CYBER SPACE — (and Z80 mini-computer)

It is 25 years  since  Dot Com was first created,  and 20 years since  WWW  was invented.

One of my old colleague,  Camera Critics,  Kazuo Taira  was one of the pioneer of the PC networking, using

acoustic telephone modem and he organized the Photographer’s Computer Network in Japan.

It’s shame Mr.Taira  is no longer with us.  Unfortunately  we in the creative field tend to lose the friends who

tend to be a heavy drinker.  ( Do you know,  the average life-span of Rock musicians are 38 something,

of cause it may not caused by the alcohol alone )

And since then, our lives are more and more entwined with the Computer and the Internet.

Nearly 20 years ago,  I made a small computer using Z80 CPU,

designed from the scratch.  ( Left  Photo)

( I would say, it’s a half sculpture, half computer )

Its operates on only 10 MHz clock speed and having 512 Kb memory,

which needs to be programmed by Machine Code.

—– In electronics, to design and to build is one thing and

to make it works is the another.

Eliminate all the glitches and instability etc etc are the hard part.

—– As the definition,  computer operates on the data in the

memory,  once the memory was corrupted,  it needs to re-program from the start.

( It was the time of  UV erasable  memory,  before easy to re-program  Flash-memory )

After this experience,  I became a computer skeptic ” Computer can make mistakes ” hence, even now

I don’t use Credit Card and I rather like to use hard-wired design,  not soft control.

In this reason, I honestly admire the person who can design and manufacture a  10 GHz device which works

in any environment  reliably.

——————–

In another side of the revolution,  the Internet is becoming almost a monster, and the Necessary Evil.

Since  I  started to use Email,  I wrote very few letters  which  needed to be a signed evidence.

—– The trouble of Net is their intrusive activities.  As everybody knows,  Google / Gmail is

watching our use of web and the contents of communications word by word. ( Cookies, hidden files etc)

When I heard about  Facebook,  I instantly felt their dubious nature  ” Why do they need to have so much

detailed personal information ? “—– obviously they are  the salable commodities.

Without having such profitable return,  what is the point to provide free service.

Personal info’ used to be sold to the marketing / direct mail company before.  Now the Internet provider,

social networking site are the Marketing/ Advertising/ Direct-mailing/ Delivery Service  All-in-one.

(When  I got an Email from one of our Old-boy telling, he has reached to the grand age, the Ads on right hand

column are all cheap Funeral service and the international flower delivery — Great, thank you very much :-D)

So that from the beginnings I didn’t use my real name to open Email account, and never sign up the

Website which asks Date of Birth.  ( Still, now Yahoo knows my DOB, obviously from the content of

the mail between me and my friend. )

With full name and the DOB, the one can hack-in and get the information of National Health, and

together with the Address,  it is possible to access the Banking information.

——————–

To live in peace, we have to be aware ” We are in the battle field ” which the Buddhists call  Samsara.

With technology and the Internet,  we opened the Pandora’s Box.   It’s a funny situation, as in the Informations

we are becoming almost naked,  in the same time our contact itself becoming even more indirect.

Just by  the chain of characters on the screen, a 30 years guy pretending as a 15 years old boy,  chatting

with a 40 years woman who pretending 13 years old girl. —– Yuck,  how  beautiful,   😀

——————

Zen  rely on the Direct Transmission,  still what I’ve been trying here, is the triple, quadruple indirect

communications.  In order to type, I converted my feeling to the lingual form, and express it in the

bloody English, which typed chain of ASCII code traveled through unknown node here and there and

end up —– how do I know where.

As I thought,  I never met Buddha himself,  or  I have any idea , how many times the Mantra was translated

or re-written,  and  2500 years apart, someone try to reach the same conclusion as Buddha,

( in the point of indirectness, this is the far-most remote situation )

still, if its works,  a talk to others through  Internet may works too.

Thats what I’m thinking.

[]

PRECONCEPTION

This is the another Wire Figure,  Damsel in Distress.

I don’t know the detail of her story though,  she is in deep trouble and in agony.

