So we’re still on Thursday 23 August. Hot and humid with heavy showers. We meet Matthew Fasone at Kawaramachi Hankyu subway station and, after a short wander, head over to Art Spot Korin and a meeting with artist and very, very, nice guy Masahiro Kawanaka. As with so many people we have met on this trip, Masa was incredibly generous with his time and the four of us had a great afternoon together, eventually having quite a deep and subtle discussion on art practice. Hugely enjoyable.
[A special shout out to Matthew here, not just for sharing several days with us and showing us the ropes both in Osaka and Kyoto, but for his excellent Japanese which allowed us to bridge the gap with Masa much more effectively. Thanks Matt!]
Late afternoon we left Art Spot Korin and Matthew showed us around Gion, which an the area in Kyoto where they have tried to retain its traditional look (there being no airborne power-cables, for example). A bit of a tourist-trap, but I’m glad I’ve seen it… Here’s my photos from the day:
That evening I worked until very late: I had to get my two tracks ready for the next day’s performance and had to ensure that the video cueing worked seamlessly for all four tracks in our set, hence the projector now hooked up to my little Noku Hotel studio. This would be my first attempt at using QLab in a real-world situation and ensuring it all sync’d up perfectly was a huge concern. In particular, the piece Carl and I were doing together—effectively the ‘main attraction’ of the evening’s show—was 15 minutes long and I wanted to make sure it was absolutely in sync and rock-solid right the way through. In practice it was pretty straightforward and QLab worked perfectly:
Finally to bed around 3am. Sheesh!