Logical Emotion Exhibition

Photo borrowed from Japan Today's Picture of the Day, 5/23/15. Caption reads: Visitors walk through the installation “Love is Calling” (2013) by Yayoi Kusama at the exhibition “Logical Emotion: Contemporary Art from Japan” in the Art Museum Moritzburg in Halle (Saale), central Germany, Friday. The exhibition, which presents the works of 13 Japanese artists, runs through July 26.

Source: http://www.japantoday.com/category/picture-of-the-day/view/art-attack-4

Exhibition description (from Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow):

The leitmotif of the exhibition can be encapsulated in two concepts – often treated as each other’s antithesis – ‘logic’ and ‘emotion’. The organisers of the exhibition hold that the tension between these concepts is the pivot of contemporary Japanese art. The exhibition aims to discover the essence of the ‘Japanese identity’, presenting it in different contexts and attempting to define distinguishing features of its aesthetics.

At the exhibition we present the works of 13 Japanese artists including an architect and a graphic designer, produced in media such as photography, painting, drawing, manga, sculpture, installation, object, video, ceramic and poster.



Logical Emotion Official Website: http://www.stiftung-moritzburg.de/

I hope my friends in Germany will have a chance to check this out.

14th Nippon Connection Film Festival May 27 – June 1, 2014, Frankfurt am Main

Photo borrowed from Nippon Connection.

On Tuesday, May 27, the 14th Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection will start. For six days, Nippon Connection brings together cinephiles and fans of Japanese culture from all over Germany and Europe in Frankfurt am Main. This year, the film festival will take place for the second time at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and Naxoshalle. Touching dramas, entertaining comedies or unique documentaries: the biggest festival for Japanese film worldwide presents a multi-faceted film program with more than 100 brand new short and feature films. More than 70 filmmakers and artists from Japan will present their works in person. A rich accompanying cultural program with 52 events invites young and old to experience and enjoy Japan.

More more information: http://www.nipponconnection.com/nc-2014-english.html

Announcement: 13th Nippon Connection Film Festival

Image borrowed from Nippon Connection Film Festival.

13th Nippon Connection Film Festival – The Program
More than 130 films & 41 cultural events
4 – 9 June 2013, Frankfurt am Main
New festival locations: Mousonturm and Naxoshalle

The program for the 13th edition of the Japanese Film Festival Nippon Connection is complete! Over the course of six festival days, the audience will have the chance to discover more than 130 short and feature films from Japan, with many German, European, and world premieres, from 4 – 9 June 2013. The genres range from subtle dramas and wild comedies to anime and critical documentaries. Many filmmakers and artists from Japan will be present at the biggest festival for Japanese cinema worldwide. An extraordinary cultural program will top off the festival, offering a rich experience of this outstanding country. For the first time, the Nippon Connection Festival will not take place on the University campus, but at Künstlerhaus Mousonturm and at Naxoshalle in Frankfurt. Other locations will include the German Film Museum and the Mal Seh‘n cinema.

For more information: http://www.nipponconnection.com/

Perspectives of Frankfurt and Goethe

My summer of teaching at Goethe University and living in Frankfurt, Germany was valuable on so many levels. I enjoyed working with the Goethe students and experiencing a language and culture I had virtually no previous knowledge of. I must admit that I have become too comfortable (at times) living in Japan. My summer in Germany shook things up for me, and made me understand a little better what my international exchange students go through here in Japan. I hope the experience has made me a better teacher, anthropologist and photographer. Please excuse this highly reflexive post. But I feel I need to say something now that I have left Germany and am back teaching in Japan. I am not doing this for any sense of closure, because I don't want the experience to end. And in my mind it never will. And so this post, as I told my students at Goethe before I left, is not a sayonara (farewell) but rather a mata ne (see you again).

I went to a lot of places in and around Frankfurt and I took thousands of photos. One might think that seven weeks of this would make me somewhat familiar with Frankfurt. But two things make me question such an idea. Towards the end of my stay my friend Fabian took me on a tour of Frankfurt, beginning with a trip to the top of the Main Tower. Here I was able to see great views and gain a better understanding of the layout of the city. I was surprised at how close certain places were; taking the underground all of the time really distorted my sense of space and time. It seemed crazy that I had to take two different subway lines to get to the university when it was in fact so close to my flat. So I suppose this is a good lesson for anthropologists: get as high as you can to reach better understandings of your environment.