——————–

Beauty of wire sculpture is,  it is the 3D equivalent of line drawing,  with added surprise of changing

shape by the view from different angle.  So that the same piece could give different impression to

person to person,  and the impression which people received from such piece could be very deceptive,

since the people can adjust the view according to their preconception, and reconstruct the

image in the brain. ———-( All the 3D images  were the Re-Construction in the brain, anyway )

The figure here is very narrative, so you might be well convinced,  this is a lady in deep grief,

thrown her body on the ground and scratching the mud ——— is she ? ? ?

———- A matter of fact,  you saw the photo in wrong angle.    Look the photo again in vertical angle.

The truth is,  she is a Kung-Fu Killer.  She is the Emperor’s special body-guard,  and it is the moment,

she is launching a lethal flying kick.——–m m m ? ! ! !   ( Now your brain is re-configuring the visual

signal and re-construct the image of the fighter jumped in mid-air —— She looks fearsome isn’t she ! ! !)

( Imagining her setting in horizontal or vertical, will create completely different impression of dynamism)

( Movement / feeling of dynamism was induced by the anticipation—– if you believe it’s move, it’s looks move)

——————–

Seeing is believing.   Yet our eyes are not necessary seeing the truth.  They could be easily fooled by

a suggestion,  planted preconception and its bias.

Buddhism calls this preconception as  Delusion by which people see the same object in

utterly wrong context.  Negative view often create monster and create vicious circle.

—– See the things in detached eyes is better than to have a wishful thinking. 

So, what’s the truth ? —– Oh, it’s a  twisted wire Sir.   😀

[]

NUDE 4×4+1

As a mean of communication, the Art has very peculiar property.       Since when I was doing photography, this

peculiarity is one of my conundrum. Some photos are the Art, but most of them are just a flat copy of the object.

But, strangely, anybody can distinguish a good photo in

one glance.      And anybody can also distinguish good art

as The Art at one glance.——– (so, conceptual art is not art,

but it is only an intellectual concept, as the name indicates)

With my artist friends, photographer friends discussed together

in many occasions, still we never found a good explanation

in the words,  why and how do we know, is it the Art or not.

Because ART is a communication between  Subconscious

to Subconscious / one’s inspiration to the other’s feeling

without involving the conversion to the linguistic Notion.

(Its mean, the ART strikes the EMOTION straight, not the intelligence)

So that even if we found the typical sample, it is impossible to

describe it in the words, instead, just point the very sample and say  ” You see this is it “.

——————–

Something similar phenomenon is in the artistic expression such as in the abstract figure.

This is the matter of cognitive ability. —— How simple and even simpler, we still able to recognize as it is.

———- The photo above is, some said,  the most simplest and cheapest nude sculpture in the history.

It is just a twisted wire though, even 5 years old kids instantly recognized it ” Ah, it’s a  woman “.

This Wire Nude was made by just twisting a wire 4 times clockwise for right-hand side, and 4 times

anti-clockwise for left-hand side, plus one for the head.  ( Hence the title 4×4+1 )

I experimented many design and simplified further and further.  This seems the minimalist’s limit.

(Sitting woman putting both hands to her head—— in case, if you couldn’t make sense from flat photo)

It is impossible to describe exact shape in the words,  still it convey the message, ” This is the Woman”

and people can see and feel straight, this is the woman. ——— and makes them smile  🙂

——————–

Our brain, Deep Layer / Subconscious System has remarkable ability to capture the meaning beyond

the ordinary intellectual logics. ———-( I’m still puzzling, is it Pattern Recognition or something else ? )

And this is the way, how direct transmission of  Zen  works.  ” You see, this is it”

J. S. Bach — Helmut Walcha

One morning,  when I was drifting, I heard a pipe organ music of  J.S. Bach, in the back of a TV drama.

Then,  I decided to go west to listen the sound of original instrument in the original acoustic environment.

Before, I was an enthusiast of  Baroque music, especially Bach’s organ Music.  So, I made a long list of the church and the name of the town where the recording was made for the German Gramophone Archive Record.

Then I took a ship to Siberia, Russia.  When the ship left Yokohama Port, I saw off  Japan  with my eyes getting fuzzier as it may be the last time to see her ever again.

