Q01: We found its website, Anarchy.Translocal.Jp, “Polymorphus Space” which was created in November 1995. Comment on the creation of these sites, what is your proposal.
A01: After my commitment to BBS in the 80s and an experimental internet (JUNET, Japan University Net) in the early 90s, I started my own server on the internet which was just available for individual users in 1994. On the JUNET, I was not allowed to control the web server which belonged to the three universities laboratories. After my many cut-and-trys, I had an independent web server and started "Polymorphous Space" in 1995. The basic purpose was for the access users to share the digital space as "polymorphous as possible. Because of the limited peripheral capacity and speed, the initial pages were only for providing unique links and short information of the new politics, arts and network technologies. In relation to Autonomia in Italy in the late 70s, Zapatista movement in Chiapas, Mexico, which provided even the website at the time was a strong resource to me.
Q02: Is the site title related to anarchism? What is your relationship with anarchism? How do you see the anarchist movement between the 20th and 21st century?
A02: The title "anarchy" of my site derived from my own interpretation of the word "anarchy" rather than a relationship with partisan anarchism or anarchist movement. The etymological meaning of "anarchy" is to have no head. This can mean without leader, no hierarchy, and no capital of capitalism. Ideologically, I might have been influenced from the very early activity of Mao Zedong and Li Dazhao, but every attempt of "anarchistic" arts influenced me more in the 20th century.
Q03: You said it is anti-copyright, comment a little on how you see the issue of copyright.
A03: This has a lot to do with my philosophy against/over capitalism. But for the earlier user of UNIX and the internet, open-source and free software were normal. Even password was considered as a symbol of monopolization and egoism. Meanwhile, anti-copyright movement became popular and I welcomed it.
Q04: I would like you to tell us a little about when you started reading Félix Guattari. Which Guattari book impacted you the most? And what can you do from the concepts invented by Guattari and Gilles Deleuze? What concepts did you use most in your life? Anyway, how did you compose with Guattari's philosophy? In this question we also include Gilles Deleuze.
A04: Before reading his books, I became familiar with a couple of articles by him and Deleuze such as "Rhizome" (later into Mille Plateaux) and English-translated articles in Semiotext(e), 1977. But in my earlier approach to Guattari and Deleuze, Kafka Pour une Literérature Mineure was most inspiring and convincing. At the time, I was deeply involved in studying and translating Kafka and wrote a lot of articles on him. My interest in Kafka was not from scholastic perspective but from my interest in media and communications. Their "psychoanalysis" on the characters and Kafka himself opened a new door on "micro politics" and micrology to the details. Later, I noticed that such perspectives had a lot to do with "micro history" deriving from Annales School, though. In terms of using their concepts such as "micro politics", "transversal", and "molecular", they inspired my free radio activity and also my performance art activity in the 80s, which went on together. There was an important "rupture" between my bookish interest in Guattari and Deleuze and my actual usege of their concepts. It was my new finding of Autonomia movement and free radio in Italy in the late 70s. Meanwhile I read Guattari's "Des millions et des millions d'Alice en puissance" in German (Merve Verlag, Berlin, 1977). At the time, there was an "anarchist" bookshop called "Rhizome" in West Berlin and it alwas a gathering place of pirate radio people too. Bifo's Radio Alice in Bologna had a transversal relationship with Berliner free radio. Of course, using concept is not to apply them to practices. It is an actual modification depending on the changing and live situation. For Guattari and Deleuze, concept is to be created. This means that concept is always along with our action, especially physical action. Once I called such a condition as "e-motion". This 'e-' is electronics' 'e-', environment's 'e-', and E=mc²'s 'e-'.
Q05: Do Guattari and Deleuze remain alive in Japanese territory? In what way? What concept ideas stay alive? Are there working groups on the philosophy of Guattari and Deleuze?
A05: As always, fashion has to disappear. But something fashionable remains something resonating.Masaaki Sugimura who translated almost all writings into Japanese and has been still working and organizing books of/on Guattari. There are a couple of accademic societies on Guattari and especially Deleuze and have been holding annual meetings. The tendency of such societies is to try to separete Deleuze from Guattari by exegetical way. Sugimura's approache is very different because he is a long-term activist. His contribution has been inspiring new activityes and interpretaion of Guattari.
Q06: What is Schizoanalysis for you? What can schizoanalytic thinking do?
