KZNPO opens early spring season
The opening concert on August 28 features Brandon Phillips, has resident conductor of the Cape Town Philharmonic Orchestra on the podium with Japanese pianist Keigo Mukawa as soloist.
Mukawa won the third prize at the Queen Elisabeth Competition in 2021, and the second prize at the Long-Thibaud-Crespin Competition in 2019 and is currently performing in a wide range of solo and chamber music based in Japan and Europe. He has a reputation for performances that explore the stylistic beauty and diverse tone quality of each composer.
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eNCA
2 days ago
- eNCA
Italian Brainrot: the AI memes only kids know
In a Japanese shop selling pocket-money trinkets, there is a rack of toys, stickers and keyrings based on a global crew of AI-generated characters that almost every child knows about -- and very few adults. A walking shark in oversized sneakers, an orange with muscular arms and a twirling "Ballerina Cappuccina" with a mug for a head are among the strange stars of the online phenomenon called Italian Brainrot. "At first it's not funny at all, but it kind of grows on you," 16-year-old Yoshi Yamanaka-Nebesney from New York told AFP. "You might use it to annoy someone and find that funny." The name nods to the stupefying effect of scrolling through mindless social media posts, especially over-the-top images created with artificial intelligence tools. Shouty, crude and often nonsensical Italian voiceovers feature in many of the clips made by people in various countries that began to spread this year on platforms such as TikTok, embraced by young Gen Z and Gen Alpha members. The dozen-plus cartoonish AI creatures have fast become memes, inspiring a stream of new content such as "Brainrot Rap", viewed 116 million times on YouTube. A YouTube Short titled "Learn to Draw 5 Crazy Italian Brainrot Animals" -- including a cactus-elephant crossover named "Lirili Larila" -- has also been watched 320 million times. "There's a whole bunch of phrases that all these characters have," said Yamanaka-Nebesney, in Tokyo with his mother Chinami, who had no idea what he was talking about. School-age Italian Brainrot fans can be found from Kenya to Spain and South Korea, while some of the most popular videos reference Indonesia's language and culture instead. "I went on trips with my boys to Mexico" and people would "crack jokes about it" there too, Yamanaka-Nebesney said. - 'Melodic language' - Internet trends move fast, and Italian Brainrot "hit its peak maybe two months ago or a month ago", said Idil Galip, a University of Amsterdam lecturer in new media and digital culture. Italian -- a "melodic language that has opportunities for jokes" -- has appeared in other memes before. AFP | STR And "there are just so many people in Indonesia" sharing posts which have potential for global reach, Galip said. A "multi-level marketing economy" has even emerged, with AI video-makers targeting Italian Brainrot's huge audience through online ads or merchandise sales, she added. Nurina, a 41-year-old Indonesian NGO worker, said her seven-year-old loves the mashed-up brainrot world. "Sometimes when I pick him up from school, or when I'm working from home, he shouts, 'Mommy! Bombardino Crocodilo!'" -- a bomber plane character with a crocodile head. "I know it's fun to watch," said Nurina, who like many Indonesians goes by one name. "I just need to make him understand that this is not real." Some videos have been criticised for containing offensive messages that go over young viewers' heads, such as rambling references in Italian to "Bombardino Crocodilo" bombing children in Gaza. "The problem is that these characters are put into adult content" and "many parents are not tech-savvy" enough to spot the dangers, warned Oriza Sativa, a Jakarta-based clinical psychologist. - Tung Tung Tung Sahur - The best-known Indonesian brainrot character "Tung Tung Tung Sahur" resembles a long drum called a kentongan, which is used to wake people up for a pre-dawn meal, or sahur, during Ramadan. Indonesia has a young, digitally active population of around 280 million, and "Tung Tung Tung Sahur" is not its only viral export. This summer, video footage -- not AI-generated -- of a sunglass-wearing boy dancing on a rowboat during a race at a western Indonesian festival also became an internet sensation. Noxa, the TikToker behind the original "Tung Tung Tung Sahur" clip, is now represented by a Paris-based collective of artists, lawyers and researchers called Mementum Lab. "Noxa is a content creator based in Indonesia. He's under 20," they told AFP. "He makes fast, overstimulated, AI-assisted videos." "He doesn't call himself a 'contemporary artist', but we think he's already acting like one," said Mementum Lab, which is focused on complex emerging issues around AI intellectual property, and says it is helping Noxa negotiate deals for his work. Noxa, in comments provided by the collective, said the character was "inspired by the sound of the sahur drum I used to hear". "I didn't want my character to be just another passing joke -- I wanted him to have meaning," he said. Cultural nuances can be lost at a mass scale, however, with one 12-year-old tourist in Tokyo saying he thought "Tung Tung Tung Sahur" was a baseball bat. And the generation gap looks set to persist. "What's that?!" laughed a woman as she puzzled at the row of Italian Brainrot dolls. "It's not cute at all!"