——————–

After long journey through frozen land scape of Russia, I reached to  Helsinki, Finland.  The Helsinki Cathedral was my starting point of 100 of the church organ pilgrimage, covering many famous Alp Schnitger, Silbermann organs etc.    (The beauty of this plan was, if we go to the Church on  Sunday, there is the organ music played on, could be 300 years old original instrument, in the unique acoustic of the church. Free of charge.—- On top of this, many organ concerts, festivals held there)

——————–

Then I came across a charity concert of  Bach’s organ music to help restoration of old organ in Frankfurt.  The Organist was the most famous organist Prof; Helmut Walcha,  whose recording captured me into Bach’s organ music. (Prof; Walcha is a blind man, thus he played hundreds of organ music just from his memory)

Before concert start I was talking with a man sat next of me, about the different sound of each organ all over the Europe, since it was nearly the end of my journey,  I had covered most of the famous organs already.

The man was rather surprised of my journey, and he took me up  to organ booth and introduced me to the organist, Prof; Walcha  himself. ——- the man was the Manager of  Prof; Walcha.  ( Can you believe such a lucky coincidence.  ! )

Prof; Walcha talked about a tour of Japan and his friend, Musicologist Keisei Sakka.   And I had happened to attend a special  lecture by Prof; Sakka about the evolution of  Music Tonal System as a part of my Sociological study.  ( Tonal System evolved under the Christian monastic life and their Protestant Ethos of the devotion of the own life to perfect it — unlike a superficial glorification in the Catholic church, where how much gold was used to decorate the organ was the matter, but in the Protestant church, how three sounds of Trinity harmonize perfect was the matter. ) —– (I wrote about how Natural Tonal System was created.)

———-It was the incredibly lucky coincidence to fulfill my pilgrimage.

And it made one of the best moment of my whole life. What I could ask more.

——————–

Some ignorant criticize Bach’s music, saying that they are too abstract, even mechanical.   In fact it was the self confession of how he is ignorant and having no ear to appreciate the music.  Under the most strict rules of such as the Fugue, still able to create such soul-shaking striking music is the work of nothing but the genius. ——– Achieve  total freedom under the strict rules, is the Zen.

Unlike Romantic School’s sticky emotional melody,  Polyphonic Baroque Music, especially Bach’s music can eliminate the thought.  (Rather constant rhythm / no syncopation, and three-part polyphonic keeps waving complex tonal pictures,  which  refuses our own imagination —– makes us just listen the sound, not a story or any notion—– yet it gave us very comfortable relaxed feeling)

It’s suite to the Zenist.

.

Harmony in Dharma / Origin of TONAL SYSTEM

When I was small, long before the school, I made the most Fundamental discovery,

“ Fundamental Element of the matter is the ASH “- – – – that’s what I thought.   Though, nobody was

impressed, despite this is the unquestionable FACT.    Look,  To burn anything, Wood, Grass, Coal, Charcoal,

Fish bone, Paper, Cotton, Woolly things —— what ever they are, all burn to the ASH.

And even burn  ASH  further,  still it  remains as the ASH. —— This is the Truth, isn’t it ?

But I only got the words ” Silly boy ”  without any explanation.

(World is twisted,  they are blind and rotten ! ! !   😦  )

——————–

Another question which captured me ——in fact many years, was “Why all the music were composed

in the same Do, Re, Mi, Fa  scale, and can be played on the same simple instrument ? ? ?”

On that time, one of my pass time was to listen the radio VOA ( Voice of America Far-East Netwok/

American propaganda, aiming to the communist Russia and China ) and listening latest American

Hit-Chart.  And I was writing down the short passage of each tune to music score.

( Regardless,  whether the tune is A or C—– the matter is just relative scale of the note )

( And this interest led me start to listen many ethnic, such as Indian Music — It was the time of Ravi Shankar)

——————–

German Sociologist  Max Weber wrote a book about the evolution of the music scale,

from  Natural Tonal Scale to Equi-distant Tonal Scale ——– etc, kept my question alive and so on.

Many years later, when I needed to design electronic tone generator,  and while watching the frequency

table of music tones, such as  A=440 Hz,  E=660 Hz  etc—— I realized, all the tones in the music scale

are having 1:1.5 ratio, which can create Pentatonic easily. ( This is why Pentatonic is so common in

any folk cultures in the world )

1 :1.5 ratio mean, if you shorten the length of the String  ( if it was C / Do ) to 2/3rd,

the tone become 1.5 times higher to the 5th (E / So) and so on.

