These are Rory's notes below. They were attached to his powerpoint presentation at the Jan. brown bag.

All of the works in the exhibition—drawings and video animation installations—were inspired by the novel Akunin (Villain), by Japanese author Shuichi Yoshida.

 

Akunin is a chilling and seductive story of loneliness, desperation, and murder. The book’s young adult characters, entangled in a web of lies and deceit, grapple with questions of ethics and morality as they come to terms with living in an increasingly online, virtual world. Yet, neither the books complex, extroverted protagonists nor the assumed troubled villain Yuchi Shimizu, all of whom worked long hours, drove fast cars, casually dated online, and frequented shabby love hotels, was of any interest to Tabaimo.

 

Instead, she was drawn somewhat surprisingly, given her penchant for sensational television news stories and controversial subjects, to a minor character in Yoshida’s scintillating tale, the quiet and reserved Miho Kaneko, the novel’s resident ingenue.

A former bathhouse girl whom Yoshida describes as a “perfectly ordinary girl” Miho Kaneko met Yuichi while dreaming of a better life outside of the decrepit walls of the dreary and dim massage parlor. Her failed relationship with the suspected murderer and her lack of ambition exemplified Tabaimo’s interest in the perceived challenges and attitudes of her own so-called “lost” generation caught between Japan’s celebrated postwar “solidarity” generation (dankai no sedai) and the younger “enlightened” generation (satori sedai).

 

Born in the 1970s, members of the “lost” generation came of age as Japan rapidly evolved into a technologically advanced society, in part, due to the strong work ethic, selflessness, and group mentality of the “solidarity” generation. With one foot in the past and the other foot pointed toward the future, the “lost” generation struggles to negotiate the space between tradition and modernity, isolationism and globalism, real and virtual.

 

More About Influences

Horror manga

Influenced by horror manga artists Kazuo Umezu and Junji Ito, horror manga artists. A new collection of delightfully macabre tales from a master of horror manga. An old wooden mansion that turns on its inhabitants. A dissection class with a most unusual subject. A funeral where the dead are definitely not laid to rest. Ranging from the terrifying to the comedic, from the erotic to the loathsome, these stories showcase Junji Ito’s long-awaited return to the world of horror.

Ukiyo-e (wood block prints)

Making woodblock prints was a three-stage process: (1) painting a design with ink, (2) carving the design onto wooden blocks, and (3) applying colored ink to the blocks and pressing sheets of paper on them to print the design. There were specialists for each of these stages, and the entire process took a lot of work, but once the blocks were completed, it became much easier than before to make reproductions of the same design. The prints mass-produced in this way were circulated widely among the public, and ukiyo-e developed into a popular art form. Notice the similarity of coloration between classical Ukiyo-e and Tabaimo's work