Cafe Mode: Homing Pigeon Exhibition

This exhibition is taking place quite soon and as much as I’d like to be there, I won’t make it. Once upon a time, I studied photography. It’s a longer more involved story, but I was decent and even participation in student exhibitions and even an alumni one. It’s nice to have a chance to show a piece of my work again. The exhibition begins tomorrow and there will be a reception on the 19th at ROPPONGI 605.

My photo below is called Milky and it was shot during the Perseid meteor shower earlier this year. I used a Ricoh GR on a RAW setting. I actually forgot my tripod and had to figure out other means. The photo was near Pyramid Lake which is an hour and a half north of LA. When I look at the Milky Way Galaxy, I’m… “not expecting any return”.

Gallery Lara Tokyo + Cafemode present

HOMING PIGEON「伝書鳩」
Edition 2 : Tokyo

group photo exhibit

curated by Kio Griffith

ARTISTS RECEPTION:
OCTOBER 19, 2013 from 6 to 9pm

EXHIBIT RUNS: OCTOBER 9 – OCTOBER 19, 2013

FREE ADMISSION

ROPPONGI 605
7-5-11Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan 106-0032. Casa Grande Miwa 6th Floor
Wednesday through Saturday noon to 7pm and by appointment

〒106-0032
東京都港区六本木 7-5-11
カサグランデ・ミワ6階 605
水曜日から土曜日、12:00-19:00

http://gallerylara.com/

cafeartmusic.com

featuring:
Naoko Akiyama | Douglas Alvarez | Michael Arata | Yajuro Bando | Terri Berman | Nick Brown | Ako Castuera | Sean Chao | Sijia Chen | Sally Coates | Emily Counts | Ludmil Dimitrov | Veronica Duarte | Mark Dutcher | Shigenori Ebata | Aya Niibo Edamoto | Doug Eisenstark | Gabriel Escalante | Roni Feldman | Jon Flack | Shingo Francis | David French | Rema Ghuloum | Aaron Giesel | Allen D Glass II | Mat Gleason | Dean Gojobori | Kio Griffith | Michelle Carla Handel | Doug Harvey | Shisei Hashimura | Jun Hiraoka | Lusine Hovsepian | Bryan Ida | Mari Inukai | Aska Irie | Ichiro Irie | Yoko Irino | Tomoyuki Iwanami | William Kaminski | Virginia Katz | Phil Kim | Kohl King | Celia Ko | Minako Kumagai | Gil Kuno | Masumi Kuramochi | Michelle Lai | Jeremiah La Torre | Aleve Mei Loh | Leora Lutz | Yumiko Matsui | Douglas McNamee | Jon Measures | Adam D Miller | Shinnosuke Murakami | Masami Murao | Misato Nagare | Eric Nakamura | Clary Newell | Tony Ng | Emily Noguchi | Devon Oder | Shinichi Ono | Kazuyuki Ozonoe | Sara Pae | Kosta Potamianos | Max Presneill | Eron Rauch | Max Razdow | Christy Roberts | Satoshi Saegusa | Chigusa Saga | Samvel Saghatelian | Chiaki Saito | Ray Sato | Rob Sato | Tomoaki Sato | Nicolas Shake | Mika Soma | RIccardo Spinotti | Kenji Tajiri | Mayumi Tanaka | Ken Tatewaki | Ilan Terrell | Devon Tsuno | Mike Vegas | Minoru Yamaguchi | Fujio Yamazaki | Will T. Yang | Michiko Yao | Akihiro Yasugi | Kouichiro Yoshio and more…

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Gallery Lara + Cafemode proudly present “Homing Pigeon – Edition 2 「伝書鳩」Tokyo ” group photo exhibit by local and international artists

Before Internet and email there were homing pigeons. These pigeons carried messages only one way, to their home. By placing their food at one location and their home at another location, pigeons learned to fly back and forth up to twice a day reliably becoming an important means of communication.

The importance of homing pigeons in the centuries before electronic communications, such as the telegraph and telephone, is seldom recognized. Pigeons carried photographic negatives, documents of breaking news and even medication between hospitals countries apart.

As our means of communication developed into the present hyper-network, today’s homing pigeons have retired from messengers and now trained as racing pigeons. It is thought that racing pigeons rely on the Earth’s magnetic field to find their way home. Some evidence has surfaced indicating that mobile phone towers may be interrupting the birds navigation although no published research has investigated this theory.

The theme of this photography exhibit is an observation of the value of messaging; the sending, the expectations and the challenge of not expecting any return.

いまのようにインターネットやemailが発達する以前、伝書鳩(ハト)は重要な通信手段だった。小さく巻いた写真や書類を足に付けた伝書鳩は世界のニュースを伝えていたが、現代ではレース鳩としての役割だけが残った。

レースに参加した鳩の、鳩舎に帰ってくる羽数を帰還率という。その帰還率が全体的に年々悪くなっており、レースによっては全滅するレースも発生しているという。その原因は近年の通信・放送網の拡大で、基地局や携帯の電磁波が多くなり、鳩の方向感覚を狂わせているからだという説もある。

いまは、連絡の手段が豊富で容易なだけに、返信をもらうことが当たり前のような風潮だが、この充実した通信手段が狂ったらどうなるのだろう。
もう少しだけ、送る相手への気持ちを意識する。それだけで、何かが確実に変わる予感がする。
今回の写真展のテーマは「返事が要らないメッセージ」です。

- Kio Griffith