(Press a string and play, if the shorter side sound octave higher than the other side, it’s the 2/3rd point)

In short, Do (524 Hz)—> So (786 Hz)—> Re (1179/ Octave high of  589 Hz)—> Ra (880/ 440 Hz)

—> Mi (660 Hz) ( Save, few Hz deviation,  which wouldn’t  make audible differences)

Here all the Pentatonic Notes of  Do, Re, Mi, So, Ra  were created. ! ! !

——–Much more interesting Phenomena is, those tones are not human invention.

They are naturally existing.

All the materials vibrates.  (If you hit, they makes a sound, except shock absorbing soft material)

They vibrate not only in its fundamental frequency, but also all the harmonic frequencies of x2, x3, x4, x5 etc.

(Though even number of the harmonics are in the Octave, and its sound is indistinguishable.)

So that, those odd numbered harmonics are   524 Hz (C / Do) x3 /2 = 784 (G / So),     x 5 / 4 = 654 (E / Mi),

x7 / 8 = 457 (A / Ra),    x9 / 8 = 588 (D / Re) —-> Do, Re, Mi, So, Ra —– Pentatonic in the Nature. ! ! !

This is the reason why the  Dominant Harmony is [ Do, Mi, So ],  as they are naturally there, and

sounding in perfect Harmony.

——————–

The Nature having such amazing structure,  Isn’t this the beauty of the Dharma and the Rules within ?

——–When I realized this, I thought ” Eureka ” then noticed, this is what Pythagoras found 3000 years ago.

My brain was 3000 years slow.

—

Most Bizarre Story in Zen — Disco Dancing in ZEN

” Dancing can be a practice for Zen “

This must be the most ( yet I got many ) bizarre story.  You believe or not I was a Disco King.

(This must be the most rare photo of me dancing — taken far later date / Sept 2015 

and it shows Rotating LED and LED flushing pants !)

As I used to take photo of many musicians, one occasion at a rehearsal session, a drummer

complained me, even though they work hard to make their tune unique and new, when it was

played at a gig, everybody dance exactly same to the other.

So, I promised him,  ” I’ll dance as the exact reflection of your tune and show it to you.”

(Here I’m not talking about a kind of common body-shaking in one-two-one-two, regardless

whether the music is 8 beat or 16 beat.  Its got to be much more athletic, expressive movements )

——————–

First I get rid of all the patterned crèche such as typical John Travolta’s or Micheal Jackson style kind.

and resorted to the natural dynamics of the body.  Since its heavy inertia, we can’t shake the bottom in

16 beats (still I met 3 person who can do) so the rhythm of the percussions should be assigned to the steps,

bass drum to the bottom and the melody to the hands.

On the end 3 parts of the body started to move independently in different speed in the same time   🙂

And as the use of natural dynamics of the body,  with its maximum speed, lots of people miss took

my dancing as a kind of Martial Art, and asked me which school is it ?

Funnily enough, one person even asked me, Is it related to a religious practice ?

( This is the back ground of previous post ” Shaolin Martial Art “)

——In my knowledge the Indian Barathnatyam Dance which follows some tradition of the ancient

Dancing Yoga,  exactly synchronizing with the music (in its Tara / drumming pattern and the melody)

So,  I applied this to my dancing.  (My favourite is the German Bass. It is the limit the body can follow)

——————–

Even dancing every weekend,  it took 3 years to achieve this movement.

And during this period,  I noticed, this is the process to learn unconscious body coordination,

same as to learn skiing or riding a bicycle,  and this must be the matter what the Zen said about

the ” Ichijo ” as a sword become a part of the body ( or the sword and the body become one )

and then the Dharma would be prevailed.  (How exiting ! ! ! )

When your body follows the incoming music signal automatically, we don’t need to think what

is the music or how to move.    So, I thought, if I can leave the business to the unconsciousness,

I would be connected to the Dharma. ——– though there was not such simple paradise and

nothing changed in my life. ——– Then, Waite a moment,  I realized,  all the baby has

to learn to walk, and all of them become able to walk unconsciously. 

It is nothing special.

———————–

Still, at least, I got an insight = unconscious or subconsciousness has the Key to decipher the Zen.

——– (And since then many clubs’ owner, manager offered me free entry for my strange dancing.

