Ueda Akinari

Artful Senescence

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• published: 06 Sep 2014
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A visual tone poem by Smithi Skunnawat I really enjoy tea and how much it is not only a culinary craft, but a performance art. It is visually stunning to see a tea expert pour water the absolute correct way, and timing. How nimble the fingers are when equally getting the richness of the tea into each different cup. The feeling of tasting tea, the feeling of its aroma rise onto your face, and the aftertastes are all influenced by how quickly one pours, and how much water one pours. The differences are so minute that it takes years to truly master one's ability to recognize such tastes, but taking my first sip gave me a small, but enough of a glimpse to see what tastes are to come as one keeps studying the tastes of tea. Though I cannot flee From the world of corruption, I can prepare tea With water from a mountain stream And put my heart to rest. ~Ueda Akinari This visual tone poem contains mostly close-ups, because although the room is spacious, every tea ceremony, I felt myself narrowing my vision to only the tea. The use of montage may prove a little elusive, because it deviates from the findings of Sergei Eisenstein, the original pioneer of the montage, and I employ Japanese cultural understandings of these images instead. The formalism of color that I chose is one of saturated tones. Not only is this aesthetically pleasing, it truly speaks to tea's effects on the mind. Tea reveals a world of greyness, and clarity. It is an indescribable feeling, and even the greyscale images do not do that feeling justice. The grey does not represent less emotions, but the grey represents an ability to feel so much while sensing so little. The world dulls itself, and the senses sharpen. Lastly, the imagery of pouring water speak to how natural tea is. Water pours naturally, the turning of leaves is reminiscent of nature, and the final voice-overs say it best: I think tea is as close as humans will ever get to the art of natural growing things. It is also the inspiration for the name: Artful Senescence, senescence meaning the deterioration of things. Tea is usually left to ferment or at least age in some process that may not scientifically be fermentation, and in the aging it is, from a certain perspective, dying. But this slow death is artful, for it creates different aromas and stimulates the senses in a way that opens the mind, thus it is an artful senescence. The teas used are all from DoubleDogs Tearoom in Chinatown in Bangkok, Thailand. Gyokuro tea is used in the video, after the 3 recommended infusions, I placed it into a cold brew in a glass for that shot, and the taste actually turned out pretty good, almost like unshaded Yame Sencha, which by the way, is my favourite.