The Star
3 days ago
- The Star
The art of restraint redefined in Tokyo's rope studios
In Tokyo, a man watches a woman slowly bind another with ropes attached to chains hanging from the ceiling. But this is no S&M bar, it's a workshop led by "shibari" master Hajime Kinoko. Kinoko teaches the knot-tying techniques of Japanese bondage, untangling the practice from its associations with kink and emphasising instead art and aesthetics. "I see attaching not only people, but also objects or spaces... as a form of painting on canvas," the 48-year-old told AFP at his studio in central Tokyo. "It's simply another type of expression." Kinoko discovered shibari - the art of ropes - in the 2000s while managing an S&M joint in Roppongi, an area of Tokyo known for its nightclubs and bars. "I wasn't particularly drawn to fetishism at first," he said. "At the time, the focus of BDSM was often on the dirty or degrading side, but I didn't see that part of it as necessary," he told AFP. Kinoko learned how to tie a woman's body by watching others before establishing his own style "based on beauty". He started staging performances with a more artistic perspective, and attracted a growing audience. "My goal is not to hurt ... I don't place myself in a hierarchical relationship," he said. - Criminal beginnings - The roots of shibari date back to the Edo period (1603-1868) when feudal lords used "hojojutsu" to tie up criminals. The practice took an erotic turn in the 20th century through Ito Seiu's illustrations and books by Dan Oniroku, many of which became - like "Double Rope Torture" (1985) - pornographic movies. Another word for this in Japanese is "kinbaku" but this "refers to precise and restrictive techniques, such as wrists tied behind the back", Kinoko explained. "Shibari is a broader, freer term. There is no single definition," he said. The artist enjoys marrying the traditional heritage with an avant-garde approach and employing it in novel settings. In Tokyo's Shibuya district, he enveloped an egg-shaped house called the "Natural Eclipse" in blue rope like a spider's web, transforming it into a living sculpture. "It was the missing piece," the owner of the building, who agreed to the project after seeing another of Kinoko's works, told AFP. "Today, passersby stop to photograph it. It has become a place of interaction," he told AFP, declining to give his name. Kinoko installed large cubes of red rope on top of a Tokyo shopping mall and erected a "shibari sanctuary" at the Burning Man festival in the United States in 2017. "Why not stretch networks of ropes around the Eiffel Tower?" he said with a smile. - Create connections - Kinoko began offering workshops in London 20 years ago, before inviting fellow Japanese shibari masters to introduce their art to the European public. "Shibari then spread very quickly," he says. But international success has not been without risk. "When I saw people tying without knowing what they were doing, I realised it was necessary to teach. Shibari can be dangerous," he said. Reputed to be a hard taskmaster, he founded his own shibari school, Ichinawakai, where he trains a new generation of students, around 40 percent of them women. One of them, Sen, travelled from France to learn the techniques. "I discovered him in Paris during a performance... He has freed himself from the original dynamics," the 25-year-old told AFP. Kinoko offers "certification", although this is not an official licence. Students must pass a 10-stage course, master a variety of knots and guarantee the safety of those they are tying up. "You have to know how to communicate, make things beautiful and not hurt. That's what I try to convey. I feel responsible," Kinoko said. "I want shibari to transform society," he said. "Because, deep down, shibari is a way to create connections."
IOL News
3 days ago
- IOL News
The art of restraint redefined in Tokyo's rope studios
This photo taken on May 26, 2025 shows French student "Sen" (L) applying rope on a model during a certification test to become a "shibari" instructor, at the studio of Hajime Kinoko, one of Japan's best-known artists of "shibari" or rope art, in Tokyo. The roots of "shibari" go back many centuries, when Japanese feudal lords used the martial technique of "hōjōjutsu" to subdue criminals in the Edo period (1603-1868). In Tokyo, a man watches a woman slowly bind another with ropes attached to chains hanging from the ceiling. But this is no S&M bar, it's a workshop led by "shibari" master Hajime Kinoko. Kinoko teaches the knot-tying techniques of Japanese bondage, untangling the practice from its associations with kink and emphasising instead art and aesthetics. "I see attaching not only people, but also objects or spaces... as a form of painting on canvas," the 48-year-old told AFP at his studio in central Tokyo. "It's simply another type of expression." Kinoko discovered shibari - the art of ropes - in the 2000s while managing an S&M joint in Roppongi, an area of Tokyo known for its nightclubs and bars. "I wasn't particularly drawn to fetishism at first," he said. "At the time, the focus of BDSM was often on the dirty or degrading side, but I didn't see that part of it as necessary," he told AFP. Kinoko learned how to tie a woman's body by watching others before establishing his own style "based on beauty". He started staging performances with a more artistic perspective, and attracted a growing audience. "My goal is not to hurt ... I don't place myself in a hierarchical relationship," he said. - Criminal beginnings -