A06: When Guattari and I talked about Radio Home Run, a free radio station which my old students started in the early 80s, he said that RHR's attempt is a Schizoanalysis. There were many programs and every program was different. But my program called "Saturday Night Virus" would have had something of Schizoanalysis. Basically, in our radio, nobody controled but did respect participants' spontaneity. Anybody were able to join to the program anytime. Sudden telephone call interrupted our talks which then led the main topics. It was a "therapeutic" space as well as a chaos of some sort of talking, eating, drinking, and loving-hating exchanges. You can see some video documents and will understand what's going on.
Q07: There were many Japanese and Brazilians studying with Deleuze, among them we have names like Kuniichi Uno, Suely Rolnik, Daniel Lins, among others. Were you also a student of Deleuze?
A07: When Guattari and Deleuze became famous, I was no more student and also was too busy in media activism and free radio. In the late 70s, I wanted to meet them in person in France but had no chance to go to France. So, it was my great delight that Guattari came to Japan in 1981 for his first trip.
Q08: What made you live in New York? In the interview with Guattari, you say you have lived a lot between Tokyo and New York, I would like to know how you observe the reception of Guattari and Deleuze's works in these places.
A08: I have a long story. Let me summarize it for now. Reading Kafka, I found that he was very influenced from the Yiddish theater. In 1912 or so, Kafka was fascinated by a Yiddish troupe from Poland, which was a kind of performance-art-oriented 'underground' theater and showed their improvisational performance at a cafe in Prague. Meanwhile, I found an interesting book Yiddish Theather in America by David Lifson and finally went to New York to meet him by a cheap flight by myself. The book described that there was a Renaissance of Yiddish theater in New York in the turn of the century and imported various cultures, not only of theater but also of left-wing union cultures. In my brief stay, I had a lot of new findings. There was even a Left-wing Yiddish theatre which Bertolt Brecht went to see as soon as he visited New York in the 1930s. Also, New York was beyond my preposition. As a post-"Zengakuren" generation, I had thought that I would never visit the USA and New York, an Imperialist Capital. The fact was not so. The time of the 70s was the transition to the post-industrial stage and especially New York had a lot of somewhat creative and anarchistic feeling which might break out a "molecular revolution". Therefore my next visit brought me further from the Yiddish theater to the very contemporary themes. In this process I met Peter Lamborn Wilson (Hakim Bey), DeeDee Halleck, Jim Fleming, Sol Yurick, Silvia Federici, George Caffenzis and so on. Without my stay in New York, my life should have been different.
Q09: Do you know Brazil or any country in Latin America? If so, what was it like to have known such territory?
A09: DeeDee (the founder of Paper Tiger Television) introduced me a lot of Brazilian artists and activists. In the 80s, there were strong movements of radio, television and of course wall painting and graffiti there. I wanted to visit there, but had no chance. Instead, I had chances to watch quite many video of what's going on in the video activism there. There is an interesting story: one day of the 80s when we had our radio program at RHR in Tokyo, one guy suddenly visited us. Nobody knew him. He was an Brazilian and came to see me. Someone of the Paper Tiger Television had talked him about our radio. He was interested in a "strategic" usage of media technology. He became famous as the producer of a weird television show on the street. His name is Almir Almas. I wonder how he is now.
Q10: How was the introduction of free radio in Japan? Tell us a little about this story and how the movement has changed with new technologies.
[Q10']Also comment on your projects "Radio Party", "Translocal Palimpsest" and "Radio Kinesonus".
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A10: You understand that I differentiate "free radio" and "radioart". This question belongs to "radioart". So I will copy this to the A12.
In Japan, there was no history of the free radio such as in Italy and France, which started against the State monopoly of the airwaves. From time to time, pirate broadcasting appeared. But if they tried to continue over a couple of days, the authority gave a warning to stop. The effective surveillance system has been developed. And if you neglected it, you had to force to stop or were arrested. This tight control was inherited from the pre-war system to suppress spy activity. The airwaves resources have been so strongly controlled in issuing the licence that even now there are not so much private AM/FM stations on the dial.
Our idea of the Japanese "free radio" (later on it was called as "Mini-FM") started with a simple finding that there was a regulation to let us use very low power transmission without licenses. It was for free-use of wireless microphone, toy transmitter and some TV and garage controllers. But after this regulation was established in the 50s, meanwhile, the sensibility of every FM radio receiver even a very cheap one became possible to receive such weak signals in some limited range. Already toy shops sold tiny transmitters for using such weak airwaves and nerd boys enjoyed some kind of radio broadcasting.
