Japan - Theatre, respect, permanence and contradictions

By Alexander Devereux www.alexanderdevereux.com

As a young artist who makes large installations, sculptures and paintings
revolving around industrial architecture and the railways, I decided to travel to
Japan to explore its attitude and approach to large historical artefacts and to
research cultural difference as evidenced through a similar shared national
industrial heritage.
The intriguing building methods of the industrial age inspired me to make
large-scale architectural installations, sculptures and paintings. Using the
forms of bridges, railways and stations, my work mimics an industrial style
and aesthetic. My sculptures, whilst appearing to be functional architectural
features made from cast iron, are in fact made from lightweight wood, thus
questioning the idea that form follows function, and transforming them into
sculptural objects. The theatricality of these architectural pieces pays homage
to the once labour-intensive methods of making these structures, whilst still
preserving their visually impressive grandeur and ornate, over-engineered
qualities.
Each Victorian bridge, train station, tunnel, and other major pieces of
infrastructure, had an intended purpose that would usually result in a utilitarian
design, however this did not overshadow the need for it to be aesthetic
pleasing, this sustained grandeur that can be seen across the 19th century
era of construction has ultimately has secured longevity due to the attention
and respect it demands. My sculptures have the potential to be components
taken directly from a 19th century structures. I trade these traditional methods
of making with the use of modern, lightweight and more practical materials,
while still adhering to the familiar qualities of being over-the-top and overengineered. It is my plan to deceive the observer into believing that they are
seeing the real thing, which is in complete contrast to the intentions of the
original engineers, as my works have no utilitarian use at all.
Japanese culture has always fascinated me. My aim was to assess at first
hand the efficiency of Japan Railways (JR) as a means of gaining a real
sense of what the Japanese culture is like. The method of research was the
direct experience the railways themselves.
Along with the sights, sounds and smells able to be experienced this way,
travel by railways always give a unique perspective on a place, as you can
usually see into everyone's back gardens and can often gain a real sense of
who they really are both literally and metaphorically.
As an outsider, to me, Japanese culture seemed to work consistently in
perfect harmony, and coming from London this is a completely foreign
concept as dysfunctionality and dirt seem to evident everywhere. I believe this
is what makes London what it is. London development has always made a
mess, this is partly due to the city being at the centre of the industrial
revolution, and still today it portrays similar characteristics. Soot has been
replaced by plastic, smog is now invisible and rush hour can be likened to

chaos. Despite Japan having many similarities to the UK and in many cases
more extreme, its cities like Tokyo seem to function without making such a
mess of the urban environment. The streets are spotless, and from what I saw
there are no bins across the entire country. Shinjuku Station may be the
busiest in the world but at rush hour it simply works and when visiting the
toilet, you never have to touch a thing, sometimes even the seat rises when
you walk towards it. I hope in the next few paragraphs to highlight some of the
similarities and differences between my art work and what I experienced in
Japan, as well as ways that I could see my practice changing as a result of
my visit.
One of my inspirations is the physical lasting effect of Victorian engineering
and its extreme durability; evidence of it can be seen across the world where
bridges and relics of a revolutionary labour-intensive age were once
commonplace. The western world has moved away from this way of working;
however, it is almost as though Japan has retained this attitude to working
collectively towards a common goal and in so doing has kept the unique
etiquettes that inevitably go with it. Work and social life exist as one, and the
respect for places, skills and wisdom is stronger. In a country where it is hard
to see things that predate 1945 due to the bombing by the USA in the latter
stages of WW2 or the many subsequent earthquakes, the Japanese have
continued to build and revolutionise technology with this collective approach.
Everything works as it was intended; the high speed Shinkansen the
Japanese pioneered in the 1960s isnt just one train every half an hour, its
one train every 2 minutes. The trains arrive punctually to the second, and are
efficiently cleaned while the passengers stand in designated areas queuing to
board in the particular place their ticket designates on the often fifteencarriage monster locomotives. With my JR pass I didnt even get my ticket
checked as the conductor knows who you are from all the reservations on his
machine. At the final stop, the passengers all get off and repeat the process to
go back they way they came. This is a situation where the theatre of everyday
life in Japan is portrayed through a mundane task such as boarding a train,
but it has been developed though years of improvement to make the process
better, the common goal is as simple as going somewhere but everyone plays
a part in making that happen efficiently as possible. This is how things work
best and therefore they do it like that.
My experience of travelling across the country involved staying in the railway
hotels, often in the station itself. From here we explored the location and
reason for visiting and then we boarded another train to take us to our next
destination, with considerable ease. This theatre of travelling had rules and
processes like the most rehearsed theatre production and once I had my head
around it, it leads to an appreciation of the transience of travelling. The
moments are fleeting and particularly special. These epiphanies happen when
I realised why everyone is queuing orderly on a platform, or, when walking the
length of a Ueno Station Shinkansen platform and noticing it is where
Nintendos revolutionary fighting game Tekken is set, and the huge platform
actually is an endless procession of pillars framing each screen as you scroll
left to right. I can only liken Japan to all the planets in Star Wars put together
into this small island in the Pacific. It is like that familiar but foreign alien

planet you might visit on the other side of the universe, it is really densely
populated, everything has a bespoke synthesiser generated tune behind it,
and everybody has a tiny box car called a Kei car. I saw weird and wonderful
things everywhere.
I have heard many people say, Japanese culture restricts their creativity. The
etiquette of daily life dictates aspects of their culture and therefore their
creativity. The question is not how do we create something unique and
original? instead it is how can we improve on an existing idea? How can we
do it better or even be the best? and I would ague that this is different. Yes improving what is already there is very obviously what they do, unlike here
they are not bothered by being seen to copy - and why strive for something
original when nothing truly is or can be? - improve instead on what was there
before. Reassuringly, I could say that no artist makes truly original work in
my opinion it is always a culmination of other peoples ideas and experiences.
Japan seems to thrive on this.

