Imitating Litter
I fear we’ve been neglecting the arts. We must correct that immediately, lest we be mistaken for heathen savages. And so, via Mr Treesong, here’s Los Angeles choreographer Shoji Yamasaki and his mimetic convulsions:
Shoji Yamasakı is a pertormance artist behind the ongoing project Littered Mvmnts. He studies trash caught in the wind, and translates their erratic movement into precise, choreographed performances. pic.twitter.com/y7IpjgT2pC
— Interesting As Fuck (@interesting_aIl) January 24, 2026
Hey, you’ll get what you’re given and like it.
Mr Yamasaki describes himself as,
Which perhaps tells us much of what we need to know.
As the Littered Mvmnts project, of which the above is but a sample, is ongoing, additional convulsions can be had here.
Details of Mr Yamasaki’s other, less acclaimed works are also available.
Consider this an open thread. Share ye links and bicker.
I can think of something worse than watching his convulsions:
Actually being inside his head.
I have previously suggested punishing felons with Yoko Ono performances. Yamasaki could be used for misdemeanors.
Eric S Raymond on Zawinski’s Law:
I propose Thompson’s Law:
TBH, my mind went straight to cat litter, not trash. I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to conjure up images of that.
TBF, he is not imitating litter.
At first I thought it would be something in this vein, but litter guy takes himself WAY too seriously.
There was a reason for that.
I believe that the Charlie Brown v Lucy Van Pelt in regards to Charlie always trusting Lucy one-more-time is the perfect analogy.
It’s not entirely unfunny, though the joke soon wears thin. And I wouldn’t call it art. I also very much doubt that Mr Yamasaki’s convulsions will have any discernible effect on the amount of litter in Los Angeles or anywhere else. So the ostensible purpose of the thing is unconvincing.
And as you say, the quoted self-description pretty much evaporates any goodwill.
PARKLIFE!
Heh. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable describing myself as a “creative,” let alone a transdisciplinary one. And it’s worth noting how Mr Yamasaki feels a need to stress his racial characteristics, as if that were a matter of pivotal importance. The reason for paying attention or handing over cash.
Would buy it.
Dramatic indeed.
The “Twilight” actress revealed in an interview with The Times that she’s cultivating her directorial career around being able to create films in Europe because she “can’t work freely” in America.
“Reality is breaking completely under Trump,” she said. “But we should take a page out of his book and create the reality we want to live in.”
“I can’t work freely there,” Stewart said. “But I don’t want to give up completely. I’d like to make movies in Europe and then shove them down the throat of the American people.”
The problem, she argues, is Trump and capitalism. Hollywood needs more Communism. You know, to shove art down the throats of the American people.
“I think we need to start stealing our movies,” says she.
Still, it must be quite stressful when you can’t hope to conceal how hackneyed and tedious your supposedly radical thoughts are and how fundamentally obnoxious you are as a person.
Poor lamb.
Well sure, there is bound to be one in every crowd.
The fine dining experience.
Not entirely unrelated. Or, Questions Asked.
John Derbyshire, from going on 14 years ago.
I am going to defend this one. Unlike other artists featured previously, there actually was some thought put into getting the viewer to understand the idea, and it was a bit clever. He didn’t crawl around on the floor yowling, leaving only the program description to inform the viewer that the performance was meant to protest the extinction of trans dinosaurs. And unlike some who put a vacuum cleaner in plexiglass and call it a day, or throw a crucifix in urine for kicks, I feel like something creative was attempted. It isn’t for everyone and maybe he takes himself too seriously, but at least there was some art. In the genius costuming if nothing else.
There’s evidence of observation and it is, very briefly, funny, or almost funny. It does, I think, fare better than, for instance, these feats of self-absorption.
sanctuary: a refuge for wildlife where predators
arearen’t controlled and hunting is illegalI’m rapidly coming to detest websites that use interstitial pop-ups that immediately obscure what you’re hoping to read.
I mean, dear lord, let me finish one sentence before asking me if I want to subscribe to yet another newsletter to clutter up my inbox. Based on a fraction of a second glimpse of whatever it is, how the hell would I know?