Someday in the late 70s, a light bulb lit up in our head. Is it possible to use such transmitters for our "free radio"? And our experiment surprised us. A tiny toy-transmitter with the strictly adjusted antenna was able to cover 100 meter radius. This could be used for a micro radio station and if we relay one to others we can cover more area without licence. In the process of our experiments, I understood that relaying many small stations is not so easy and also the micro scale is more interesting than covering larger area just as the usual broadcasting. It's a narrowcasting rather than broadcasting.
As this idea was unconsciously popular (especially among nerds), the additional idea of connecting the proper antenna became quickly popular as late as in 1983. Many stations emerged and in the later years the Ministry of Post and Telecommunication (at the time) had to allow private licensed small-watts radio and then had to cripple the regulation for the weak airwaves that we utilized.
Until the authority singled out a "Mini-FM" station, in 1985, which broadcast with a bit higher power for a public punishment and arrested the broadcaster, "Mini-FM" stations increased in number all over the country. There were no central leaders nor institutions. It was a really spontaneous movement.
Even after the repression, stations who found the difference from the conventional broadcasting continued their activity. They didn't care the too small scale of their service and were interested in the different function of micro radio: 'therapeutic' function, "conviviality" (in the sense of Ivan Illich), and uniqueness of remoteness that is now considering in the age of Covid-19.
Q11:How did Radio Home Run come about? Does it still exist? What programs did you develop on this radio?
A11: Radio Home Run was established after my students of Wako University in Tokyo were graduated in 1982. The name is a baseball term but connoted "over the borders". It continued until around 1991 when they became busy in their own jobs and home living. After 1995 when I started the web server, we sometimes had a virtual streaming party by a primitive streaming tools such as RealAudio. From 1998 to 2002, we reunited by the more smoother streaming tools as Net Radio Home Run only once in month. After that, people have been holding their modest annual cerebration.
I was teaching phenomenology at Wako since 1972. At the time, I thought phenomenology was not a discipline established by Husserl but a movement of thought and arts and even politics. Enzo Paci's "Phenomenological Marxism" might have influenced. Since the late 60s, we organized a circle on phenomenology together with philosophers, journalist, critics, artists and activists. So, it was difficult to teach phenomenology as it had been taught in regular universities. Wako was, by the way, no "regular" university. It was established as an experimental university by the 60s' leftists.
In my lectures and seminars, I had a lot of teaching experiments especially collaborating with artists. Also, I brought my students out of the campus to the city streets. But in the almost all period of the 70s I was not happy. After my short visits and my longer stay as a journalist and a researcher in New York, I finally settled down in 1980 in Tokyo. I continued to look for a good way to open up a free radio station in Japan because we needed our own media. My students looked unhappy still then. Their unhappiness seemed to be deepened. One of the reason was the aftereffect of the collapse the student movement in the 70s. As bloody battles between different factional groups and even in the groups themselves escalated and finally activists were executed after the internal strife, dystopia mood covered them. For me, the most difficult thing was let them openly discuss in the seminar. They were too careful about who the other student was. S/he might have participated to the different faction and open talk might cause serious troubles. Silence is safe. In a sense, they were in a self-forced "social distancing".
My many attempts went on in vain. But one day, an idea flushed me. Along with teaching, I was already starting free radio experiments in various places in Tokyo. So, it was easy to bring sets of a portable radio, a tiny FM transmitter and a microphone to my class. The limitation of 50 meters radius was enough for my seminar class room. Interestingly enough, they started to talk hesitantly first but soon spontaneously. The content and what they said is not important. This remote-distancing made them relax and created a virtual community. Later, I articulated it more as a 'therapeutic' aspect of micro radio.
Q12:What is radio broadcasting for you in the 21st century?
Q15: By reading your work in Radio-Art, we can see that you think of radio as art. How do you see the artistic movement in the 21st century? Does radio still exist as art? What is the most extreme possibility of radio and art?
Q10': Also comment on your projects "Radio Party", "Translocal Palimpsest" and "Radio Kinesonus".
A12: Let me answer the question together with Q10' and Q15.
Radio in my strict sense is radiation and radiating. So the internet radio is different in the very form of expression from my radioart. Apparently, airwaves radio seems to be finishing. Internet radio substitutes it. The content is the same or more diverse. The radiating technology is now taken alive in WiFi, mobiles, battery chargers and mere efficient tools. But in these cases, the radiating technology is only used as a conveyance means for the contents. Radiation itself is secondary. So, radioart in my sense is not an art using radio as a music instrument. I differentiate it from my "radio art" as "radio art" or "art radio". Radioart uses airwaves themselves as its indispensable material of expression. It would be radio 'without contents" too. If you are interested in it, I would like you to watch the videos in my webpage and YouTube.
