historicity

About historicity

A new series of audio walking tours, exploring how cities got to be the way they are - starting with London and Tokyo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

Publisher

historicity

Category

arts · society & culture · society & culture

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

2 Aug 2022

Latest episode

18 Aug 2023

Latest episodes

21 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   18 Aug 2023

   WAVE: Currents in Japanese Graphic Arts at Japan House London (2023) (EMPIRE LINES x historicity Tokyo)

   In this bonus episode of EMPIRE LINES, brought to you with historicity Tokyo, Japan House London curator Hiro Sugiyama, and contemporary artists Tsuzuki Mayumi and Suga Mica, ride the great waves of Japanese graphic design, commercial illustration, and counterculture, from the 1980s to now. Heta-uma - meaning bad but good - was an accidental art movement. A kind of ‘anti-illustration’, heta-uma rocked the established conventions of Japanese art, coinciding with the economic boom of the 1980s. Emerging in the underground manga magazine GARO, and manifesting in posters and adverts, pop art and animation, heta-uma challenges what is ‘ugly’, ‘beautiful’ or skilled art - as well as what ‘subcultures’ mean in the context of a global mainstreaming in Japanese art, embodied by Hokusai’s The Great Wave. Hiro Sugiyama, artist and co-curator of WAVE, has brought the annual exhibition in Tokyo to Japan Houses in San Francisco, Sao Paolo, and London. From his training at Yumura Teruhiko’s Flamingo Studios in Shinjuku, we return to the city’s Inari shrines with the surrealistic paintings of Suga Mica, and Showa period traditions with Tsuzuki Mayumi. Both artists also detail the long role of women artists in commercial illustration, the two-way exchanges between Japanese and Western European art traditions like ‘superrealism’ and ‘hyperrealism’, and how contemporary Japanese artists take as much from the concept of haziness (morotai), as David Hockney and the films of David Lynch. WAVE: Currents in Japanese Graphic Arts (https://www.japanhouselondon.uk/whats-on/wave-currents-in-japanese-graphic-art/) runs at Japan House London until 22 October 2023. For more, you can read my article in gowithYamo (https://www.gowithyamo.com/blog/wave-currents-in-japanese-graphic-arts-at-japan-house-london): https://www.gowithyamo.com/blog/wave-currents-in-japanese-graphic-arts-at-japan-house-london (https://www.gowithyamo.com/blog/wave-currents-in-japanese-graphic-arts-at-japan-house-london) This episode was produced in collaboration between historicity Tokyo and EMPIRE LINES (https://pod.link/1533637675), a podcast which uncovers the unexpected, often two-way flows of empires through art. WITH: Hiro Sugiyama, artist and a curator of WAVE. Tsuzuki Mayumi and Suga Mica, contemporary artists based in Japan. Eyre Kurasawa and Bethan Jones are interpreters based in London. ART: ‘WAVE: Currents in Japanese Graphic Arts (2023)’. IMAGE: Installation View. PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic. Follow EMPIRE LINES on Twitter: twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936 (http://twitter.com/jelsofron/status/1306563558063271936) And Instagram: instagram.com/empirelinespodcast (http://instagram.com/empirelinespodcast) Support EMPIRE LINES on Patreon: patreon.com/empirelines (https://www.patreon.com/empirelines) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

2. 

   4 Aug 2023

   Tokyo - BONUS: Tokyo in the Bay

   In this bonus “walk,” we’re putting Tokyo in its maritime context. From an automated, elevated train, we see how the city has expanded into the bay, providing space for business and attractions; a new home for the fish market; but also for recreation and everyday life. We start at Shimbashi Station, where the first rails were laid in Japan, which is now the starting point for the “black-headed gull” line. It first takes us south, past a surviving shogunal garden, surrounded by the new building, as the mainland inches remorselessly into the bay; then out over the Rainbow Bridge. We pass some 19th-century forts, designed to protect the city from foreigners, and some early 20th-century districts built close to the shore, but all now dwarfed by the huge artificial islands reclaimed from the sea. We get off the train at Odaiba, and make our way down to the beach, then along the boardwalk to the Statue of Liberty. Back on the train, we make a loop, past hotels and a cruise terminal, newish museums, and more offices. We glimpse the container port and bigger bridges further out, before heading back towards the city, past the convention centre, a tennis park, and the new central markets, where the world’s tuna come to be priced. We end the walk at Toyosu Park, looking back to the city, surrounded by non-descript offices, hotels, apartment buildings, and shops. It’s easy enough, given the anonymity of the architecture, to believe that the action is elsewhere. But the park is full of kids, who are bringing it to life. Maybe the future of Tokyo is here. You can follow the walk on this map: bit.ly/3pHSxf4 (https://bit.ly/3pHSxf4) And you can find the full transcript here: bit.ly/3JTcgzi (https://bit.ly/3JTcgzi) See a sneak peek on TikTok: tiktok.com/@walkhistoricity and Instagram: instagram.com/WALKHISTORICITY WRITER AND PRESENTER: Angus Lockyer PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic This series was supported by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. Find out more at: gbsf.org.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

3. 

   21 Jul 2023

   Tokyo - NEO-TOKYO 3: In the Club?

   In this walk, we’re exploring how Tokyo has allowed authorities, developers, and people around the world to reimagine what a city might be, in the last fifty years. In this episode, we see how Roppongi’s military past has more or less vanished, replaced first by nightclubs, more recently by luxury towers and integrated developments. We start on the southeast corner of Roppongi Hills, make our way into the “Artelligent City.” We pass through the Mōri garden, which nods to the site’s early modern incarnation as a lordly suburban villa, and then through the walls, up into the plaza, where we shelter under a spider, in the shadow of the towering but squat Mori Tower. Descending to the street and heading towards Roppongi Crossing, we can still find some remnants of the district’s previous incarnation as a playground for foreigners, celebrities, and mobsters. More prominent are the other two corners of Roppongi’s “art triangle,” the National Art Center and the various art spaces of Tokyo Midtown, together with the offices and condos that are sprouting in between. Invisible are any signs of Roppongi’s military past, though the American military maintains a heliport and a newspaper not too far away. The second half of the episode sees more of the same, as we walk up and down the slopes into Azabu, past embassy housing and more soaring towers. We end the episode contemplating the Mori Building Company’s latest project, Azabudai Hills, currently under construction, which promises to create a “modern urban village,” but threatens to put the 1958 Tokyo Tower and the 1975 headquarters of a new religion in the shade. You can follow the walk on this map: bit.ly/3D1IwMP (https://bit.ly/3D1IwMP) And you can find the full transcript here: bit.ly/43odN7q (https://bit.ly/43odN7q) See a sneak peek on TikTok: tiktok.com/@walkhistoricity and Instagram: instagram.com/WALKHISTORICITY WRITER AND PRESENTER: Angus Lockyer PRODUCER: Jelena Sofronijevic This series was supported by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation. Find out more at: gbsf.org.uk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy (https://acast.com/privacy) for more information.

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Apple Podcasts (US)

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