Study diary

I started the new decade by being completely immersed in my dōjinshi. The event has released the official circle participation list, and I’m in! This triggered a creative rush the like of which I haven’t experienced for a long time. I was delirious. I dreamt about the event. I experienced a dizziness that I remember from the one time in my life that I worked a 93-hour week (at a magazine). And I got back pains. In any case, the dōjinshi is basically finished now, and I’m extremely proud of it.

I recorded a summary of the books I read in 2019:

On New Year’s Day we were invited for coffee and schnaps to our neighbour, an old lady, and her female friend. It was a bit like Golden Girls.

Today I went with S to see Liebe und Ethnologie, which closes tomorrow. It’s been talked about so much and we really wanted to see it, but it was a disappointment, at least from an anthropological perspective. And we hadn’t realised that it was an exhibition completely about Hubert Fichte, a sort of hommage. The adjoining exhibition Spektral-Weiß showed how white colonialists were depicted by locals in art.

I’ve battled a severe cold the whole week, but I think I finally got rid of it today. Now S is getting it.

Japanese

• Started the Try N2 book.

Anime

• 1988: Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. E14–16.

Book

• Steven Pressfield: Do the Work. 2011. (So good! Reading the previous one now: The War of Art.)

Book chapters

• Postill, John. 2018. The Rise of Nerd Politics. London: Pluto Press.
  • 4: “Digital Rights”, pp. 89–120.
  • 5: “Social Protest”, pp. 121–42.

Exhibitions

• Haus der Kulturen der Welt:
  • Liebe und Ethnologie: Die koloniale Dialektik der Empfindlichkeit (nach Hubert Fichte)
  • Spektral-Weiß: Die Erscheinung kolonialzeitlicher Europäer*innen

I spent Christmas with S in Sweden. Three cities, three nights. Lots of family, some friends, and some new acquaintances. We came back late Friday night. On Saturday we had Vietbowl dinner with fimmakers/anthopologists L&B.

Today I finished Patrick W. Galbraith’s “otaku” book, which was all I could have hoped for and more – extremely well researched and with some very important pointers for my own research. Kudos also for the striking cover design (and overall typography) by Matthew Tauch.

Speaking of my own research, I’m thrilled to be back at the computer and the dōjinshi, although it’s hardly coming along at all yet, and the reason for that is that I spend a lot of time drawing and – thereby – getting to know my character – my own shota. Which is a new experience for me and a way to connect to my research participants through the act of sharing imaginations (key words in Galbraith).

Book chapters

• Galbraith, Patrick W. 2019. Otaku and the Struggle for Imagination in Japan. Durham: Duke University Press.
  • 3: “Moe: An Affective Response to Fictional Characters”, pp. 76–126.
  • 4: “Akihabara: ‘Otaku’ and Contested Imaginaries in Japan”, pp. 127–83.
  • 5: “Maid Cafés: Relations with Fictional and Real Others in Spaces Between”, pp. 184–226.
  • Conclusion: “Eshi 100: The Politics of Japanese, ‘Otaku’, Popular Culture in Akihabara and Beyond”, pp. 227–60.

Articles

• Resumé: Efter 22 år på public service ska han lära sig skriva (Johar Bendjelloul, January 2018)

Anime

• 1988: Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. E13 – fan service!
• 1989: Madou King Granzort. E13.
• 1995: Neon Genesis Evangelion. E11–13.

Film

• Densha Otoko (Japan, 2005, 101 min)

There will be an event in Japan in February that I want to participate in, as in having my own desk and sell my work, but in order to do so I need a Japanese address and bank account. All my attempts to contact the organisers failed – I think they might have blocked contact attempts from outside Japan. In the end I contacted my closest research participant again and he volunteered to register for me. So he’s now officially a member of my “circle”, and although we haven’t got confirmation yet (they tweeted that they were already 90 percent full at the time we registered), I count on being approved. That means I’ll have to create my first dōjinshi (yes, I’ve finally switched to “Revised Hepburn” for romanisation after reading up on it and especially checking CMOS; previously I used to write “doujinshi”). And that feels amazing, although I’m so very short on time. It’s good to be forced to do this though, cause otherwise I’d never do it. I’ve spent hours and days this week drawing, disappearing into the world of the character I’m developing. It’s truly embodied research.

Three dinners: Traditional goose with my colleagues and S at Café Einstein on Tuesday, delicious fryroll at Vietbowl with A and S on Friday, and a home dinner with S at F&E’s place on Saturday – a very lovely dinner that went on into the early morning.

I finished Reni Eddo-Lodge’s Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race, which I think was brilliant and enlightening, but more than anything enraging.

And I started reading Patrick W. Galbraith’s Otaku and the Struggle for Imagination in Japan, which came out this month and which is highly relevant for my research. I like how he brings in Gabriella Coleman, bell hooks, W.J.T. Mitchell, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick, and Anna Tsing already in the introduction. All except Kosofsky Sedgwick have featured in various courses in this programme. Only the other week I read Mitchell’s “What Do Pictures ‘Really’ Want”, which Galbraith cites, for Artistic practices unit 4 (although I seem to have forgotten to enter it into the study diary), and really liked it. This is on top of all the obvious names for a work like this. But most of all I like Galbraith’s own research and his analysis. A book to devour! I bought the print copy for identity reasons, and because I hate Kindle.

