TEA ROOM WITH NO WORDS / New Sado
These past few years I’ve been interested in non-verbal communication, especially as I continue to work with creators. We often sense the things we would like to say to each other or use onomatopoeia like our director Nagashima. So, I noticed that language is limited. At Konel we’ve utilized our brain waves and begun to investigate communication that no longer depends on words.
NO-ON : Brain Music
This is piece was created by MUTEK JP. We got many reactions from all sorts of stimuli, but the one that got everyone talking the most came from Hosai Mastubayashi.
Matsubayashi is a 16th generation ceramicist who comes from the legendary Kyoto school of pottery, Asahiyaki. Even though we still had not met, I was invited to his solo exhibition and went to Yokohama to have a look.
The first time I saw his artwork I thought to myself, “Wow.” I was speechless. I don’t claim to know anything about ceramics, but still I knew this was a work of art. I remember as I stood before the artist, Matsubayashi, I felt that my words of praise seemed shallow and clumsy.
Matsubayashi also expressed an interest in working with Konel. We talked on and on about tradition, cutting edge technology, art and more, but what excited us the most was deciding to work together on a non-verbal communication project.
The prospect of freeing ourselves of the confines of words in a limited gallery space and trying to express a moment as it is excited us more and more, and we formed a plan.
We focused on “Sado”
Sado is the art of the tea ceremony. In order to preserve the long history and carry on the traditions of this art form, strict methods must be observed. The hosts and guests must read the atmosphere and choose their first words according to their current state of mind while also maintaining an awareness of manners. Young people and foreigners may often accidentally neglect the customs of a tea ceremony simply because they have no previous knowledge of the codes of conduct set forth. So for beginners it is difficult to approach and can make certain people feel uneasy.
Whether impressed or disappointed by the experience, the guest must always end the ceremony with the words “What a fine tea ceremony.”
No matter who is speaking, for the tea master their words are all the same. As long as one can instinctively and intuitively communicate one’s impression of the experience, isn’t that enough?
We carried out our non-verbal communication experiment under the condition of these rigid linguistic constraints.
TEA ROOM WITH NO WORDS
The rules are simple.
- No words will be spoken in the tearoom.
- The guests will be fitted with a brain wave monitor.
- The guests will select from several tea cups from Asahiyaki.
- The brainwaves received from the NO-ON headset will stream into the system. No other sounds except for the “music” from that person will play, and in real time their wordless expression will be carried out.
Beyond these exceptions the tea ceremony will be observed as usual.
12 men and women of varying backgrounds both Japanese and international were invited to participate and partake of Matsubayashi’s tea. There is not yet any scientific verification to our experiment, but we did find that different people created different sounds. (Below is a sample of one person’s results.)
It was an interesting experiment, but it seems that communication which occurred between the master and the guest was something more like a reaction to the environment and the process.
From the guest’s perspective, the experience of sound streaming from their own mind was impressive and fun, but they could only hear their own sounds.
However, for the master, despite receiving and hearing the exact same stream, the simple act itself of just hearing the peaks and the sounds alter depending on the guests was refreshing and new.
The treatment of the tearoom, the teacups, the sweets, and each subtle action of the ceremony are the master’s form of expression. If we assume that this is the feeling that guests get from the experience, then it would seem that the expression of the guest would be their natural reactions to the master’s setting.
Of course, even within the tearoom where words are forbidden, there still exists a certain style. There is a two-way exchange of communication, but there is no way to measure what tastes good to one person or what tastes good to another.
Forbidding words, the inherent objectivity in the form of the tea ceremony creates a unified scale with which to measure, moment by moment, the source of the fluctuation of our brain waves and allows us a relatively creative mode of expression.
Japan and Beyond
The experiment was extremely interesting but there are still a lot of variable factors. I would like to test this outside of Kyoto. If you have a tearoom, would like to experience sado or would simply like to see an interest in Japanese culture expand, please feel free to contact us for collaboration.
