the) BODY of) EARTH
Not sure I ever shared the video that Irish filmmaker Richard Grehan made to accompany the photobook I made with the outstandingly creative whirling dervish Kate E Deeming last year in Shibuya. (I wrote about it a little last year) That was such an amazing night.
Filmed by Richard Grehan, Music Douglas Lee.
In April 2008 Performance Artist/Filmmaker Kate E. Deeming created the character “Body Earth”, as a physical representation of Mother Earth. She then crawled on hands and knees in Shibuya, at Hachiko Crossing, Tokyo, (the busiest crossing in the world) in between the pedestrians as a way of drawing attention to the missing consideration of the physical human dimension in all of our chats about “this environmental crisis”. Martine Cotton, photographer and Richard Grehan, filmmaker, joined her on this exploration to document the ‘performance’. The photos contained in this volume were not staged, but taken documentary style over the course of the Saturday evening. They serve as a potent reminder to our personal responsibility towards the nurturance of the planet. Created in response to Earth Day.
The book is available for purchase at BLURB. You know you wanna….
**A percentage of the proceeds of this book will be donated to the Glasgow Women’s Library
Shannonvale Sunset
Post cyclonic sunsets are often spectacular. This is what we saw yesterday evening, after Cyclone Hamish kicked his clouds across the skies of Port Douglas. (The new Lumix has a lovely video feature that I haven’t made enough use of yet.)
I hope that Cyclone Hamish, now at category 5 (as strong as Hurricane Katrina) and being classed a 30 year storm, does not make land. That would be just devastating. Lordy, Australia is really having a tough year. Fires, floods, earthquakes, shark attacks, croc attacks, cyclones.
James Nachtway highlights Extreme Drug Resistant TB
I love James Nachtway, he’s such an amazing photographer. These are his photos.
Powerful stuff. I have had a lot of personal dealings with TB this year, with one friend (young, fit, healthy 25-ish year old German fella) very sick with it and confined to a quarantine floor in a special ward in Shinjuku for many months and his also quite healthy British girlfriend contracting it – but not actively sick with it – and under such strong meds that her liver is in a seriously sick state. They had to take her off the meds this week because her liver was reacting so badly. You are supposed to take them for 12 months…. The Germans bandmate also contracted it too. Another healthy young man.
I have heard a lot of startling facts about this seemingly ancient disease that show that it is indeed experiencing a major revival. Here are some facts:
* As of 2006, approximately 30,000 people have TB in Japan, with around 3,000 people dying yearly (WHO statistics)
* Britain’s figures, with a population about half of Japan, are about 10,000 & 1,000 respectively.
* Approximately one third of the world’s population has TB (Scary fact!)
* However, tuberculosis is only infectious when it is active (ie reaches the lungs)
* And only 5~10% of people with tuberculosis become sick or infectious.
* Symptoms of active TB are coughing for more than 2 weeks; phlegm; fatigue & chest pain
We think.
Thought-provoking indeed, at a time when I’m trying to build a new career. “How do we make a living when everyone is freely sharing their ideas . . . ” via Jackanory. Be sure to visit the Youtube page and read the comments.
The new Al Gore slideshow.
In Al Gore’s brand-new slideshow (premiering exclusively on TED.com), he presents evidence that the pace of climate change may be even worse than scientists were recently predicting, and challenges us to act with a sense of “generational mission” — the kind of feeling that brought forth the civil rights movement — to set it right. Gore’s stirring presentation is followed by a Q&A in which he is asked for his verdict on the current political candidates’ climate policies and on what role he himself might play in future. (Recorded March 2008 in Monterey, California. Duration: 27:54.)
Important stuff.
This is where I live…..
Found MylesInLondon via Japundit. He makes beautiful videos. Think he captures Tokyo exceptionally well. These pieces are all short, and well worth watching.
PS – Bree in Vancouver, I love ya. What a lovely surprise! Thank you so much, the book is amazing and terrifying at the same time! A veritable text book. Really excited about sinking my teeth into it.
The Roadtrip
Hello friends, are you still with me? I know it’s been a while but it only seems like a few days! So. I’m in Tokyo, nestling back into my cosy little house with a new vegie cookbook, a million chores to catch up on, fresh Kaldi coffee in the fridge and my full iTunes library. I got back on Tuesday, during a remarkably mild period – it was 12.5 degrees that day, but the coming forecasts scare me and I think I feel a healthy hibernation coming on. I’m back at work, eating well, avoiding alcohol and considering a detox.
2007 was a fantastic year for me, I have to say, although it did have the odd sour point too. Spending the past 6 or so weeks with my family and getting to catch up with so many old friends and family members during the Australian holiday was such a momentous occasion. The trip was important on so many levels, and I will be sharing many of the highlights with you over the coming weeks as I trawl through the photos and dig through my beer-soaked memory files.