After seven weeks in Frankfurt I left for a three week visit to the United States. Then I returned to Frankfurt (to grade papers and calculate final grades). Upon my return to Frankfurt so many things seemed different. Posters and advertisements in the train stations had changed. Construction had been started or progressed in certain areas. The convenience store below my flat was remodeled. There were enough changes to make me wonder if I had actually lived there for seven weeks. And upon my return, still under the influence of jet lag, one of my students assertively quizzed me about where I had and had not been in Frankfurt. These things made me question the representations of Frankfurt I was making with my photos. Did I really know enough about Frankfurt to post photos on this blog? Did I really have an sort of ethnographic authority to post my photos? Were my Goethe students really justified to be paranoid about me "anthropologizing" them? I will continue to ponder these questions and welcome any thoughts/comments from those reading this post.

Click here to see photos of my friends and students from Frankfurt.

The Ethnology graduate students at Goethe have a tradition of pounding a nail into a special stump after they have finished their degree. Here Bastian looks at the stump in anticipation as he works to finish his Master's Thesis. Oh so many nails sticking out... but not to be hammered down.

Some of the Goethe Ethnology students are doing interesting things with photography. Check out their work below:

Link to Armin's Europott Frankfurt: http://frankfurt.europott.org/#awp::

Link to Armin's fotografie: http://www.arminritter.de/journal/

Link to Daniel's thorpe-d: http://www.thorpe-d.com/index.htm

Link to Annie's Photography: http://photo.net/photos/annie

When trying to come up with a conclusion for this post, the clip on my new Goethe University ball point pen broke off. So much for the stereotype of tough, rugged German products. Much of what I thought I knew about Germany and visual anthropology was challenged during the summer. And I am grateful. Frankfurt: I'll be back. Until then...

The German Deaf Museum

Even before I came to Germany I was hoping that I would be able to meet some German deaf people and have the opportunity to study German Sign Language. My students at Goethe, Bastian and Armin, found a web page for a "deaf museum" in Frankfurt and I was excited to check it out. As it turns out, the museum, which opened only last year, is the only deaf museum in Germany. And its founder and curator, Lothar Scharf, has done incredible research on deaf people in Germany during the Nazi era. Lothar has been very generous sharing his research with me and more. In the short time I have been in Germany he has become a very good friend.


I was able to spend some time at the deaf museum and the Frankfurt Deaf Center located above the museum, meet German deaf people and observe German Sign Language (DGS). I found German Sign Language to be similar to American Sign Language and completely different from Japanese Sign Language. Here is a brief description of German Sign Language:

German Sign Language or Deutsche Gebärdensprache is the sign language of the Deaf community in Germany. It is often abbreviated as DGS. It is unclear how many use German Sign Language as their main language; Gallaudet University estimated 50,000 in 1986. The language was not invented; it has evolved naturally though use in deaf communities over hundreds of years.

Germany has a strong oralist tradition and historically has seen a suppression of sign language. German Sign Language was first recognised legally in a disability act in May 2002. Since then, Deaf people have a legal entitlement to Sign Language interpreters when communicating with federal authorities, free of charge.

German Sign Language is unrelated to spoken German. The two have very different grammars, though as the dominant language of the region, German has had some influence on German Sign Language. A signed system that represents the German language has been developed, which is known as "Signed German" (Lautsprachbegleitende(r) Gebärden, Lautbegleitende Gebärden or LBG). It is rarely used as a natural means of communication between deaf people. Another system of manually representing German is known as "Phonembestimmes Manualsystem" (Phonemic Manual System). Similar systems that represent the English language are known as Manually Coded English.

Source: http://www.german-language-school.info/german/signlanguage.asp


Lothar has told me that in reality the number of deaf people is smaller, perhaps around 40,000. And he is pessimistic about the future of deaf people in Germany. For one thing, deaf people were sterilized during Nazi time so genetically deaf people in Germany were unable to have children. And cochlear implants are very popular (and are apparently free for deaf people to get). And I understand from Lothar that "Deaf Pride" as it exists in the United States and Japan is not so prevalent in Germany. Most deaf people want to communicate with and be a part of the hearing world. Realistically, that's where better jobs are. Here are a couple of more links about the deaf situation in Germany:

Link to article, "Deaf education in Germany"