I managed to repair the flushing system in the studio by buying an identical flusher for 30 euro and exchange only the broken parts.

And I gave S and myself an early Christmas gift. I can’t believe it’s Christmas Eve already on Tuesday. Time for a short break!

Book chapters

• Eddo-Lodge, Reni. 2017. Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race.
  • 6: “Race and Class”, pp. 118–30.
  • 7: “There’s No Justice, There’s Just Us”, pp. 131–37.
• Galbraith, Patrick W. 2019. Otaku and the Struggle for Imagination in Japan. Durham: Duke University Press.
  • Introduction: “‘Otaku’ and the Struggle for Imagination in Japan”, pp. 1–19.
  • 1: “Seeking an Alternative: ‘Male’ Shōjo Fans since the 1970s”, pp. 20–48.
  • 2: “‘Otaku’ Research and Reality Problems”, pp. 49–75.

Articles

• BZ: Drogen-Treff Berliner U-Bahnhof – Das sagen Süchtige und Anwohner
• RBB: Interview | Eltern des siebenjährigen Constantin: “Ich will die Entschuldigung des Lkw-Fahrers nicht mehr”

Anime

• 1988: Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. E12.
• 1989: Madou King Granzort. E11–12.

Video

• Galbraith Talks Tezuka (2009)
• japanpodshow: Patrick Galbraith (2009)
• EveryoneFights: Fanology 101 With Patrick W. Galbraith
• Pause and Select:
  • What is Moe(phobia)? First part of a multi-part series with Patrick Galbraith
  • The Other Miyazaki. Second part of a multi-part series with Patrick Galbraith
  • Contours of Lolicon. Third part of a multi-part series with Patrick Galbraith
  • Contours of Lolicon: Full Audio (So good, listened twice!)
• Only in Japan: Tokyo Manga Shop & Anime Studio Mega Tour ★ ONLY in JAPAN #29 東京漫画ショップ＆アニメスタジオツアー (Galbraith)
• Florian Thalhofer: LIFE ACCORDING TO KORSAKOW #4 Miss Understanding
• IGN: The Lie That Helped Build Nintendo
• PhenomSage: What Happened to Western Animation?
• Henbu: EXPOSE Sony S-Log Correctly EVERYTIME + LUTS
• Khan Academy: Histograms | Applying mathematical reasoning | Pre-Algebra
• ZY Productions: How To Read a Camera Histogram

Monday was a work day.

Tuesday was Nobel – me and S watched basically everything streaming on SVT Play, starting at 1pm with the peace prize ceremony in Oslo and Abiy Ahmed’s impressive speech.

On Wednesday I started rewriting my master’s thesis proposal.

On Thursday I went to the yearly house meeting which went on for over four hours, so I missed Artistic practices.

On Friday I finished the proposal. Images, race and representation was cancelled.

On Saturday me and S participated as actors (read: extras) in a film shooting in a party setting. Interesting for me to see how a professional shoot is organised: The different roles, the generous timetable where basically the whole day is used for preparations that lead up to the relatively short actual shooting. And the feeling of everyone in the team working together, doing their part, to create something. The film will be used for applying to a film school.

They shot the film on a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera 4K. I’ve never seriously checked out Blackmagic cameras, but now that I do they seem very interesting for filmmaking. Unfortunately it seems they won’t work with the expensive Sony lenses that S and I have invested in.

Today I polished the master’s thesis proposal, let S read it (he had especially one small but important change suggestion), and finally sent it off – submitted! It feels great to put the research proposal behind me so that I can start focusing more on the actual research.

I read an interesting article on information warfare. The authors’ points go very well with what we studied in Unit 10 of Digital Anthropology. Two good excerpts:

Disinformation operations aren’t typically fake news or outright lies. Disinformation is most often simply spin. Spin is hard to spot and easy to believe, especially if you are already inclined to do so.

Professional disinformation isn’t spread by the account you disagree with — quite the opposite. Effective disinformation is embedded in an account you agree with.

The Marcel Duchamp documentary felt like an hour-long piano concert.

Book chapter

• Eddo-Lodge, Reni. 2017. Why I’m Not Talking to White People About Race.
  • 5: “The Feminism Question”, pp. 93-117.

Article

• Rolling Stone/Darren Linvill and Patrick Warren: That Uplifting Tweet You Just Shared? A Russian Troll Sent It

Anime

• 1988: Mashin Eiyuuden Wataru. E9–11.
• 1989: Madou King Granzort. E9–10.

Film

• Marcel Duchamp: Art of the Possible (Matthew Taylor, 2018, 53 min)

Video

• The School of Life:
  • Criticism when you’ve had a bad childhood
  • Dating When You’ve Had a Bad Childhood

I worked a lot on a draft of my thesis proposal this week and delivered it to my supervisor Thursday night (deadline). I got it back next day with very useful comments that made me want to improve it. I shared my draft (sans comments) with my fellow supervisees.

