"New-Method" No. 21

We introduce the email bulletin "New-Method" No. 21 with our works and guest contributions. This issue features Kanichiro Oda for the contributor, who released his mp3 work from Moumaku Record, a net-label launched in 2008 by our member Takahiro Hirama.


[Contribution]

New-Methodicists and New-Method
Kanichiro Oda

Sorry, I know about activities of New-Method only as far as I can find through their bulletin or Twitter, so not really sure whether I can say anything meaningful. For now I'm checking the archive on their website.

What I found immediately was that their works, presentations, and events appear very different between individual and group ones while they are both concerned with "Method." Apparently individual works of New-Methodicists look like ones based on or related to certain methods, which Hideki Nakazawa called "the method for the method" and I would paraphrase "the method (as a work) grounded upon the method itself." On the other hand, their group works seem to be execution of the "most orthodox" method among a variety of methods for a given purpose. Their "Sea Bathing" is the "most orthodox" method to "enjoy the summer," so are works like "Hatsumode," "Exchange Intervention," or "Austerities" (although it's been a mystery how the notification of Yasuko Toyoshima's show becomes their work).

While their individual works are somehow logically completed, their group works appear a little different. Since they are (works of) "the method for the method" that utilize our common understanding like "A must go along with B," they seem to be completed by our feeling of ambiguous consent like "it can be, certainly." I want to discuss this very "feeling" a little further, but I just found I've run out of letters. Bye for now (...upon concluding like this, I happened to find Tomoko Hojo has already pointed it out in the bulletin No.7. See it please).


[Web Works of the New-Methodicists]

  • Takahiro Hirama

"Salmon" Yuichi Takahashi
http://hrmtkhr.web.fc2.com/new-method/021_e.html
"Salmon" is the work that Yuichi Takahashi produced.

Quantity and Border No. 5
http://7x7whitebell.net/new-method/shogobaba/021_e.html
Quantity and border, as concepts, have no reason to be visualized. In this work, quantity and border, which had been visually represented in previous works, would be visually imperceptible. This work represents the quantity and the border of 'Ascending Order Sort No. 5 "Gnome Sort".'

Enumeration of Insignificant Alphabets
http://masarukaido.com/newmethod/b021_e.html
A computer keyboard has alphabet keys below the number keys. I randomly typed these keys to enumerate alphabets. The number of those enumerated alphabets are quite small compared with the one in the previous work with numerics.


[Information]


[Editor's Note]

If you check their web works in the chronological order, you may discover how their ideas have developed. Backnumbers are available at "New-Method" website. See you again in the next issue. (M)

Publisher
Takahiro Hirama @qwertyu1357
Shogo Baba @shogobaba
Masaru Kaido @kaido1900

Bulletin "New-Method" No. 21 English Version
Published on Jul. 4, 2012