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- Convenors:
-
Eugenia Bogdanova-Kummer
(Sainsbury Institute for the Study of Japanese Arts and Cultures)
John Szostak (University of Hawaii at Manoa)
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- Format:
- Panel
- Section:
- Visual Arts
- Location:
- Auditorium 1 Jan Broeckx
- Sessions:
- Saturday 19 August, -
Time zone: Europe/Brussels
Short Abstract:
Visual Arts: Individual papers
Long Abstract:
Visual Arts: Individual papers
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Saturday 19 August, 2023, -Biyue Kong (The University of Tokyo)
Paper short abstract:
While Yamazawa Eiko and Horino Masao rarely interacted during their lifetimes and had varying attitudes towards photographic mass reproduction, this paper suggests that the intersection of theater and photography has been a significant element of both modernists’ understanding of modern photography.
Paper long abstract:
While photography has been praised for its accuracy in portraying human figures since its introduction to Japan, stage photography, or butai shashin, did not gain prominence in society until the early twentieth century. Paralleling the explosive growth of illustrated periodicals, stage photography illustrates the visionary changes that have taken place during the era of increasingly accessible photographic technology. Camera lenses were used to photograph actors from traditional theater, such as Kabuki, Nō and Bunraku, but photographers who embraced the superiority of the mechanical eye, or "camera eye," began capturing modern theater performances as new modes of expressions of lived reality within the thriving urban culture that emerged in the aftermath of the Great Kanto Earthquake in 1923.
This paper examines and compares stage photographs produced by Yamazawa Eiko (1899-1995) and Horino Masao (1907-1998), two modernist artists who have long been marginalized in the history of photography. In the past few years, Yamazawa Eiko has been highly regarded for her connection with American modern photography and her experimentation with abstract art, in light of fruitful scholarship that attempts to remap the history of photography through the rediscovery of female photographic practices worldwide. However, her early work, primarily focused on portraiture from the 1930s to the 1950s, has remained largely unstudied because of the lack of negatives. Less known are her stage photographs of Shingeki (literally "new drama") actress Yamamoto Yasue (1906-1993), who is also a crucial member of the Tsukiji Little Theatre. As for Horino Masao, he began recording Japanese modern dance and theater performances during the late 1920s and later published articles about stage photography in Photo Times, one of the leading magazines of the New Photography Movement.
By tracing their works and discourses around feminine beauty, portraiture, and photographic art in general from the 1920s to 1950s, this study finds that despite the fact that the two artists had little interaction during their lifetimes and varying attitudes concerning the mass reproduction of photographs, the intersection of theater and photography has been a significant element of their understanding of modern photography.
Ivan Jaramillo (Nagoya University)
Paper short abstract:
By drawing upon several concepts and (re)interpretations of cinematic affect, along with the notion of “body-in-suffering/spectatorial body”, this paper discusses how body-horror representations in manga work in tandem with narrative and stylistic elements to provoke affective responses in readers.
Paper long abstract:
Japanese manga artist Itō Junji’s oeuvre is well-known among horror enthusiasts both in Japan and overseas. He has been a renowned horror author since his work Tomie was released in the late 1980s. Tomie tells the story of an eponymous vengeful entity who, after being killed by her classmates on a school trip, leads men she encounters to obsession and madness and to her own assassination which leads to her multiplying and being reborn again. Previous studies have focused on gender-based readings of the violence depicted in this work, as well as on the body-horror elements of it. Yet, little attention has been given to how this latter works in tandem with other elements as affective devices in Itō’s work.
By drawing upon several concepts and (re)interpretations of cinematic affect and Affect theory, along with the notion of “body-in-suffering/spectatorial body” proposed by Reyes (2012), which situates an alignment between the spectator (reader) and the body on-screen (page), the affective capacity of Itō’s horror manga will be discussed in selected segments of Itō Junji’s Tomie. Conversely, this paper analyzes how body-horror representations in this manga may provoke affective responses in readers.
How do black-and-white printed images, panels, and frames in manga convey affective responses akin to that of horror in other media like cinema? By looking closely at the narrative techniques used in this manga, while considering further stylistic, visual, and compositional elements, this paper aims to prove that body-horror representations in manga provoke high levels of affective engagement in readers though these do not happen in an isolated manner. My larger aim is to suggest that Itō's ability to elicit affective responses in readers has more to do with the "cinematism" he employs than solely with the detailed horrific imagery he conveys in the pages of his manga.
Susanne Schermann (Meiji University)
Paper short abstract:
The arrival of sound presented film directors with daunting problems of how to integrate this foreign element into the visual. This paper will discuss the use of sound in Japanese war films, with special attention to the function of sound in amplifying the visual, compared to Western cinema.
Paper long abstract:
The Japanese way of integrating of sound into the purely visual silent film took place differently than in Western cinema. While in the West the fascination of sound lay in the reproduction of music, the first Japanese sound film (Madamu to nyobô/The Neighbour’s Wife and Mine, 1931, directed by Gosho Heinosuke) already offered information on the soundtrack that was different from the visual: the noise of a record player from the neighbour's house that hinders a writer in his work. Other early sound films also show a creative use of sound, for example as a method of scene change in the film Tsuma yo bara no yao ni (Wife, Be Like a Rose, 1935, directed by Naruse Mikio).
This paper deals with the war film and its use of sound, as sound is often used as amplifier for emotions, through analysis of the films by director Tasaka Tomotaka, who set the standard for the Japanese war film with his Go-nin no sekkôhei (1938, voted best film of the year by the renowned magazine Kinema Junpô). Tasaka used almost no non-diegetic sound, instead letting the visuals affect the viewers without resorting to music to amplify the emotions. This is not to say that there is no music at all, but the soundtrack is interspersed with diegetic sound, often through the soldiers' singing, which is well embedded in the narrative, but often also through the rhythm of marching soldiers and the noise of battle. Tasaka succeeded in integrating sound into film without overpowering the visual, moreover, he used sound to control and even reduce potentially overwhelming emotions. While filmmakers use sound as an all-purpose tool for a narrative that is not entirely convincing, Tasaka went the opposite way, fully trusting the power of the visual in his films.
On the one hand, this use of sound will be analysed in relation to the visual; on the other hand, a comparison with other Japanese sound films as well as with war films in other countries will clarify Tasaka's position in the treatment of sound.