On Thursday I also presented on Superflat in Artistic Practices:

On Friday I repeated studio drinks + Vietbowl dinner with S & N and K and S. We talked a lot about my anime research (unfortunately only in English), and N offered to help me with the Japanese subtitles to my machinima, so I prepared a doc that I shared with her today.

On Saturday night we watched this year’s Cannes Grand Prix winner Atlantique, which was a beautiful and innovative love story, but politically safe, as S put it.

Today I made an effort to get on top of my research again. I put all my informants (I use that word mainly because it is shorter than “research participants”) in a spreadsheet for better overview, and started engaging in depth with an interview I did with one of them. I have quite a lot of material and I think it’s pretty good considering the circumstances. So by engaging with it I hope to arrive at some ideas about how it can be used.

Book chapter

• Eddo-Lodge, Reni. 2017. Why I’m Not Talking to White People About Race.
  • 4: “Fear of a Black Planet”, pp. 78-92.

Anime

• 1995: Neon Genesis Evangelion. E10.

Film

• Atlantique (Mati Diop, 2019, 106 min)

Video

• Dev Ed: Why I Don’t Use Adobe Creative Cloud Anymore
• MarzBarVlogs: Why I Stopped Daily Vlogs on YouTube after 2 Years (honest)
• Sara Dietschy: My $3,800 Brooklyn Apartment | 1 Bedroom Tour
• Harv Video/Audio Stuff: How To Expose SLOG3 Properly – No More Noisy Shadows! (repeat!)

Lots of readings related to my research proposal. Finished Boellstorff’s et al handbook, which I like so much. And I was struck by how good MacDougall is. I’ve got enough input now and started writing the literature review. So I will continue writing intensively for the next few days.

Tuesday and Wednesday I was in Stockholm for work, which included an amazing dinner at Teatergrillen. I also had lunch with former and probably future Berliner A and saw two exhibitions at Moderna Museet and ArkDes: Mud Muses – a rant about technology and Flying Panels – How Concrete Panels Changed the World. The former was so so, with the exceptions of two videos by Akbar Padamsee and the Otolith Group that I watched in full and really enjoyed.

I had to skip a planned “film evening” on Okinawa at Arsenal today in order to create my presentation on Superflat for next week’s class in Artistic practices. I also continued transcribing an interview.

I didn’t watch any anime this week. But! I was contacted by a new informant and am pursuing an intimate email interview with him. At one point he referred to Wataru.

Readings

Images, race and representation

Unit 6: Zora – the ‘First’ in her field

• Charnov, Elaine S. 1998. “The Performative Visual Anthropology Films of Zora Neale Hurston.” Film Criticism 23 (1): 38–47.

Master thesis

Topic

• Kinsella, Sharon. 2000. Adult Manga: Culture and Power in Contemporary Japanese Society. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press.
  • “Introduction.” Pp. 1–19
  • Chapter 4. “Amateur Manga Subculture and the otaku panic.” Pp. 102–38.
  • Chapter 5. “The Movement Against Manga.” Pp. 139–61.
• Otomo, Rio. 2015. “Politics of Utopia: Fantasy, Pornography, and Boys Love.” In Boys Love Manga and Beyond: History, Culture, and Community in Japan, edited by Mark McLelland, Kazumi Nagaike, Katsuhiko Suganuma, and James Welker, 141–52. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi.

Method

• Boellstorff, Tom, Bonnie Nardi, Celia Pearce, and T.L. Taylor. 2012. Ethnography and Virtual Worlds: A Handbook of Method. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • Chapter 11: “Writing up, presenting, and publishing ethnographic research.” Pp. 182–95.
  • Chapter 12: “Conclusion: Arrivals and new departures.” Pp. 196–200.
• MacDougall, David. 2006. The Corporeal Image: Film, Ethnography, and the Senses. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
  • “Introduction.” Pp. 1–8.
• Madill, Anna. 2018. “Rotten Girl on Rotten Girl: Boys’ Love ‘Research.’” In Researching Sex and Sexualities: Methodological Reflections, edited by Charlotte Morris, Paul Boyce, Andrea Cornwall, Hannah Frith, and Yingying Huang, 263–78. London: Zed Books.

Other

Exhibition

• Moderna Museet:
  • Mud Muses – a rant about technology
    • Otolith Group: Anathema (2011, 37 min)
    • Akbar Padamsee: Syzygy (1970, 16 min)
  • Atsuko Tanaka
  • Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd
• ArkDes: Flying Panels – How Concrete Panels Changed the World

Film

• The Matrix (1999, 136 min)

Video

• Tokyo Llama: How We Bought Our Abandoned House in Japan | Process, Costs, Risks, Finance, How to Find One (32 min)
• Wouter Corduwener: I gave strangers €5 if I didn’t speak their language (multilingual bet part 2)
• Cladio Juliano: Clip Studio Tabmate Review
• Simone Giertz:
  • My Crowdfunding Campaign: Here’s What Happened
  • Driving my car around is… weird || TRUCKLA UPDATE + CYBERTRUCK