What does it mean to write? Writing is a very simple task one can do with only a pen and paper. And yet, the possibilities are endless. This popular series from last year comes back with a new lineup of interviewees. To everyone who is involved in writing on a daily basis, what does it mean to write?

What does it mean to write?

Yasuhiro Suzuki【1】
SEASON2 vol.7
Yasuhiro Suzuki

A giant transparent human figure floating in the air. A zipper-shaped ship whose wake creates the illusion of the water unzipping behind it. Yasuhiro Suzuki is an artist whose projects focus on discovery and beauty, taking an everyday sight and creating a whole new appeal, and his works begin as simple illustrations. These hand-drawn charts and explanations often accompany his exhibitions. What does it mean for someone like Suzuki to write?

ProfileYasuhiro Suzuki

Born in Shizuoka in 1979, Suzuki graduated from the Department of Design at Tokyo Zokei University. He has created a number of works that offer a new and unique perspective of daily life, including Blinking Leaves, Aerial Being, and Ship of the Zipper. He works at the Musashino Art University Department of Scenography, Space and Fashion Design as an associate professor, and at the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology at the University of Tokyo. His art collections, including Blinks and Flutters and Neighborhood Globe, are published by Seigensha, and his picture books, including My Nyanta and Apple and Kendama, have been published by Bronze Shinsha.

Homepage
Twitter: @mabataku

Table of Contents

Cultivating Coincidence in a Set of Notebooks

ーー
What do you usually use to write?
Suzuki
I always use this pen. I’ve got a ton of them, and when I use them up I collect the empty ones.
ーー
Why do you keep them?
Suzuki
I swap them out when the ink starts to dry up, and since they’re still technically usable I can’t bring myself to throw them away quite yet. It’s interesting to see them pile up, too—ah, yes, here we go.
ーー
Wow, that’s a lot!
Suzuki
They’re about 150 yen each, so I always feel comfortable using them. If I had a really expensive fountain pen I’d be worried about taking it with me; if I lose or forget one of these I’d just assume someone else might be able to get some use out of it, like one of those clear disposable umbrellas people sometimes leave at the front of the store. I used to use a variety of line widths, but for the past ten years or so I’ve settled on 0.3 mm. It seems like the best fit for me.
ーー
One of your projects is a video made from your notebook pages.
Suzuki
Ah, yeah.
ーー
Your artwork and your sketches feel very confident, like you know exactly what you want to do. But when I saw that video, I could see all the times you paused while you were writing.
Suzuki
Yeah, I suppose. It’s interesting—in my head I felt like I was working through everything I wanted to do before I ever set pen to paper. I experienced it as working really quickly, like when one samurai slashes through another one so fast he doesn’t even know he’s been hit. But it sounds like it didn’t seem that way to the people watching!
ーー
Yeah. (Laughs)
Suzuki
I was impressed at how much time I was given to think about it just in the time it took to pull my notebook from my bag, take out the pen that I’ve always got tucked in the book, remove the pen cap, and look for an empty page to write in. It made me really glad I didn’t use a quick retractable pen.
ーー
Where do you usually write?
Suzuki
I write anywhere—so much so that I’m almost more comfortable writing while standing up. I write a lot while I’m riding the train, or waiting for it on the platform. I had an acquaintance tell me once that they saw me on the train, and when I asked what I was doing they told me I was just writing in my notebook.
ーー
So you’re just always writing. (Laughs) When you say you look for an open spot in your notebook, does that mean you don’t use your pages in order?
Suzuki
Yeah. Writing one page at a time does make everything feel organized and chronological, but it felt too stifling for me, so I stopped. I’ve got hundreds of notebooks now, but they’re not in any particular order. I really just pick out the notebook I’ll use for the day by pulling one at random and paging through it to see if it looks good to use.
 
By paging through the notebook, I can collect some different images in my head, like whatever happened to be on those old pages was exactly what I needed to see now. Sometimes it’s like I’ve taken notes for my future self, or left myself a letter.
ーー
So it’s like every notebook is an anthology of coincidences.
Suzuki
Yeah. I’m kind of doing what I can to generate those connections, because I almost never come up with something by just thinking carefully about it. It’s a way of cultivating coincidence.

(To be continued)

SEASON 2

SEASON 1

photos:eric