Technology, junk, and art

This article, "One Thing and Another: Tomoko Takahashi's CrashCourse@ The University of Warwick" by Nicolas Whybrow made me think about our fast advancing technology and the junk it produces. Japanese artist, Takahashi collected what seemed to be trash and unwanted and created an art show. Countless items were used: keyboard, phone, cables, shredded paper, lamp, etc. The author's interpretation of Takahashi's art is very interesting.

The artist's own position epitomises what is at stake in this paradox: amidst the chaos of 'junk' the visitor invariably discovers an aesthetically-pleasing order. It is one short step then to attributing this to a 'very Japanese' sense of meticulously-crafted, 'folkish' arrangement or ceremony. At the same time the recycling of discarded items suggests itself as a form of antidote to the mass production of popular consumer technologies that have come to be associated with post-war Japan. Thus, Takahashi is both playing on the stereotype, affirming her cultural' otherness,' and distancing herself from it.

This notion is intriguing to me as a Japanese person. In Japan people create art from empty tissue boxes, scratch papers, wire hangers. There is order behind chaos. While the technology is improving and machines become more and more compact with bigger capacity and greater possibilities, obsolete things get abandoned. Because my ancient (5 years old!) computer is crashing some times and Windows Vista has just been introduced, I would probably have to throw this computer away not too far ahead. In our Internet2 class, how should we deal with junk? Are we creating more junk than art itself?

Art works like Takahashi's project tell us to see unwanted things differently, perhaps in more appreciative way, and to notice art in them.

Article: http://people.brunel.ac.uk/bst/vol07/home.html