[ Muttering, orders more breakable vases. ]
National Review won’t even show you one word before subscribing.
(Although I grew reluctant to give them one fucking cent after they un-personed John Derbyshire and kicked Mark Steyn to the curb.)
Weather update for Canadians and Americans.
It’s the automatic pop-ups / pull-downs that obscure half or more of the page that chap.
[ Passes vase. ]
You jest, but Bryan Lunduke has been chronicling just how batshit insane the open source community has become over the last few years. Some very promising new projects and some venerable standbys have become completely infected by loons and troons, and the old school programmers who actually cared about altruistically producing high quality software are leaving projects – often projects they themselves started – because of it.
This is where I look askance at ESR. He’s been conspicuously silent on this topic, because he has to be. He was instrumental in promoting open source Back In The Day and acknowledging that the movement can and has been ideologically captured means that much of his arguments for the alleged superiority of giving your work away for free turn out to be bogus.
Don’t get me started on pop-up and pop-under ads.
Buttery goodness.
If anyone’s getting aroused by this thread, I’m upping the price of the drinks.
Speaking of art…on a previous thread someone mentioned short films from the classic SNL era of the 70’s where actors were filmed innocently pushing a button and a building in the background falling down. So…out to dinner the other night to a rooftop restaurant. Wife pushes this button and fears she signaled the fire department. In her defense, I started seeing these things long ago on newer buildings and my first thought was of those short films.
I’m guessing this was in a lift? Or is your dear, long-suffering wife in the habit of pushing random buttons, the purposes of which aren’t entirely clear to her?
*watches for third time*
Show of hands if you didn’t see that coming. The technological(ly focused) equivalent of Wikipedia.
Well, outside the “lift” (some parts likely made with a-looo-minum) yes. And sometimes yes to the second part as well. Tho I suspect the slightly off the vertical up button was a factor as well. So many useless/pointless buttons and popups anymore it’s becoming human instinct to just push them. Gotta push two or three buttons starting the car just to get the bloody thing to leave us alone.
Whenever you go out for a fancy meal, make her wear oven gloves. The really bulky ones that are linked together. That should inhibit any random button-pushing.
Don’t tell her I said that.
It does, I think, fare better than, for instance, these feats of self-absorption.
I was waiting for a reference to that Sandrine person! Besides the linked activities, and the automated door and hand drier activations, isn’t she also the one who seemed to always be head down ass up whenever she was linked here? I seem to recall her having her head buried in a pile of dirt with her ass in the air in one link.
But the one inflicted on us which I can never unsee, and which haunts me every time performance art is mentioned, is the one where she was in downward facing dog, ass to the camera, squeaking her sweaty feet in her shoes. It was a many-layered revulsion, and I regret clicking the link to this day. I know, no refunds, credit note only. Remind me again why I have rattled the tip jar on occasion?
That was Ms Nika López.
That would be this one, I believe.
No, don’t thank me.
Because that’s what all good-hearted people do.
[ Slides tip jar to prominent position, adorns with fairy lights. ]
From the comments:
And now, thanks to DOGE, Data Republican, and others, we now see that the situation is vastly worse than it seemed in 2018.
And then there was the business with the powdered cheese.
Soak up that culture, you savages.
It’s becoming increasingly obvious that most of the modern-day insanity was funded largely or entirely by unwitting taxpayer dollars. Much of the open-source movement, as it turns out, was being funded through cutouts that trace back to USAID. Now that that funding is gone, many pillars of open source are teetering.
Like, say, Python.
Let me get my hazmat gear.
As I said in the original thread, I’d been blissfully unaware that powdered cheese was a thing that existed.
I was reliably informed by someone in the lift/elevator industry that most “close door” buttons do nothing, at the time the industry was known for its safety and they didn’t want some numpty screwing that up with an inopportune door squishing.
powdered cheese
Trump’s enemies take him literally but not seriously, while Trump’s supporters take him seriously but not literally.
Take this as a reminder that very smart people can be very stupid.
All modern art is trash. This is merely the confirmation.