Link to overview of deafness in Germany, "Deaf Community - Germany"


The German deaf situation seems so different from what I have encountered in Bali, the United States and Japan. I hope to have more opportunity for research in the future. And Lothar himself makes for a fascinating study. Lothar is hard of hearing and seems comfortable speaking German (and English), signing DSG (deaf sign language) and LBG (signed German). He quit high school and was into flower power and the communist party as a youth. Twelve years ago he began his "second life" as he puts it, beginning his research of deaf people during the Nazi time. He has an incredible collection of deaf related materials on display in the museum and in his own private collection. Lothar has found that deaf people were not merely discriminated (and sterilized) by the Nazis, many of the deaf supported Hitler (and of course many did not support him), the same as hearing people in Germany at the time. One older deaf individual I met in Frankfurt told me how he liked and now misses Hitler (despite being sterilized himself). And just today Lothar showed me copies of Deaf Hitler Youth newspapers with articles about Japan (and he has promised to translate them into English in the future). Lothar travels across Germany and Europe to give lectures about his research. He has also written two books full of valuable information and historic photographs. Check out his websites:

Link to Deaf Museum web page:
http://www.deafmuseum.de/museum.html

Link to Lothar Scharf's web page:
http://www.gehoerlose-drittes-reich.de/

The Deaf Center has a large multiple purpose room, other rooms used for various deaf groups, administrative offices including facilities for a deaf telephone relay program and apartments for deaf and hard of hearing people.


There is also a Deaf Pub at the center, where deaf people can gather, eat, drink and socialize. In this sense, the deaf club is a physical space owned by deaf people (like the situation in the United States described by Lane et al. [1996]) as opposed to most sign language circles in Japan that rent rooms from community centers and social welfare facilities. Lothar seemed surprised/disappointed that my own sign language circle/deaf club in Osaka did not have its own bar.









The last two photos above are from occasions when deaf people gathered at the center to view soccer World Cup matches. The deaf people were just as crazy about soccer, or football, as hearing people.

I was able to bring my students from Goethe to the deaf museum on a fieldtrip and they were all greatly impressed. The fieldtrip was reported in a national German newspaper, the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. While I was happy with the attention and to have my own photo published, the story itself was full of inaccuracies. It was unfortunate that the reporter didn't ask ask any questions and instead made assumptions.








The museum, despite its relatively small size, has many artifacts and exhibitions. I took many photos and am tempted to include them in this post, but in the end I want to encourage people to actually visit the museum and hear Lothar's lectures. The actual experience of being in the place is much richer than an internet encounter. Hopefully this post will give readers an idea of what the place is like and encourage visits. I am also hoping to bring Lothar to Japan so he can lecture about his research. Even though I am leaving Germany soon, I look forward to continued contact, experience and friendship with Lothar and others at the deaf center in Frankfurt. To them I wish to express my deepest gratitude for sharing so much with me and VAOJ.

"German angst alone cannot stop Google "(Street View)"

More about the controversies of Street View in Germany from today's The Local:

Google Street View is still harmless, says German consumer protection expert Falk Lüke, but that doesn’t mean the current discussion surrounding it is unnecessary. Instead, we should be focused on creating international rules for online privacy.

...

Amid all the classic German angst, good arguments against Street View have been mixed with downright silly ones. The pro-Google camp gleefully quotes its opponent's most absurd comments and stands by the under-fire web company. But that doesn’t change that Google really has done a lot wrong.

The company sent out cars to film the streets from a height of 2.9 metres. This is high – ask someone to sit on your shoulders and this is about the view they would have. Then ask them to tell you whether they can see over walls and hedges.

In many parts of Germany, such barriers are restricted to a height of two metres – often lower. Is there a clearer sign that you would prefer that people didn't see into your property than by building a wall as tall as allowed by the law? I don't believe there is.

Of course, Germany is not the only country that has a problem with Street View. The project was criticised in Switzerland and Greece, among other places, and in 2009 Google was forced to re-photography 20 Japanese towns from a lower angle.

Politicians want Google to obscure car licence plates and people. But what do they mean by obscuring people? So far, Google has only suggested obscuring faces. You don't have to be a criminologist to know that people can be recognised by many other features than their face. If you've seen how poorly Google has tried to make people unrecognisable in other countries you'll know that their standard is unacceptable.

