army he traveled to Canada to find work in 1922 and planned to establish himself there before sending for his wife and young son (my Uncle Jack- now 89!), but after several years rejoined them in England, having been unable to persuade his wife to cross the Atlantic. It seems he spent some of this period based in Calgary, Alberta working on the Canadian Pacific Railway, and then several years in Kenora, Ontario working for the Keewatin Lumber Company, before returning home to Colchester.

On Monday, Oct 18th I visited Down House to discuss my on-going project to produce a time-lapse web-based installation at Charles Darwin’s former home in rural Kent. I met with Rowan Blaik, head gardener at Down House to discuss the next phase of the project. We have agreed that I will install some cameras to produce test sequences in my preferred locations to produce time-lapse sequences of the ancient mulberry tree at the rear of the house.

It’s my last day in Japan and after breakfast at my hotel I took the subway to Roppongi to visit the National Art Center- an imposing and spacious building designed by Kisho Kurokawa. I viewed an exhibition entitled Shadows, which featured works from the collections of the Japanese national museums by Japanese, European and American artists working in a variety of media-but predominantly photography and painting. I was familiar with most of the Western artists represented, but there were a number of Japanese artists whom I did not know, including Miho Akioka and Jiro Takamatsu. I was also happy to see Krzysztof Wodiczko’s four-channel video projection installation If You See Something… which I first saw at the Venice Biennale several years ago.

After lunch I met and interviewed Itsuo Sakane, pioneering electronic media writer, curator and educator, who has been deeply engaged in ideas about the relationship between technology and art and actively involved in the media art scene both in Japan and internationally since the late 1960’s and has been instrumental in bringing it to the attention of a wider public.

This morning I visited NTT’s InterCommunication Center (ICC) in Shinjuku to see the exhibition Open Space 2010, which featured a number of stunning new works by Japanese media artists. I was particularly impressed by The Tenth Sentiment, a beautiful and engaging  (although unfortunately unphotographable!) installation by Ryota Kuwakubo,  Morel’s Panorama, by Masaki Fujihata and a circular structure for the internal observer by Norimichi Hirakawa.

After lunch I met with and interviewed video pioneer, animateur and artist Michael Goldberg, who is considered by many in Japan to be the “father” of Japanese video art.

Yesterday afternoon I made a presentation about my early videotape and installation work to artists and art students at the National Film Center, with the help of Tokyo-based video artist Masayuki Kawai, who kindly provided an excellent live translation. After the presentation, I was able to meet a number of other video artists based in Tokyo including Kentaro Taki, Ryoji Shibata, Ota Yo, Tetsuro Hatano and Kunitoshi Okuno.

After a day at Kyoto Seika looking at video work in the University’s Media Center Collection, that evening I had dinner with Prof Ina and Kyoto-based media artists Akiko Takahashi and Chie Hirano. The following morning Shinsuke and I took the train to Tokyo, working on the the book translation en route.

My morning session viewing work at the media center at Kyoto Seika was enjoyable and fruitful, and I was able to see a number of works by Japanese moving image artists relevant to my research. The highlights of the morning viewing include two pieces by Takahiko Iimura- Ayers Rock (1985) and Ma: Space-Time in the Garden of Ryoan-Ji (1989), Visual Brains’ witty De-Sign 2 and a number of impressive works by Takashi Ito from two compilations of work from the 1980’s and 1990’s Illumination Ghost. The second compilation tape included an impressive and darkly disturbing work entitled  Zone (1996).

On my way home from the university this afternoon, I stopped to take a few more images, as tomorrow I leave for Tokyo, and Saturday I fly home to London.

I took shelter from the rain this morning in the vast hall at Nishi Hongan-Ji, and it will be my last temple visit this trip, as tomorrow I will spend the day at Kyoto Seika University, viewing tapes in the media centre in the morning and working with Shinsuke and Oha on details of the book translation in the afternoon. Weds morning I will leave Kyoto en route to Tokyo, before flying home to England on Saturday morning.

After lunch at “Second House” on Shichijo-Dori, I cycled northwards into downtown Kyoto and wandered about in Nishiki Market, enjoying the rich visual & culinary delights and looking for a bottle of sweet sake.

There are so many extraordinary temples to visit in Kyoto. Today I visited three more in the Southern  Higashiyama area of the city- Kiyomizu-Dera, Entouku-in and Kodai-Ji, with a side-trip to a little ceramics shop in between.

On the way home it began to rain heavily, and peddling slowly along on my bicycle in this downpour, I was soon thoroughly drenched. On returning home, after drying off and whilst drinking some hot tea, I came across this haiku by Matsuo Basho (1644-1694):

A traveler-

Let my name be thus known-

This autumnal shower.

This afternoon I spent a couple of hours at the Kyoto International Manga Museum in the centre of the city, which is run as a partnership project between the City of Kyoto and Kyoto Seika university. For the next three Saturdays the museum is hosting The Inter College Animation Festival showing the best work produced this year by students from 15 art schools across Japan. Today’s screening featured work from Kyoto Seika and Joshobi University of Art and Design, and the technical and creative standards were consistently high, with a diverse range of animation techniques and approaches. Prof Shinsuke Ina introduced me to Shuzo Ueda, the managing director of the Museum and gave me a tour of the Museum which has over 300,000 manga comics in its collection.

At 3PM Shinsuke, Isanori Oha and I went to a nearby hotel coffee shop to conduct an interview about Shinsuke’s work as part of my series of interviews with Japanese video artists. After the interview I cycled back through the city and along the river just as the light was fading, stopping to take a few images along the route.