It was unexpected bonus——but they too, need a prominent dancer who become a talking piece )

(Some of the readers might have seen me dancing in a club called Flex in Hitchin,

Enigma in Maswell Hill, Limelight in Shaftesbury Avenue, Fridge in Brixton

(Escape from Samsara) = in every weekend, continuously up to 5.5 years (for

Fridge) often having with flashing light pendant or trousers.  🙂 ) 

So, I had my 60th Birthday Party at a D & B club (organizer called Movement with DJ Fabio etc) and

invited teens to septuagenarian who never seen my “legendary” dancing.  Ha Ha Ha,

It was a good  laugh.  😀

[]

—

Season’s Greeting / BUDDHA Figure

Buddha-2009

with the  Buddha 2009‘s  image and the Wheel of Life.

Christmas is, for me it is much of a havoc as all the shops

close and the transports stops etc, than  to celebrate.

Though, to a lots of my friends, it is the occasion to have a

good time and get drunk, which I don’t do. ———-

no drug, no alcohol, no gamble, no woman ( how nice  😀  )

still eat anything but not processed food or fizzy drinks.

——- so, I’m making a sheer joke, I’m a holy man    Ha Ha Ha   😀

———————

To see the details of the figure, please click on the photo to enlarge.

Don’t miss the internal reflection, the image of  Wheel of the Life

in his glass  head  ( In the Selfless state, the fundamental rule of Dharma would  revealed  itself).

(This reflection is an optical false image, it will change with a direction to see. It is there as not there )

——– This glass head was made by a technician  who has made the glass housing of

the Hubble Space Telescope’s Image sensor which brought us unprecedented clearest images

of the Universe.  ( To meet this technician happened by the series of sheer coincidences, which I would

call, Karmic encounter. ——- Buddha’s figure may wanted to have his head connected to the Universe )

——————–

Why he was depicted in such a poor looking figure ?   you might say.

Buddha himself chosen to be a Bikku (beggar), and from where, the teaching of the Buddhism

was started.  If he had stayed as the richly ornated Royal Prince, the great teachings of the Buddhism

couldn’t have born.  We have to follow this origin, without additives or glorious decoration.

Without  weapon he was the strongest teacher.  Without any ornament he was the most precious figure.

So, I made him by using recycled materials except the head (and a Hi-power LED inside) though,

some may say, I wasn’t rich enough to buy gold leaf to gritter.  ( So, your donation of a piece

of cloth to wrap his body would be much appreciated   🙂 )

——————–

It is difficult to see from the photo though, a  skull head was held on his hand.

One eye of the skull reflects the twisted, distorted image, and the another shows straight image,

its meant, that is what we have to see the world.

( The rest of the concepts were explained in the post  ” Odd news “)

***

* * *  Hope all of you have a soul fulfilling  and peaceful  New Year  2010  * * *

———- As the Sun is coming back, its would be brighter any way  😀

***

My Starting point (2)

” What made me to go into the Buddhism “

( Sorry, the order of writing is not necessary follows  what you may expect, I just write about

the subject when / suddenly / its shape comes up ——To structuring  and make it solid is

the more logical,  intellectual process than the intuition of the Zen ——–Zen follows flash )

——————–

Strangely you might think, I spent 3 years of my High school time to read a book of

French Poet, Jean Arthur Rimbaud. (along side of mountain climbing, skiing and photos of  flowers)

Since, his symbolism poetry needed to be read 100 times to understand what he meant

but, his poems carries the deadly virus of self-destruction too.   Rimbaud was doing his

” Alchemy of Life ” (which is the analysis of his life’s journey and who he is ) which was depicted

in his poem “A season in hell” or ” Drunken Boat ” it led to the inevitable wreck,  which he

actuary got and end up in Abyssinia.

—– (After 3 years, I became a copy of him, seeing in his way and thinking like him )  I completely lost

the certainty of who I am. ( Later I found, anybody who was infected by this virus experienced the same )

—– From this experience, now I confidently say  “Anyone who read the same Mantra 1000 

times, it would be embedded into your subconscious and become the base of who you are”

—– so, be careful which one to read 😀

—————————-

What makes the reading of Rimbaud Poems somewhat common with Buddhists Pathway

was, that his approach to be a Boyant ( Seer / Watcher) in  Alchemy of Life  was,   

to examine the own mind again and again, deeper and deeper, exposing everything

like as a dissected dead body = effectively made his own mind (and the life) a completely

detached dried object.  Detachment while having cut-off the Emotion will lose the tag 

of the SELF,  hence creating a state of mind similar to the Buddhists’ Selflessness.

