VA+M+P@IR*E

 

VA+M+P@IR*E = Visual Arts + Music + Poetry @ Itoshima Research * Event

Pronounced as "Vampire"

...for new visual arts, music, and poetry in Itoshima City, Fukuoka, Japan, where the research convolutes with event to produce the blood of eternal life.

VA+M+P@IR*E is something of a secret society centered around The Chronicle of Beauty (美紀), served principally by The Embrace of Life (存応). It is a blood-sucking enterprise that organizes live performances and sponsors productions, workshops, lectures, and publications for those hunkering after news from established vrykolakas as well as new lemures emerging (sometimes fearlessly during the withering daytime).

A Roll of VA+M+P@IR*Es

25-27 July 2024

Touring around Japan was a pair of guest vrykolakas from Canberra, a poet-multilingual-ethnographer and his beloved perinatal psychiatrist. We found both willing to make a detour to Itoshima and talk to the camphor trees. Cube Root of Book enlightened us on the suddenness function via a lecture in the ISI Lecture Series. We also took the opportunity to examine the ancient burial mounds nearby, in blistering midsummer heat. One undead farmer grinned and confessed she stood on the remains, over there the circle and on the other side the square, she said, together the keyhole to a vision of naught. Of course we had to drink to it, and did, twice, in a French cave, together with an expert neurophysiologist of the model-based and the model-free, and at Casa Miki, joined there by a former Noh performer and our trusted vanguard composer of synergistic fields. Properly inebriated, two of us played piano pieces composed by ghosts, another two read poetry from the depths of our souls. 

8-10 February 2024

We gathered the most lovely juicy unpalatable seaweed with guest vrykolas from the Isle of Mull and post-Suspect Culture. Unfazed by jetlag and the general state of our planet, the deliverance of a lecture occurred in the ISI Lecture Series, exactly as predicted and promised. Of course we had to drink to it, and did, virtuous blood in a hamlet at walking distance (designated driver-Vampires can think practically, too). ((And even forward-looking:)) Field notes for fireworks were taken at Mekari Shrine in the hour of the tiger at the start of the new lunar year. 

8 October 2023

The 1st VA+M+P@IR*E festival took place at Ito Cultural Hall in Chikuzenmaebaru on 8 October 2023.

27 May 2023

The zerokai took place at Minnano in Chikuzenmaebaru, a rehearsal for the 1st VA+M+P@IR*E festival of 8 October 2023.

11 February 2023
The first so-called VA+M+P@IR*E gathering took place at Casa Miki. Six blood-thirsty creatures (or rather five plus one designated abstainer) attended the inaugural proceedings; all that remains to show for it now is a set of empty glasses and a Fledermaus book full of frantic notes. Of the six vampires in attendance, it can be noted there was one queen bee, CEO, where the C and the E and the O could mean all sorts of things, though surely nothing good will come of it; that's sort of the point, no? There were also one surfer-scholar-creator from Hawaii, not feeling very American; one science communicator NerdNite boss; one erstwhile pupil of Marina Abramovic, now the underground mayor of the 商店街 in 筑前前原; one photographer visual artist of 間 and the virtual worlds on the other side of the hood of your car; and well, yours truly, HRM. Perhaps the single most important decision of the night was that the first gathering would not be the last. From being drawn, we can now move on to speaking of plans brewing.

11 November 2022
In hindsight, the UN/REAL workshop was an early VA+M+P@IR*E.

13 May 2022
Further back, we can identify the publication of 松 at Casa Miki, with poems by Jan Lauwereyns and photos by Tomohiro Hanada, as the earliest VA+M+P@IR*E...

If you are interested in collaborating with us, don't hesitate to pitch your ideas to Jan Lauwereyns (or get in touch via LinkedIn).

コラボレーションに興味がある方は、遠慮なくJan Lauwereynsにアイデアを投げかけてください(またはLinkedInでご連絡ください。)

Jan Lauwereyns @LinkedIn