26. Santoka Taneda - Alms Collecting Camera
atelier ying, nyc.
The wandering zen poet Santoka Taneda fled the world to walk deep into the mountains. At night he would end up at an inn drinking sake, writing down all the poems he composed during the daytime.
Like other similar figures that I come across in my biographical studies, if it weren't for the beneficent people around them, in Santoka's case his publisher, their work would be lost to us.
Here Santoka is given an alms collecting camera. It is in theory a counterweight to his painful life. To the poet who has cast off his worldly possessions and can only be burdened when he is reminded while on the streets of modern conveniences and the ever evolving world moving away from him faster and faster, my design offers him an upgrade. The poet's vengeance here is an amalgam of : a penny arcade mutoscope, a digitized camera, a trance device, and other street elements. His begging bowl is no longer pitiful and antiquated but has the accoutrement all of automata. He holds in his hands a design that attempts to reconcile opposites in poetic fashion--- the lowly amusements with the high minded zen ideals.
A Kodak Brownie Starflash has been modified and converted here to the ergometrics of a homeless person. In true beggar-poet tradition the user lowers his head humbly while standing in the middle of the street, his eyes over the hood of the viewfinder that works through internal porro prisms. The begging bowl, converted from the camera's original flash is an amazement of contrasts. It's silver surface has been lined as carefully as a zen garden with a myriad of carefully cut 3/4" long birch twig fragments. When street people place loose change into the begging bowl they will experience a clear meditation moment as they marvel at the contrast of textures of natural bark with chrome with the copper of their pennies. At the poet's discretion, he can pull a discrete trigger in the back and a gumball (wrapped with a hand written koan) will trickle down an internal pathway out to the reservoir on the side of the camera. At the end of the day, the bowl can be folded up and any coins can be stored safely inside the camera too. An mp3 chip sounds a continuous recording of lowly crickets chirping to remind the pedestrians of the street of nature.
26. Santoka Taneda - Alms Collecting Camera
atelier ying, nyc.
The wandering zen poet Santoka Taneda fled the world to walk deep into the mountains. At night he would end up at an inn drinking sake, writing down all the poems he composed during the daytime.
Like other similar figures that I come across in my biographical studies, if it weren't for the beneficent people around them, in Santoka's case his publisher, their work would be lost to us.
Here Santoka is given an alms collecting camera. It is in theory a counterweight to his painful life. To the poet who has cast off his worldly possessions and can only be burdened when he is reminded while on the streets of modern conveniences and the ever evolving world moving away from him faster and faster, my design offers him an upgrade. The poet's vengeance here is an amalgam of : a penny arcade mutoscope, a digitized camera, a trance device, and other street elements. His begging bowl is no longer pitiful and antiquated but has the accoutrement all of automata. He holds in his hands a design that attempts to reconcile opposites in poetic fashion--- the lowly amusements with the high minded zen ideals.
A Kodak Brownie Starflash has been modified and converted here to the ergometrics of a homeless person. In true beggar-poet tradition the user lowers his head humbly while standing in the middle of the street, his eyes over the hood of the viewfinder that works through internal porro prisms. The begging bowl, converted from the camera's original flash is an amazement of contrasts. It's silver surface has been lined as carefully as a zen garden with a myriad of carefully cut 3/4" long birch twig fragments. When street people place loose change into the begging bowl they will experience a clear meditation moment as they marvel at the contrast of textures of natural bark with chrome with the copper of their pennies. At the poet's discretion, he can pull a discrete trigger in the back and a gumball (wrapped with a hand written koan) will trickle down an internal pathway out to the reservoir on the side of the camera. At the end of the day, the bowl can be folded up and any coins can be stored safely inside the camera too. An mp3 chip sounds a continuous recording of lowly crickets chirping to remind the pedestrians of the street of nature.