The Electric Geisha

Educated as a Geisha, Hanayo is an artist of many stories. She was part of theglamorous circles of Tokyo' s entertainment elite for many years before moving toEurope in 1995. In her work the borders between performance and photography blur.
Most of her snaps are taken on the road, it is no less, but a new style of tourist
imagery we are talking about here.
THE MOANS OF passionate couples resonate from the walls of most buildingsin Maruyama-Cho, one of the many 'Love Hotel' areas in the heart of Tokyo.
The streets are thronged with people dashing between appointments - lovers
are not famous for their patience, especially when they are paying bythe hour.
This is where money buys privacy. And privacy provides relief from thefantastic and often garish sights on the crowded streets - phallic towers
adorned with Vegas-style kitsch and the ubiquitous sleaze create a distinctive skylineof 'hybrid' architecture. The area is obviously not designed for residents.
Nonetheless, one building stands in stark contrast to the brilliant commercial
landscape. A single house, in traditional Kyoto-style, stands in the centre of thisneon-lit chaos. This was a home to geishas living many centuries ago. Today, thebuilding seems to be the sole sanctuary in the heart of Tokyo.
This is where I first met the Japanese artist Hanayo. Hanayo chose this
district as her place to live and work. Maruyama-Cho provided a convenientbase for her vocation as both geisha and photo-artist until she left Japan in
1995. While Hanayo received her training in geisha academies, Yutaka Yano, an
editor of one of Japan's most powerful publishing houses, discovered a collectionof interesting photographs belonging to the geisha student. Using her father's oldcamera, Hanayo had captured literally thousands of significant moments from herchildhood. There were so many beautiful and compelling images that Yano decided
to publish them. The collection marked Hanayo's first publication and was entitledHanayome (1995). But before the public discovered Hanayo as a photo artist, she
had already embarked on the career for which she had been formally trained.
The Body as Art .
The education required to become an accomplished geisha requires discipline
and talent. Firstly, a geisha needs to perfect the art of traditional Japanese singingand dancing. Also, a geisha must study strict rules of etiquette - for example, howand when to bow. This is a valued skill in Japan, one which is called upon when ageisha is obliged to entertain the country's leading politicians and other VIPs. The
education period itself is long and demanding. For some women, like Hanayo, it canprove too tedious, so they occupy themselves with other activities. Some join aband . Others become models. Not long after starting her training, Hanayo started
appearing intelevision commercials and on talk shows. Naturally, she would wear her geisha
kimono, while acting like” Amanda de Cadenet on acid" ('Japan's New Generation',The Face, April 1993). This bizarre image was not only a shock for the Japanese.
Her look enthralled the likes of Jean Paul Gaultier, for whom she eventuallymodelled, as well as the editors of The Face magazine, who dedicated a cover story
to the Hanayo phenomenon. If, historically, geisha referred to the act of turning one'sbody into art, then Hanayo became the best contemporary example of such adefinition.
This story may read like an Arthur Golden narrative. However, the imageof a geisha is an enduring one that continues to sell, especially in the West. If that
fantasy is further embellished with elements of science fiction, the end product sells
even better. As various cultural artefacts attest – from Yellow Magic Orchestra's firstalbum in the early '80s to futuristic pornography in the late '90s - the electric geisha isessentially a romantic image, in which historical continuity and cultural coexistence
are reaffirmed. Ancient Eastern cultures fuse perfectly with Western hi-techmodernism. But has the role of the woman behind the geisha become increasinglymarginalised? For Hanayo, being reduced to an image or object of desire is also aform of performance. Hanayo has accordingly used her photographs as a personal
interrogation of the geisha myth(s).
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Geisha Unplugged
When Hanayo moved to Europe it was not her intention to leave Japan permanently.
In fact, she left many assets behind - fans, contracts, new projects and the clamorous
Tokyo media. Needless to say, she encountered new levels of cultural reductionism.
It was obvious from the outset that she would serve as another image, an Oriental
Asian stirring up Caucasian Europe, an exotic accessory for Western consumption, a"vapid dolly " (her phrase and one that eventually became the name of her first bandin London, in volving musicians from Daisy Chainsaw).
