It’s been a week of Japanese pleasures for me. Watched the film “Howl’s Moving Castle”, fantastically ridiculous hand drawn anime feature. Then researched origami techniques to construct my mo-sette (a rosette in honour of Mo the dog who was recently savaged by an german sheppard).

And finally, saw Ryuichi Sakamoto performing with Alva Noto at the Barbican. This was a superb expression of analogue meets digital. RS played a grand piano while AN processed the piano sounds. He also made digital sounds then fed both sources into some software that triggered visuals. The visuals must have been pre-designed with a colour palette and patterns but were then generated by the attack and possibly frequency/pitch of the audio. The screen was about 11 meters wide by 1 meter tall. A shape I have never seen before. The first piece had a few soft white blobs growing then fading away on a black background. It was so minimal and dramatic. When a very bass note happened the entire screen turned solid red. The whole aesthetic seemed rather Japanese. It made me think about our discussion in class about whether digital culture reflects the specific culture it is created in. I think it does.