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October 31, 2005
Off topic: Sportmanship
Last night was pingpong night. The MobLab tournament took place in a cosy neonlit concrete block located in downtown Sendai. Yukiko won the photo shooting session. The next bus should include a table tennis court.
Yukiko
Kento
Daisuke
Sven
投稿者 stefan : 09:26 PM
October 30, 2005
Contemporary Moss at Sendai Mediatheque
At Sendai Mediatheque I decided for a more "casual" setup of the installation. As the crowd of people was not overwhelming the ones that came had the chance to have a very very close look at the moss. What they discovered is far beyond your imagination. Pictures just don´t smell. It´s a pitty.
投稿者 stefan : 01:39 PM
October 28, 2005
Off topic: Dancing In Sane Dai
Last night I´ve been out with my Chinese assistant Kim and my Japanese translator Daisuke to take a closer look at the Sendai street dancing scene. Right opposite to our hotel a contemporary steel glass facade serves as a gigantic mirror for teens and twens to examine their wicked moves. Narcistic self-surveillance is probably the appropriate use for such egotripping architecture.
Kim and Daisuke started interviewing the queens and kings of this night while I focussed on taking pictures. Everything went quite well until the local boys decided that they didn´t receive as much attention as they should compared to the girls. In the meantime however, I captured some nice shots.
Daisuke and Kim (from left to right) are apparently quite impressed.
投稿者 stefan : 01:52 AM
October 25, 2005
Martin Nebel on the biology of moss
This is an edited and shortened version of an interview conducted by Martin Nebel and Stefan Riekeles on September 19, 2005 in Stuttgart, Germany. Martin Nebel is working on the preservation of bryophytae (moss) at the museum for natural science in Stuttgart, Germany.
Editing and translation: Stefan Riekeles
Dr Martin Nebel
[Martin Nebel is browsing a book on Japanese zen gardens]
Martin Nebel:
... look at this, that´s magnificent, isn´t it. These effects in colour are completely different compared to those of a lawn. I think the green colour of a lawn is irritating. There´s nothing calm in it but something aggressive. However, I found it difficult to convince German gardeners that moss is superior to purposefully grown begonia.
Additionally cultivating moos is a rather costly task, also mentally.
Let me tell you a short story. One of my colleagues here is working with woodlouses. During a chat over coffee we came onto the question of how woodlouses curl themselves up. He suddenly laid onto the table and curled up like a woodlouse. He observed them precisely. It looked funny. However, what I learned from that anecdote is that if you really want to understand an organism you have to put yourself into the organism´s position, you have to search for the soul of this organism. If you can´t do this you will always remain on the outside, you will never disclose the essence of its being. Well, it´s already quite a long way to the woodlouses, however it is not as far as to moss. But I am getting closer and closer to it. And I think it returns something. It is something beyond rationality. If you´re constantly dealing with an organism it has a forming influence on yourself. Just like Lorenz became a goose in the end I am slowly becoming moss.
Stefan Riekeles:
One of my most urging questions is concerning the apparent stillness of moss.
From my perspective moss is giving off some kind of slowness. I took a piece of moss from the street and transplanted it into a squared box at my home. It is now growing for three weeks there and has adopted the squared shape perfectly. Therefore it can´t be that slow.
MN:
OK, but if you compare it to a higher plant it is growing really slowly. And it will never exceed a certain height. But it is correct that certain pioneering mosses are able to populate a certain expanse rapidly. Examinations on the basis of peat analysis are verifying that moss of the same variety has grown at the same spot for a period of two thousand years. Probably one individual sits there for two thousand years now. Mosses are growing endlessly. They don´t have real roots. Which means that they can die at the bottom and grow at the top. That´s the secret. The dying part is then slowly turning into humus. That way they are sitting upon their self-made layer of humus.
SR:
Moss is growing endlessly?
MN:
Yes. At the bottom it is just dying and at the top it keeps on growing. This means that a great number of moss plants which seem to be separate can emerge from a single moss plant over time. But actually it is a clone, an identical moss if you like.
SR:
That means that such a cushion actually is one single plant?
I´m interested in the idea that moss is always defining a territory. A tree for instance ist always defining a spot. Such a tree is growing exactly here. But with moss it is difficult to say where it is growing in terms of a definite spot.
MN:
The plant is growing and splitting further to the top and so on. Basically all plants are therefore connected on a deeper level. This way it is getting more and more dense at the top, one plant next to another. From the bottom the whole thing is dieing slowly. You end up with single plants growing very close to each other, just as a lawn of moss.