When touring with her band, Hanayo plays the role of the performance singer,
with the emphasis on performance, rather than on the act of singing itself. Styles varyfrom Neo Glam Rock to Techno Noise, which brings us to Alec Empire and Hanayo's collaborations with his DHR label mates. Imagine a dense wall of noise triggeringfragile fragments of apocalyptic atmosphere in DAT format, and then a dancer,
dressed in sixteenth century feudal fashion, performing a riot dance of contemplativeyoga. Of course , Hanayo has performed similar concerts in Japan, with people like
Massami Akita and Violent Onsen geisha. But only in Europe did this approach attainan unprecedented level of deconstruction. Here it is geisha unplugged, geisha
burning and falling into pieces, an S & M ritual, satanic and naive, unique.
In many of the photographs displayed in Hanayo 's exhibitions, she is dressedin traditional geisha costume. Through self-parody, she gradually began to reclaim
her image. She challenged the power of the objectifying gaze by abandoning the roleof a passive art/aesthetic body (the geisha). A period of deconstruction followed. How
ever, it is significant that her self -portraits stem from different time periods andproduction contexts. I remember a series of articles in the trendy Japanese magazine
Studio Voice, in which she regularly visited a variety of celebrities in their homes.
This feature became an eagerly awaited ritual and always ended with everybody
gathering in front of the camera and adopting a big smile. Then came Hanayo 'sTravels, set in the biggest metropolis in the world, with the geisha exploring,entertaining and even moon walking. The project references her time spent working
in geisha clubs , the only difference being that her encounters are made public. Yet,the most interesting aspect in all of her work is there curring theme of travel. In fact,
her photography can be viewed as an alternative form of the travel diary. Consider, in
this respect, another cross-cultural stereotype: the Japanese tourist.
Interiorising the Exterior
If travel is a central motif in Hanayo' s work, the links between her alluring andunassuming snapshots and herself- portraits become clear. The act of performance performing a photographer, and/ or a photographic subject - establishes a deeper

connection between the two genres. In more recent pictures, which Hanayo has been
exhibiting in Europe, she poses in a more detached manner, holding her daughter
Tenko (a frequent subject in her work). Both are dressed in traditional Japanese
costume - a perfect family photograph, minus father. Yet, according to Japanesetradition, the absence of the father is somewhat disturbing. No family photograph iscomplete without the head of the family. In these photographs Hanayo returns thecamera/viewer's gaze while locked in a myriad of thoughts inaccessible to the viewer.
The traditional geisha image is pushed to its limits.
The indistinct contours of a puppet caught in a net, an erupting volcano in theback- ground; graffition a wall with a phantom head emerging from the centre; aChinese theatre group during rehearsal on an open-air stage, captured from a bird 'seye view. All these photographs are out of focus, which might be taken to signify arejection of the return of realism in the age of digital reproduction. But thephotographs are also presented as spontaneous snapshots, despite the fact thatseveral of them are consciously staged - one of many paradoxes inherent in
Hanayo's work, The end product of 's snapshot-photography' is usually more excitingthan its producer. It is the moment, the place, the event, or the face that isremembered, rather than the person who has seen and captured it. The
photographer could be anyone. So snapshot photography could easily be considered'unauthored'. It could be argued, therefore, that Hanayo's work, appearing in books
and exhibitions, emerges from an archive without a genre code.
At first glance, her photographs take the form of 'domestic snapshots' of pets,
dolls, toys, and even the television screen. Yet it is only the 'sense' of interior, not theinteriors themselves, that the artist has captured. If you take a closer look, you realisethat many pictures depict exterior scenes. This encourages us to read Hanayo's
approach as one of interiorising the outside world. This is how the original subject
comes into play again. Furthermore, these supposedly 'unauthored' images, eventhose depicting recognisable characters, are more than mere documentation. For
example, Christoph Schlingensief, a fellow theatre activist, appears in juxtaposition
with imaginary landscapes of floating colours and forms.
It is not only a highly subjective territory that Hanayo unveils, but also one thatis fantastic. Through her camera filter, her subjects turn into virtual objects, imaginary
architecture, phantasmagorical sites. Taking into account that most of her
photographs are taken 'on the road' or on tour, her art is not just a new style of tourist
imagery, but an alternative poetics of performance.
- Krystian Woznicki- nu: the Nordic art review