"Radio Party" was named for my earlier experiments of radioart. It's simple. After setting a transmitter on some place and the participants had a picnic to listen to the transmission. Depending on the location, the received signals had fading noises, scratches and interferences from the conventional radio. The participants could make some ensembles and glitches of sounds by moving their position. My original idea is now developed by "radio art" artists such as Ralf Homann in Germany and et. al.
"Translocal Palimpsest" is an attempt to mix and make 'palimpsest' of airwaves in/over local locations. The point is, again, to create new and singular situation of airwaves, not to convey the contents.
"Radio Kinesonus" was a streaming radio station for radioartists. The core of the activity was the live performance to use transmitters, which you could participate at the very event, but the audience could imagine what's happening there by this live streaming and recording.
Q13: In your interview with Guattari, you talked a lot about the relationship between the cultural industry and the repression of free radio. We have observed in this 21st century that social struggles in the digital age are also linked to a kind of war of algorithms, because through them they seek to control all desiring flows, for example directing what we watch, buy, etc. In your opinion, how are molecular revolutions perceived with the new forms of media and interface that have emerged through modern devices? How do you see the advance of repression mechanisms in this century?
A13: I think the Hundred Years War of algorithms and deciphers would become in vain. Fundamentally, algorithm can't be hidden. Quantum computer could enable "digital nudism" anytime soon. It, of course, will not prevent the cipher/decode battle which remains as a rule of game. This situation is contradicted because despite of the total clarity, you are busy in ciphering and decoding. That's the game. Even today, Google, NSA and the counterparts of them hold private and corporate data all over the world. If they intend to intervene into your computer, it would not so difficult. In every city and even in rural areas you have surveillance cameras everywhere. Police could replay the recorded data and catch where you went to and where you are now outside. However, we don't plan to wear 'stealth' cloths. We usualy play a game of "democracy." The difference between democracy and repression is whether the control is invisible or visible, subtle or obvious. The battleground of micro politics is in this invisible and subtle control, and molecular revolution would happen there. However, this revolution is not such as so-called "revolution" which is the "radical" change of institutions and visible formats. Given the micro level of molecular, molecular revolution happens in our individual "body without organs". It's not in the unconsciousness which still belongs to the conventional epistemology. You can't intentionally bring out morecular revolution. It is always and already happening. Guattari once said that "communism" is here and now. It's not a goal of our intentional attempt and enterprise. It happens in our body here and now. What we can do for it is to tirelessly conceptualize it. That's why philosophy is a creation of concept. For Guattari, "molecular revolution", "production of subjectivity", and "creation of concepts" share the same thing.
Q14: What is the situation in Japan in terms of mass media controls? Is there any kind of State intervention?
A14: It seems to me that Japan is a good example that needs molecular revolution most but never happens. The reason is that Japan seamlessly consists of the modern state and the "super" (I would say) states. So it's hard to difference the aspect of state and private sectors including our private lives. Numerous invisible 'wires' form tissues of control. The emperor exists as the symbol of "the unity of the people" over every ruler. But his existence is symbolic and as invisible as possible. It's a central 'vacancy'. The Japan nation has such a vacancy in the core. This helps to hide who the 'subject' is, who the responsible personality is, and who controls us. In a sense, this is a "molecular" counter-control. In this condition, government control and private (commercial) control are unable to differentiate except some emergency orders of the government and aggressive TV spots of private corporations. The 'vacancy' in the core of the emperor system is cloned into the people. So the culture of self-restrain is quite strong. Even without obvious order and explicit advertising, people tend to go into one direction while we are aware of the contradiction. They do not always agree with it, though. So we live in a "schizophrenic" condition.
Q15 By reading your work in Radio-Art, we can see that you think of radio as art. How do you see the artistic movement in the 21st century? Does radio still exist as art? What is the most extreme possibility of radio and art? This question is moved to the Q12.
Q16: At one point in the interview, do you talk about polymorphic chaos in Japan? What was this polymorphic chaos? A16: Did I use it in my Guattari interview? I don't remember.
Q17:In Japan who are the dominant philosophers?
A17: Please see some encyclopedia. Ex: https://thefinancialexpress.com.bd/views/meet-20th-century-japanese-philosophers-1544187585
Q18: Within the sciences, does positivism also dominate?
A18: It's too broad question.
Q19: We would like you to tell us a little about your Western influences, both in philosophy, as in art and literature.