There is a point to this. First of all mosses don´t have a supporting tissue, which means that they mutually support each other this way. Secondly, mosses don´t have a possibility for water transport in their stalk. This means they need to be close to another in order to obtain the effect of a sponge.
SR:
The capillary effect emerges in between the plants.
MN:
Precisely. And there is another clue to it. As the humidity inside a moss cushion is much higher than in its surrounding a lot of animals, fungus and algae move in. In return they all make sure that the nutriment supply is established. Inside the moss cushion they are also protected much better from predators than outside. Well, it is a peculiar world such a moss cushion. If you open it and observe it with a microscope you will realise immediately: Ah, that´s a magnificent world here!
SR:
You´re collaborating with sociologists and economists to exchange your results. Where do you find your relations within these disciplines?
MN:
My greatest interest lies in the complexity of ecosystems. The hypothesis we are currently working on claims that selection mechanisms play a less important role the higher the complexity of an ecosystems gets. Complexity doesn´t care for hierarchies. It is networking that counts here, exchange has to be established, one has to trust another and so on. People who are in competition don´t trust each other. And that is the most important point. To overcome this principle and to adjust to another system. I think that moss could help us a lot with this.
Mosses took part in the whole process of evolution. In the beginning they have been the only ones. For a period of fifty or a hundred million years they have been alone in the world. Then they were driven out by fern and flowering plants to spots where they can still survive today. They managed to adjust to this system and to somehow find their way through.
I would say, the essence of moss is not pushiness but a calm and slow way. They are deliberately following their path. There are some varieties who are able to grow rapidly and are adjusted to a larger extend but essentially time is not very important here. I think in this regard we can learn a lot from moss.
投稿者 stefan : 05:21 PM
October 23, 2005
Contemporary Moss at Yokohama Triennale
After an excessive night at Fujino we arrived at Yokohama Triennale of Contemporary Art. I decided to contribute to the amazing view from the site of the exhibition by adding a temporary garden installation to the pier.
Contemporary Moss at Yokohama harbour area.
Watch the gardener at work by downloading this video file [Quicktime, MPEG4, 33MB].
Thanks to Yoshiyuki Sakuragi who does a great job here as cameraman for the project and also shot this scene.
投稿者 stefan : 05:46 PM
October 21, 2005
Contemporary Moss at ICC
Thanks to the efforts of Seiko Mikami the moss archive could welcome a new entrant today. Seike told me yesterday about the existence of kokeidama, terracotta balls covered with moss, which seem to become quite popular in Japan at the moment. I still don´t know exactly what people are doing with it. Anyway I find them interesting enough to exhibit three of these balls together with the moss boxes. This one of the many traces showing that moss is not timeless at all. However it´s probably one of the latest efforts in Japanese culture to introduce moss into contemporary living rooms.
投稿者 : 05:42 PM
October 20, 2005
Half naked in Tokyo
Back to Tokyo.Twelve days after my arrival to Narita airport and a first trip around Japan I came back to Tokyo the last night. This time I came by bus. And I brought my temporary family - the Mobnauts. In their company I don´t feel to be that much of a stranger as I felt when visiting this city for the first time. We are seven now and we have a mission.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Shinbusken. This is the MOBLAB superexpress bound for the transient. We will be stopping at Tokyo, Yokohama, Sendai, Ogaki, Kyoto before arriving at Yamaguchi terminal. The non-smoking car for passengers without seat reservation is 1. Please refrain from smoking in the areas at either end of non-smoking cars. Wagon service for food and beverages will be available at your seat. The conductor's room is in front of you. While in a car, we ask that you switch your mobile phone to the silent mode.
Thank you.
The bus is making a brief stop at ICC now.
A few minutes ago I stepped out of the Opera City the ICC is located in to get something to drink and eat. I left the building without my weapon and felt half naked. It was a sublime experience standing there in front of the highrise buildings with nothing but a plastic bag in my hand. Left to my own devices I realised that the only thing I could rely on in order to cope with the otherness of this city compared to Berlin were my words, was my language. However, concrete is a bit of a mute fellow and doesn´t talk much about its european relatives. In this regard it is very similar to the moss I´ve been collecting so far (more on the moss will follow up later). Therefore I am vey glad about my companions on the MobLab tour. I am looking forward to interesting discussions with them and with other people we´ll meet along our journey.
From now on I will post my latest results in intercultural research and communication on this site. Interviews will be published as well as fragmented thoughts and questions. And I will keep record of my growing moss collection.
Please enjoy this nice day!
投稿者 : 04:08 PM