Fly-by Kitty: A World Out of Order
It’s all about balance.
From where I see the world, wealth wouldn’t exist without poverty; power without powerlessness; beauty without bad taste, Vespas without Hummers.
Historically renowned for their refined aesthetic sense, the Japanese qualify objects of utter beauty as belonging to the realm of shibui. On a visual level, this encompasses things that are simple, pure, rough and often monochromatic. Shibui represents a type of deeper beauty that only time can reveal, as exemplified by time-worn artefacts or wave-washed beach stones.
According to the aforementioned law of balance, shibui can only exist if its antithesis is also floating somewhere out there in the world. Like the evil twin in an ancient folk tale, this diametric doppelganger takes its form in things gaudy, colorful and overly ornate. Japanese products that fall into this category often involve celebration, and occasionally involve pachinko machines.
Immune to land borders and language barriers, manifestations of kitsch are shared—and sometimes travel—between cultures. Post-modern cultural historians, who have claimed the term "anti-aesthetics" as their own, would weep with joy at the news of the Taiwan airline, Eva Air, that recently adopted Hello Kitty's over-licensed image for its visual identity. Hello Kitty Air's flagship airbus is painted from nose to tail with images of Kitty and her friends who, by the way, are not shibui.
Similarly, in the city where I live (admittedly in the eighties) there was an Italian furniture store that sold glossy molded plastic bed frames—with built-in surround sound stereo systems—that would have fit right in on the set of Aliens. Could this abomination have sprung from the loins of the very culture responsible for Alfa Romeo Spiders and Renaissance art? Necessarily so, I would argue. One couldn't exist without the other.
I see this same principle of balance playing itself out in my own domestic world. I’ve long been aware that, in order to strive for perfection in certain areas of my existence, I have to surrender to complete and unapologetic chaos in others. My paid work demands that I be precise, exact and detailed. Which maybe explains my perpetually messy home. I’m happy with its permanent stack of dirty dishes, and offer no excuses as I’m convinced that if every aspect of my life was perfectly ordered and strung taught, something somewhere would snap like an overextended violin string.
Without this give and take, without this balance of order and dis-order, my whole world would just… go…… sproing.
From where I see the world, wealth wouldn’t exist without poverty; power without powerlessness; beauty without bad taste, Vespas without Hummers.
Historically renowned for their refined aesthetic sense, the Japanese qualify objects of utter beauty as belonging to the realm of shibui. On a visual level, this encompasses things that are simple, pure, rough and often monochromatic. Shibui represents a type of deeper beauty that only time can reveal, as exemplified by time-worn artefacts or wave-washed beach stones.
According to the aforementioned law of balance, shibui can only exist if its antithesis is also floating somewhere out there in the world. Like the evil twin in an ancient folk tale, this diametric doppelganger takes its form in things gaudy, colorful and overly ornate. Japanese products that fall into this category often involve celebration, and occasionally involve pachinko machines.
Immune to land borders and language barriers, manifestations of kitsch are shared—and sometimes travel—between cultures. Post-modern cultural historians, who have claimed the term "anti-aesthetics" as their own, would weep with joy at the news of the Taiwan airline, Eva Air, that recently adopted Hello Kitty's over-licensed image for its visual identity. Hello Kitty Air's flagship airbus is painted from nose to tail with images of Kitty and her friends who, by the way, are not shibui.
Similarly, in the city where I live (admittedly in the eighties) there was an Italian furniture store that sold glossy molded plastic bed frames—with built-in surround sound stereo systems—that would have fit right in on the set of Aliens. Could this abomination have sprung from the loins of the very culture responsible for Alfa Romeo Spiders and Renaissance art? Necessarily so, I would argue. One couldn't exist without the other.
I see this same principle of balance playing itself out in my own domestic world. I’ve long been aware that, in order to strive for perfection in certain areas of my existence, I have to surrender to complete and unapologetic chaos in others. My paid work demands that I be precise, exact and detailed. Which maybe explains my perpetually messy home. I’m happy with its permanent stack of dirty dishes, and offer no excuses as I’m convinced that if every aspect of my life was perfectly ordered and strung taught, something somewhere would snap like an overextended violin string.
Without this give and take, without this balance of order and dis-order, my whole world would just… go…… sproing.
posted by Joconde at 9:26 PM
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