A19: Japan is an isolated country culturally and geographically. After the 300 hundreds-year "autistic" period from 17th to 19th century, modern Japan rushed for the fresh air of the West especially the German. This pattern continues even today. In my childhood, people rushed into the American culture after the WWII. The two streams of German and American cultures inevitably thrust into me. It may be quite natural that after twists and turns, I studied Husserl, Heidegger and Kafka, and then became interested in New York.
Q20: What are your current interests in art, philosophy and literature?
A20: For me, "art", "philosophy" and "literature" are not in the different categories. You can find "art" in "philosophy" and "literature" and vice versa. At the moment, I am interested in the US election where I can find dramaturgy of movies, theater, sports show, burlesque, combat sports as well as various theories of knowledge and scholarship. It provides all sorts of examples in media manipulation and communication strategy, too.
Q21: In your interview, you say that you noticed a relationship between Guattari and Merleau-Ponty. As we know that you taught about this phenomenological line by Husserl and Merleau-Ponty, we were very interested in the question: what are the similarities that you observe between the two authors?
A21: When I had an interview with Guattari in 1981, he told me that he attended Merleau-Ponty's lecture. As usual, he never stopped his speech after my question, and I had no chance to go into this topic. It is quite natural that most of Guattari's generation was interested in Merleau-Ponty at the time. I am very curious what the point of influence from Merleau-Ponty to Guattari was. I suppose it would be about the concept of "subjectivity". As you know, Guattari used to be influenced from Jacques Lacan.
If you compare Lacan's SEMINAIRE in 1964 (for instance "Leçon XVI, 27 mai" and "Leçon XVII, 3 juin") and Guattari-Deleuze's L'Anti-Œdipe (especiallu the first chapter) in terms of 'subject' and 'subjectivity,' you will find this chapter is for their criticisizm against Lacan's argument on subject and subjectivity. I think that in order for Guattari at leaset to overcome Lacanian concept of subject he needed Meleau-Ponty's re-thinking of subject and subjectivity. Along with Merleau-Ponty's some of lectures at Sorbonne in 1949-1952, Guattari should have had read at least La Structure du comportement (1942) and Phénoménologie de la perception (1945) at least.
Q22: In "A Radioart Manifesto", you used Duchamp to say that the horizon between "your hands" and "your mind" has become seamless, but then you say that you would rather forget with your mind than with your hands. What exactly do you mean by that?
A22: I didn't say so but Duchampt did. In my understanding, the point is 'diremption' and complementary of "hands" and "mind". In Guattari-Deleuze term, this has a lot to do with the relationship of "body without organs" and Cartesian "mind". Glenn Gould had 'dystonia' a physical movement disorder because he wanted to play piano as he had in mind. He should have "forgot" music tones that he had in mind and to leave his play to his fingers/hands. This could be understood as a kind of "schizophrenic" disorder in music performance.
Q23: Are you familiar with current 'embedded cognition' research in the field of cognitive sciences, and if so, do you have an opinion on it?
A23: Now that Embodied embedded cognition (EEC) has been forming academic schools, I am less interested in it. But after phenomenology, it is the basic presupposition that every cognition is embodied. In my shallow understanding, EEC seems to ingratiate itsself computer business too much now.
Q24: You say that, when carrying out a micropolitical enterprise in Japan, you had great references from the European continent (such as the newspaper Libération). Have your interests shifted? Do you think that any place today is more prone to these molecular revolutions?
A24:I didn't say "micropolitical enterprise". By the way, Libération was no relevant as late as the late 80s.
Q25: How is micropolitics working today?
A25:This question is too indefinite.
Q26: How do you see Psychoanalysis? Does any psychoanalytical reference be used? Did psychoanalysis have an effect in Japan? Or was there no recognition? Is there any criticism from the Japanese?
A26:This is also indefinite for me.
Q27: What question did we not ask, but I wish it had been asked?
A27: I think I answered too much ;)
Q28: What message would you leave the youth who are engaged in creating another possible world.
A28: Every message can be creative as long as it is reworked, glitched and re-invented. The meaning is not contained in the initial "message" but it itself is ambiguous, multiple and polymorphous. You have to create it. You might inherit how the "message" was expressed, what kind of medium was used, what the material of expression was. In this dialogue, do mind what kind of the form, the language and the medium (for instance printing or web) are used.
Q29: In addition to its great importance on free radio in Japan from the 70s / 80s, I would like to know if you were connected to any student movement in the 1960s? In Brazil, Zengakuren are the best known. Can you tell us about your political participation in addition to free radio? And what is the legacy of the movements of 68 in Japan?
A29: Given that I talked about "micro-politics" and "molecular revolution", I have to say that this question is too general for me to answer.