When I visited the Toyota factory, in Toyota city that is built, developed and
named so because of the its founder, Toyoda, not the other way round, I saw
several examples of how the car had taken ideas and improved it behind
recognition. The factory motto and philosophy is good thinking, good
products. This idea, to improve the reliability and efficiency of the company,
was born in the 1930s, when Toyota was designing the automated cotton
loom that revolutionised the industry, meaning less wastage, no children were
required to fix them and one person could work an entire factory floor. This
philosophy of improvement I saw in every aspect of Toyota factory I visited,
from where you put your drill down to how far away the canteen is, had all
been thought of. Ultimately this has resulted in the company becoming the
biggest car manufacturer in the world and pre-2008 one Toyota had rolled off
the production line across the world every four seconds. They have taken
Fords pioneering production line concept used with the model T and made it
better beyond what anyone thought possible.
This is reflected everywhere in the art I have seen which is amazingly precise
and perfectly executed. However, the artists I came across don't know what
dirt looks like! I'm not sure if I can make a piece of work without getting dirty,
in fact the dirtier I am usually the more successful my artwork! Situated in the
hills of Kyoto is Kyoto City University of Arts. It has courses in traditional
sculpture (wood, stone and casting are the preferred methods), but here, MDF
would be an almost unheard of as a raw material. You can do three-year BA
in Urushi lacquering, a 35 step traditional method of layering wood that results
in the distinct black finish often seen in Japanese crafts and architecture,
following that you can go on to do an MA and even a PhD. These traditions
are kept alive and kicking and are always striving to better themselves. This is
the first art school I have visited that kept chickens - apparently used for life
painting as they are a traditional subject in Japanese painting, like waves I
assume.

Despite these long-lasting traditions, Japan is a massive fad culture. They

consume technology at a rate equivalent to buying a new TV every week.
(???!!!) Even the way they present the weather has its own fad culture. The
broadcast weather report in the UK has always been given more than it
deserves it wants to be a show in its own right when all we want to know is
what the weather will be like. In Japan each channels weather has its own
gaudy mascot that will hold a cardboard cut-out symbol of a cloud or a sun. It
is really tacky and the huge mascots are completely serial interpretations of
animals that would only be seen on childrens TV in the UK. However, in
Japan this is a FAD and will go completely out of fashion when the next big
thing comes along. These will not become a tradition and continue for ever.
Society as a whole will move on. Here today and gone tomorrow.
There is no need to buy a TV or any new technology. Just walk along the
street when the next new one is released and pick up the discarded out-ofdate model, or so I've been told. In this culture that is modelled heavily on
traditions, consumerism rules un-questioned in many aspects. Is this the
ultimate irony of Japan?
Contradictions are everywhere and are almost perfectly composed so that
they are not obvious to an untrained eye.
My own sculptures and installations appear to be permanent relics from a
previous era, where the commonplace construction methods of that time are
evident in its appearance. However, I contradict this visual association firsttime viewers have when observing in my work by informing them later that it is
in fact made from a contemporary wood-based product, namely MDF. My
work is not what you think it is. Similarly, at the Suntory whiskey distillery in
central Japan I found out (after a few drinks) that the whiskey wasn't exactly
100% Japanese. I discovered that Japanese respect for whiskey was very
well-informed, that while the whiskey made at the Yamazaki distillery used the
water from underneath the mountain it was situated on. However, the other
two ingredients, barley and peat, both come from the UK and Scotland in
particular. Even several of the copper stills are made by Scottish craftsmen!
Suntory understand that you cant make good whiskey without the right
ingredients and Scotland is the best place to source them. So is it really
Japanese whiskey or Scottish whiskey made somewhere else? Regardless of
these contradictions it doesnt really matter as it still tasted amazing.
My experience of Japan Railways (JR) as a vehicle for research (a vehicle in
every sense of the word) to appreciate the industrial heritage of the country,
and the everyday world as seen from the carriage while travelling, leads me to
conclude that
while I relish the fact that I will never fully understand Japan - indeed, I'm not
sure if even the Japanese will -. I am inspired that there is theatre and
process in everything and the fact that nothing is too much work or trouble to
do properly and complete. There is respect for objects despite of and
because of - their transient nature and that Japanese culture reveres the
impermanent and embraces the constantly changing. As I continue to enjoy
the combination of the huge contradictions of tradition and innovation I have
observed, with this I will do, what I think artists do in all forms of media, and

try to bring together opposites of appearance and reality, of expectation and

actuality, as was once said to me, to reconcile the irreconcilable, towards an
original statement.