Read the whole story:
http://www.thelocal.de/opinion/20100819-29273.html

Nuremberg: Documentation Centre Nazi Party Rally Grounds

Hiroshima. Nagasaki. The Killing Fields. Auschwitz. The list goes on and on. Places of terrible human death and suffering now turned into war memorials, peace museums and the like. All reminders of the horrors of war. These are not fun places to visit, but it is necessary that we visit such places so such awful things don't happen again. I really didn't realize it before my visit, but Nuremberg belongs to this list. My friend Lothar from the Deaf Museum in Frankfurt was kind enough to invite me and take me on a trip to the Documentation Centre Nazi Party Rally Grounds in Nuremberg. He has done much research about the Nazi era, especially pertaining to Deaf people. I had studied about WWII, Nazis and Hitler in school, but I had no idea the impact the Nuremberg Museum would have on me. I figured it was yet another important cultural place to visit in Germany and another opportunity to take some interesting photos. It was that, and much more. I had no idea about the monumental architecture Hitler was creating to justify and reinforce his power. Nuremberg was to be Hitler's Rome.




The museum exhibitions were in German, but audio guides were available in multiple languages (no sign language, but the visual images spoke for themselves). The museum explains Hitler's rise to power and the monumental architecture he was creating. It shows the incredible support from the people Hitler received and the prejudice against Jews and other undesirables the Nazis instilled into men, women and children. It also shows the violence against these people as well. It concludes with the Nuremberg Trials and executions of German war criminals.



Link to Documentation Centre Nazi Party Rally Grounds web page:
http://museums.nuremberg.de/documentation-centre/index.html

The museum is an excellent example of the power of the visual to do more than merely illustrate but explain and evoke. One can study about these things on the internet, but it is much more power and important to actually visit and experience these places. One of the most interesting exhibitions was about the propaganda film, Triumph of the Will, made by Leni Riefenstahl. The film documents the rise of Hitler and the Nazis in 1934. Despite the problematic nature of the film, it is incredible. The access to events and places that Riefenstahl had, along with spectacular filmmaking techniques, makes the film one of the most impressive documentary films in history. It is another stark reminder of the power of the visual that remains timeless.



Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftdQHnOBoI8



Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFuLV8mW0B4

German Cabinet to consider tougher Street View rules

Image borrowed from The Local.

Another VAOJ update, this one about Google Street View in Germany from The Local:

Coalition politicians are demanding Google be forced to gather residents’ consent to have their homes photographed for Street View rather than wait for them to object, as cabinet prepared Wednesday to discuss changes to the law.

...

Street View is an online service by US internet giant Google that allows users to peruse street-level, panoramic pictures of major cities – a kind of “virtual tour.” The pictures are taken by cameras mounted on cars that drive around the city.

While the service is available in many other countries, it has run into firm opposition in Germany over privacy concerns, forcing Google to offer an “opt-out” system, which was launched yesterday and lets home owners and renters demand that their building be blurred out.

...

Google plans to put Street View online for 20 major German cities by the end of the year.

Read the whole story:
http://www.thelocal.de/national/20100818-29219.html

See also "Aigner wants longer opt- out limit for Street View:"
http://www.thelocal.de/sci-tech/20100817-29203.html

Vintage Subway Manners Poster

The Seat Monopolizer (July 1976)

Inspired by Charlie Chaplin's "The Great Dictator," this poster encourages passengers not to take up more seat space than necessary.

Oh so sorry to borrow stuff from Pink Tentacle again, but it is oh so tempting as they have so many visually pleasing posts. This poster seemed appropriate for this summer's VAOJ.

Nuremberg II: The City

Link to Nuremberg City web page:
http://www.nuernberg.de/internet/portal_e/index.html

VAOJ's first published foto in Europe

Pdf copy of the page from yesterday's (7/20/10) printed edition of Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. My photo is about two thirds of the way down on the right. The story is about a fieldtrip to the German Deaf Museum in Frankfurt I took my students on. Yes, dear VAOJ readers, I have been holding out on you. Of course I have been looking into the deaf scene here in Germany. Please look forward to the future post on this subject. Coming soon...

UPDATE: I was a Visiting Professor during the summer of 2010 at Goethe University in Frankfurt. Just a coincidence (?) that the only Deaf Museum in Germany was close by. Click here for the post on the German Deaf Museum in Frankfurt.