10.17 Sat
"Think of Tokyo from the Verge”
Kyohei Sakaguchi × Toshihito Kayano
Tokyo Art School Lecture on October 17th 2009
Lecture Title: Thinking of Tokyo from the“Edges”
Lecture 1 by Kyohei Sakaguchi titled“Happiness and the new hunter-gatherers in TOKYO”
Sakaguchi is an architect who does not build architecture in the conventional sense, rather trying to find the philosophy and universality of our lives through what he has called the“Zero Cost House”in TOKYO.
He wonders what it is that makes happiness in people’s everyday lives and in particular the lives of street people or homeless persons. One can easily imagine that it becomes necessary to think about totally different ways of living from what we are used to, if we start to think about those places where living occurs apart from general social ethics and standards. Street people are always thinking creatively to seek their own possibilities through being conscious and aware of existing laws and the social frames of work etc. They depend on and utilize the total living flow of people, goods, and money in the city space. Sakaguchi has visited and studied a number of homeless people and found that they are independent, create their own life styles, set their own rules, and clearly know that happiness can exist from the most minimal of things and spaces. These people are free from the law but trust in the city of TOKYO in their own ways which are totally different from our ordinary lives. Sakaguchi thinks that we tend to lose our own real lives without knowing what we really need for happiness. Lastly he mentioned that the present conditions of capitalism in TOKYO cannot allow for people to live freely and within this he finds a new challenge for an experiment to create his Zero cost house and live in an outlaw open space in GINZA.
Lecture 2 by Toshihito Kayano titled “Thinking of Space as an Outlaw-like entity”
Kayano is a philosopher specializing in issues of the nation-state, violence, thought, and society. He began his talk by emphasizing the importance of words and discourse in the present day, even in the ART market, claiming that it is the first time that words have such influential power in human history. Even artists need to express their concepts and thoughts through not only their art works but also their words if they want to relate with the broader world market and society.
He went on to outline that the“edge”in this lecture did not mean a geographical edge per se, but referred more to that open space of negotiation and leverage beyond existing institutions and social frames. This points to a new creation of space fundamentals. By changing the meaning and concept of SPACE, there emerges the possibility of creativity. He introduced several fundamental concepts of SPACE, referring to the writings of Deleuze and Guattari – the space of reason or striation and the space of flatness and smoothness (heikatsu). Reasoning space is symbolized most succinctly by the establishment of ownership rights. Reason underlines the order of spaces and defines their intended purpose. On the contrary a constantly revealing and open space is free from ownership rights and reasoning. Reasoned spaces are always under some kind of law and ownership making it close to issues of politics and power. In fact, various forms of government and authority have been greatly concerned with SPACES in all areas of history. Before the age of exploration authority was established through the ownership land. During the age of Empire, Britain imagined the ocean as a smooth space in order to establish striated reasoned space for the purposes of colonial and wealth expansion. By World War II the United States extended ownership over the skies as the space of reason. This progressive development is today extending out to space. In such ways we may say that space in all its various guises is both a resource for creative activities and a fundamental arena for politics. The leverage and negotiation of space in a city is closely related to not only the conversion of reasoning to smoothness but also constantly evaluating the relations between these two kinds of space.
"Think of Tokyo from the Verge”
Kyohei Sakaguchi × Toshihito Kayano
Tokyo Art School Lecture on October 17th 2009
Lecture Title: Thinking of Tokyo from the“Edges”
Kyohei Sakaguchi
Lecture 1 by Kyohei Sakaguchi titled“Happiness and the new hunter-gatherers in TOKYO”
Sakaguchi is an architect who does not build architecture in the conventional sense, rather trying to find the philosophy and universality of our lives through what he has called the“Zero Cost House”in TOKYO.
He wonders what it is that makes happiness in people’s everyday lives and in particular the lives of street people or homeless persons. One can easily imagine that it becomes necessary to think about totally different ways of living from what we are used to, if we start to think about those places where living occurs apart from general social ethics and standards. Street people are always thinking creatively to seek their own possibilities through being conscious and aware of existing laws and the social frames of work etc. They depend on and utilize the total living flow of people, goods, and money in the city space. Sakaguchi has visited and studied a number of homeless people and found that they are independent, create their own life styles, set their own rules, and clearly know that happiness can exist from the most minimal of things and spaces. These people are free from the law but trust in the city of TOKYO in their own ways which are totally different from our ordinary lives. Sakaguchi thinks that we tend to lose our own real lives without knowing what we really need for happiness. Lastly he mentioned that the present conditions of capitalism in TOKYO cannot allow for people to live freely and within this he finds a new challenge for an experiment to create his Zero cost house and live in an outlaw open space in GINZA.
Toshihito Kayano
Lecture 2 by Toshihito Kayano titled “Thinking of Space as an Outlaw-like entity”
Kayano is a philosopher specializing in issues of the nation-state, violence, thought, and society. He began his talk by emphasizing the importance of words and discourse in the present day, even in the ART market, claiming that it is the first time that words have such influential power in human history. Even artists need to express their concepts and thoughts through not only their art works but also their words if they want to relate with the broader world market and society.
He went on to outline that the“edge”in this lecture did not mean a geographical edge per se, but referred more to that open space of negotiation and leverage beyond existing institutions and social frames. This points to a new creation of space fundamentals. By changing the meaning and concept of SPACE, there emerges the possibility of creativity. He introduced several fundamental concepts of SPACE, referring to the writings of Deleuze and Guattari – the space of reason or striation and the space of flatness and smoothness (heikatsu). Reasoning space is symbolized most succinctly by the establishment of ownership rights. Reason underlines the order of spaces and defines their intended purpose. On the contrary a constantly revealing and open space is free from ownership rights and reasoning. Reasoned spaces are always under some kind of law and ownership making it close to issues of politics and power. In fact, various forms of government and authority have been greatly concerned with SPACES in all areas of history. Before the age of exploration authority was established through the ownership land. During the age of Empire, Britain imagined the ocean as a smooth space in order to establish striated reasoned space for the purposes of colonial and wealth expansion. By World War II the United States extended ownership over the skies as the space of reason. This progressive development is today extending out to space. In such ways we may say that space in all its various guises is both a resource for creative activities and a fundamental arena for politics. The leverage and negotiation of space in a city is closely related to not only the conversion of reasoning to smoothness but also constantly evaluating the relations between these two kinds of space.
Summary by Mari Noda (Shikkai-ya Intern)
English proofreading and editing: Roger McDonald (AIT)
Photo: Yukiko Koshima
