TeamLab started in 2001 in Japan but took a decade to get noticed and has been building ever since. We took in their permanent installation called Biovortex Kyoto.
It’s an immersive art experience. It’s also very tech heavy. That’s okay.
These artists work with light. The materials that make up the show are vessels for the light. I imagine it could be fun to create these experiences, working with other artists and architects to imagine an experience and see it come to life.
We kept finding ourselves thinking about the docents who were trapped for hours on end repeating the same safety messages and being subjected to the same flashing lights and loud soundtracks. Implementation of a vision always has a cost, am I right? But who pays the cost?
The installations are amazing and immersive and do things that creative folks could only dream of mere years ago. We had a great time and would suggest it.
We chose this today because it was raining. This weather also justified a cab ride to our lunch spot.
Teuchi Toru Soba is a delightful shop that has been there for 26 years. Our host makes everything by hand, including the soba noodles made from Hokkaido buckwheat ground on the spot.
The dishes are simple and nourishing. The flavor of the buckwheat really comes through. It’s not flashy, but grounded.
Amanda’s dish had a cooked egg white with the yolk added back on raw. Mine was more simple, including grated daikon radish, katsuobushi (bonito flakes), and green onions. A little plate of wasabi on the side awaited deployment. A broth was poured over the cool noodles.
This man has been practicing his craft for decades and has the technique perfected. He is open Thursday through Sunday 11:30 am to 2:30 pm. He is also a photographer and can be found on Instagram here:
https://www.instagram.com/toru_kamioka?psln=MTJvbjlkOHB3b2M1ZQ==
The soba shop is here:
https://www.instagram.com/toru_soba?cplk=aTA4ejlxamx1NXNi
What a contrast to the TeamLab experience!
I find myself, of course, romanticizing this man’s simple existence, but he politely answered our questions and we did not get more details, just picking up the cues from this intentional visible space he had set up.
Relaxing classical music played from an old hi-fi set up. An old rotary phone sits at the side of the bar. Large bottles of sake and other spirits ready to be served. Dishes washed and stacked. Buckwheat grinder cleaned and set aside. Everything was in its place and he performed his tasks with such practiced mastery, I felt an admiration and perhaps envy.
I have gained a mastery of much of my work over these last four years, but so much of it is administrative and professional. Doing the thing, making the object, focusing in on the task. These are difficult to find in my current work. It often feels like I am always learning something new as technology changes, so I don’t get to do one thing well over and again.
When I see this master of his vocation I long for the days of baking a perfect batch of bagels, seeing the stacks of baskets full of the end product awaiting the neighbors coming in as the sun is rising. The economics of that work did not match with my life of marriage parenting. Instead my task is to find this feeling of mastery in the work that is before me, whether setting up time off policies for staff, negotiating insurance terms, or cleaning up a mess from a broken water heater.
But I need to make the time for the art as well. Our soba master balances his work with his art making. He explores the human experience through the medium of photography. These last five years have been necessarily focused on getting the bookshop running well, but it has had a cost to my investigation into the human condition through art. I look forward to that balance upon my return home.
Part of my work in the last year has been the expansion of my shop into a second location across the street that focuses in large part on manga, the Japanese form of what we in the States would call comic books. So when in Kyoto, I necessarily stopped by the International Manga Museum.
What a delightful space! The main feature of the museum is a readable collection of manga from the wide sweep of history of the art form. Young people gathered at the end of the shelves where the most modern books sit, available to read.
Another collection in the museum displayed manga and comics from around the world sorted by the languages.
The current display walked me through the history of manga and I would have liked to spend more time with it, but my mind was still blown by TeamLab and I was rather tired.
This is at the cafe next door where visiting manga artists drew on the wall over the years.
We also made a stop nearby at Ikebono Headquarters to patronize their shop. We didn’t have time to go through the Ikebana Museum on the premises, but I’m sure it would be fascinating as this is a major center of ikebana. The Japanese art of flower arranging is one of the three classical arts of refinement along with kodo (incense appreciation) and chado (tea and the tea ceremony).
Many celebrated generals would practice ikebana as a way to calm the mind and help them make better decisions on the battlefield. It’s an important art. I’m sad we didn’t have the time (or energy) to tour the museum.
I think we stayed out too long today, but we did see a lot on a rainy day. The sun is back tomorrow for our journey down to Nara on the way to our last spot in Japan — Osaka!