(This process is very similar to the Hinayana Buddhists practice  = Process of  Self-denial )

And as Rimbaud’s subject, include his own life became a detached object without the 

emotional attachment, it was described as a metaphorical object or the Symbol =

thence his poetry was called Symbolism.  (This detachment was the self-alienation too, so that

Rimbaud called the state of mind before, as a slumber of the animal —– he missed it

with tears but it was too late)

—————————

It was in the late 60th.  In order to re-construct myself, I resorted to Jean-Paul Sartre’s  Existentialism

and later, then popular  Structuralism  ( I liked this more than  Carl Jung as the theory extended to the

society )

The Sartre’s idea of  “The self defined by the self”, shifted to  “The self defined by other’s eyes”,   then to

“The self defined by the History”  was smoothly evolved to the  “self in the structure” in my eyes.

But in hindsight, I was more influenced by the Max Weber’s idea of Ethos. (as I was studying

Sociology for my degree )

Weber’s theory was, such as the Ethos of the self devoting Protestantism created the self-enterprise

of the own business and hard-working attitude, which led to the development of the Capitalism.

Yet, my eyes was a bit more afar, not just each profession or race, there must be more universal,

fundamental Ethos of Human being.—— My eyes turned to the Buddhism.

——- So that my starting point was more intellectual than the spiritual, and not because of my

farther’s influence. (though, the Ethos and the way of thinking of the Buddhism was THE environment)

——– ( Yet still, to cast the eyes to such direction instead of Technology or Art in my case,  it must be

driven by the deep spirituality,  which I can say only now, it must be the way  how the Dharma works.)

And this was the very timing of my  Karmic encounter to Master Kogetsu.

[]

Photography / Zappa Photo

” What a Hell,  Frank Zappa is doing in a  ZEN  blog ? “

It was rather unexpected turn of the situation.

Since one of my great  friend artist, Wayne Chisnall mentioned this blog and me as a photographer in his

blog spot,  it became necessary to explain about my photography. (—–of strange kind  :-))

Frank Zappa and me on the live stage (Copyright reserved/ 2009/ Yoshi Imamura )

The photo above was taken by my hand made camera called Yoshi-handy,  with

17mm fish-eye lens attached on the 6 x 6 film format, hence it create whole circular image.

(On this photo above, the lens attached was Nikon Fish-eye 16mm of which the Lens-hood was removed)

——As Zappa was so intrigued by this camera and its effect, he asked me to produce as

strange as possible photos.  —– And this is it.

When I was young, my interest was the nature. Close-up

photography was the essential tool and to do it I needed

to improvise or modify the equipments.—- If I got

to do, do it.   If I didn’t know how, learn it or try it.

If not successful try again and again.

The camera here left, the body was hack-sawed and

made the lens to tilt, enabling a focus from lens front

to infinity in one picture.—— When I modified EOS, the boss of R & D in the Canon asked me,

How I could make the camera working again ?   I answered ” If Canon can, I can do too, as

we are the same human being “.

Why not.    Ha ha ha   😀

( If you are the person who expected to see lots of photos—— Have a break, and see ” Zen in  Action”

It would be a fun ! )

Wayne’s Blog        < http://waynechisnall.blogspot.com >  or click / Associates / Wayne Chisnall

Buddha’s Foot Step

This is the foot print of the Buddha——well in fact it was the first attempt to

make “Buddha-2009” ‘s right foot, and I made another to attach

to his body. ——–so that this one was left as independent piece.

With up side down, it looked just like a foot print.

Yes, this is the Buddha’s foot print. It lead us, humankind for the

past 2500 years as the guiding light.

————–

It was created from a sheet of aluminium panel by just pressing it by hand.

If you press a sheet of metal, it will bend. And if you further press bent metal

it will be curved further. Keep pressing it again and again, just do it.

On the end flat metal may even become round sphere.

——You might have read a Zen story telling the rain drops curves the rock.

Well this is it.