In the mean time, please feel free to check out this ROADTRIP slideshow I made testing the slideshow generator at animoto. It’s made up of photos taken during the roadtrip I took from Mossman, in far north Queensland, to Maroochydore in the states south-east – a distance of around 1800 km. I had this idea about making a roadtrip slideshow after watching the awesome video Michael Gondry made of a cross-USA road trip. Of course, his video is way more awesome and well-planned than this little kindergarten piece… but I have to say I’m pretty happy with animoto – it’s a rather nifty little service though the photos seem to have degraded a little and maybe even been made a little fuzzy (?).
They told me I needed a long, legal song so I chose one of my favourite old songs – The Day Everything… – from the fabulous Rival Flight (a great band I used to manage) since I doubt they’ll sue me for copyright infringement. It’s a little dramatic but I like the effect and I think it makes for a nice little first slideshow video attempt.
Just remember, it’s 8:49 minutes of your life that you’ll never get back 
Oh, and I put a handful of new holiday pics up at Flickr. More to come.
Maria Cross Part 2
Remember back in September 2005, I posted my first real video to the site. It was a clip of a young fella banging his crazy head to some awesome wacked out avante garde punk music. Well, I’ve seen him a few times since then. I was lucky enough to run past him in Shinjuku last week, at exactly the same place I filmed him last time, 2 years ago. So, of course, I had to film him again. After I wrote that first post, I got an email from a guy who told me that the performers name is Maria Cross, and that he is a guy – I had mistakenly written that he was a girl. Anyway, I put that first clip up on youtube too…the quality is pretty crappy though.
And now, I must step away from the computer and enjoy some Joan as Policewoman.
Arab Strap’s last ever show – the video!
One of my all time favourite bands, Arab Strap (from Scotland) played their last ever show as part of a secret tour of Tokyo in December 2006. Yes folks, they have now finished. So sad. It was a great night, and you can see pics here. There were a lot of people who had travelled from all over the world for this show, and real tears in the last few songs.
The above movie is actually edited…. the below aren’t. It includes mostly clips of the spoken parts of the gig, including the bit where Aiden took off his shoes because ‚Äúit was the end of the road‚Äù. I used my Canon Powershot G3 and was a wee bit tipsy after drinkin’ with the band and MissSin and some crazy couple who had flown all the way from my hometown of Brisbane before the show, so the camerawork is well dodgy.
My first foray into Youtube caused only a slight headache. All future attempts will now be a piece of piss (erm, that’s Australian for ‚Äúvery easy‚Äù).
JuggsVSJapan: front back and sides…
My very very ace old friend and former music colleague, Justin Dee (aka Juggs) and his partner Evette stayed at my place for a few weeks, and reluctantly packed up their mouldy futons a few days ago to head back to the Gold Coast. I have mentioned their regular shopping spree trips in other posts (they are both avid collectors and their impressive collection of dolls and character figures would put the 40 year old virgin to shame) but this trip was actually fueled by an even greater passion.
Technorati Tags: documentaries, friends, japan, kichijoji, portraits, streets, tokyo, video
The Photography Channel
The Photography Channel is a fantastic website full of short video doco’s about some of the worlds best photographers and historical events they’ve covered. My personal fave so far was the 4:32 clip about the Lost Boys of Sudan, as told by Magnum photographer Eli Reed. Powerful stuff. Go check it out. Think I’ll try to squeeze one in a day until I’ve seen them all.
Technorati Tags: photography, photographychannel, documentaries, video, web
Video experiments: Shinjuku Buskers
I’ve been playing with imovie, lots of fun. This is a video (please click on the image) I shot with the Canon G3 a while back – an avante garde punk street performer/poseur (?) in Shinjuku, bloody funny. Please let me know if you have any problems with this file. I made it as small as I could – around 1.4 MG so I fear it’s pretty compressed and grainy. Hard to see the breakneck speed with which she was banging her head.
Update: I have uploaded a 2.7 MG version too, for those of you with fat connections.
Update: I recieved this email from a reader a while back:
I just thought I should add, if you didn’t know, that this is a man who calls himself Maria Cross… or techniqually it is the name of his ”band”. I am living in Tokyo for a few months and met Maria in this same spot at the East Exit of Shinjuku station. He is actually a very nice person and I have gone to his concert in a small live house. Just didn’t want everyone to think he was a woman. ^__^ In fact, I found this site by looking for a picture of him to show someone. Enjoy your time in Tokyo!!! If you go see him again, chances are you’ll see me there dancing too!!
