- That's it for ARS, our next trip is to Sonar and Annecy! -
Yo! Flight AAL 07 was the last installment for ARS 2005. The number of works we've covered so far, including this installment... eighteen. The number of performances we've covered... seven. The gratitude we feel to all of you who have checked out our reviews... priceless.

Well, ARS may be over, but in AAL Chapter Two, we're moving on to Sonar, a multimedia and music festival held a little while back in Barcelona, and Annecy, the oldest and biggest animation festival in the world, held at a resort location in France! Our trip lasted about two weeks! We made some new acquaintances, reunited with some other folks, saw some cool things, and ate some great food! Traveling really is the best. Look forward to our report, guys!

- This time, recommendations from Kiyoshi Maeda -
The works saved for the end of ARS were all must-sees. In fact, it wouldn't be an exaggeration to say that the three works we're covering this time were the highlights of ARS. We've saved our extra special recommendations for last.

We've covered a lot of things from our trip to ARS 2005 with a fair amount of trial-and-error, but we were really encouraged to see the number of visitors to the site go up with each installment. My half-assed text was backed up with Kenji's shiny photos, and guests were kind enough to give us some of their time and participate, too. This lack of balance is really what traveling is all about, I think. I also want to thank the artists we met at ARS, Anna, and Mrs. Nomura, the coordinator.

Now then, I'm acting as guide again this time, but stay tuned for someone new to take the wheel soon, too. Plus, we're going to put up an English version, so look forward to that.

- The battle between ARS and Sonar -
Starting with artist Yasuhiro Suzuki, a circle of friends from all different fields have been featured as guests on AAL. The last one to grace our coverage of ARS is the daughter of a friend of Joey's, the artist and performer Sonomi Tamaki. Born and raised in Roppongi, Sonomi is a city kid who grew up in a completely different environment than I did way out in Miyazaki. She ends her sentences with"~right?" and says things like "This is so hilarious" or "Isn't this funny?" before laughing. (I don't get it, it's like, laugh before you say you're going to, already!) She seemed like this collection of urbanisms but she has this amazingly friendly, open smile and way of laughing that really suit her! Check out the guest page for detailed info on Flo + out, Sonomi's exploration of physical expression. That Tsingtao beer we drank together was tasty.

My first recommendation. This is the thing I wanted to show you all the most. It was a giant dinosaur-skeleton-like thing that appeared in Haupt Square, which is in the center of town and features a huge statue of the Holy Trinity. Just when you think it's standing still, it suddenly starts moving with this whooshing noise! When you look at it closely you can see that it's made of countless yellow plastic tubes connected together. There isn't a single nail in the whole thing, and the joints are fastened together using wooden poles and stuff. What powers it isn't electricity, but air... When it moves its wings, an air compressor made out of plastic bottles draws in air, and when that air is released, the joints move. Basically, the wings are its gills and the plastic bottles are its lungs. It was seriously well made. And the size of it was astounding.

The artist who made it was a cool-looking older guy. Theo Jansen was born and raised on the coast of Holland, and spent fourteen years making Strandbeest. This is definitely what you'd call a "life work." With this and Marnix's "Run Motherfucker Run," it seems like I tend to be drawn to things made by Dutch artists. Same goes for soccer and architecture...

Strandbeest's Site
http://www.strandbeest.com/

Enjoy this artwork.

Recommendation Number Two. This work is being exhibited at the Architecture Forum, the location of which I briefly covered before. Well, it's hard to say whether it's more of an exhibit or a performance... I heard a strange "gagagaga" kind of sound coming from a room inside, and when I took a look, it was packed with people and I couldn't really see.

So I pushed my way through and looked inside, where there was a man lying face down with a hard machine on his back. In front of him is an old CRT television, which is showing footage of him doing a run of a skeleton sledding course. Basically, the idea is that you can experience skeleton sledding virtually. But it's not like you can feel the centrifugal force at a curve or sense how fast you're going with the wind or anything. On closer inspection, the machine he has on his back making the "gagagaga" noise turned out to be plucking a guitar string with a propeller.

The artist, who completed a full run of the skeleton course with this guitar strapped to his back, is a bit of a dunce.

This form, this ridiculousness, and this happy, wild-child artist with the brain power of a ten-year-old but who is already thirty-three... it was so adorable I could hardly stand it. Apparently Stephan Pirker herds cows in the mountains. That seems to be his sport of choice to take the place of skeleton sledding in the summer...

There's no way I could have gone without experiencing this thing for myself. So I gave it a try. The guitar weighed thirty kilos. Under the pressure of the guitar, I started sliding, and within ten seconds I was finding it hard to breathe. You should have seen how pathetic and shameful my face looked!! Ah, it was truly shameful. When I'd finished sliding, my neck and shoulders were hurting like hell. Really, it was like being in a one-man camel crutch for three full minutes. Stephan was laughing as he watched me, but I couldn't bring myself to respond, having had all the energy drained out of me by his work...

Enjoy this artwork.

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My final recommendation. The last work of ARS was Toshio Iwai's TENORI-ON performance. TENORI-ON is the next-generation instrument Iwai is collaborating with Yamaha to develop, and can be played by anyone, regardless of whether they're a novice or a pro.

The first thing to catch your eye is the 16x16 matrix of LED switches. If you push the switches or slide your finger over them, they emit these beautiful sounds and lights. And another Iwai-like feature is that there aren't only LEDs on the control pad, but on the back of the instrument, as well. The TENORI-ON isn't just enjoyed by the performer, but entertains the people watching it, too. And what's more, even if you don't have the techniques you'd need for other instruments, you can create the most unexpected LED miracles with it. I found it to be a truly happy musical interface.

It has a weight to it when you hold it, and feels well-made. When I held it in both hands, my spine naturally snapped into an upright posture, which made me imagine what I must look like holding it and think, "Hey, I might be looking pretty cool right now."

You can make music with it even if you don't know how to use it, but I think that you'd need more time with the TENORI-ON to make music the way you want it to sound.

Enjoy this artwork.

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