4 and 1/2 Minutes, or the Average Time it Takes a Tokyo Resident to Reach a Convenience Store

Delano Greenidge Editions is pleased to announce the November 2003 release of 4 1/2 Minutes or: The Average Time it Takes a Tokyo Resident to Reach a Convenience Store-an experimental city book by artist Sean Snyder.

Neither travel guide nor traditional photo-essay, 4 1/2 Minutes layers Snyders original photography with manga comics, video and popular advertising to form a stunning visual composite of 21st-century Tokyo.

Major landmarks such as Tokyo Tower take their place among anonymous corporate plazas, shopping districts, and suburban apartment buildings. Stills from a monster movie join urban vistas from the panels of a graphic novel.

By drawing attention to Tokyos real and imagined architecture, Snyder provokes the Western understanding of modern Japan. The depiction that emerges is a multi-layered portrait of one of the worlds most enigmatic cities.

From the Introduction by Sean Snyder:

Tokyo is constantly transforming and dissolving in photographic, animated, and virtual representations. The one hour and forty minute ride from Narita airport displaces any preconceptions a western visitor may have about Japanese culture. A cognitive placelessness occurs due to overlapping visual references from elsewhere. The most dominant characteristics of the city are not its copied landmarks, but its interconnected flows of electricity, communication and transportation.

Above ground utility lines, elevated subways, urban rails, high-speed trains and the Metropolitan Expressway connect Tokyo with the rest of Japan. Auto navigation systems connect the vast expanses around the city through an endless network of transaction points-convenience stores, fast food restaurants, gas stations and shopping centers.

Fantastic architecture is everywhere: Pachinko Parlors, Love Hotels, and Theme Parks. The depictions of foreign cities shown on late-night Japanese television without commentary and free tourist brochures with collaged continents merge with Tokyo's built environment. New towns, such as Tama New Town/ Tama Center in suburban Tokyo, combine hybrid western/Japanese and futuristic urban design with stylized symbols from the world's great civilizations.

This book is intended as a visual narrative of the hybrid and non-Japanese aspects of the built environment and cultural landscape of Tokyo and its periphery. The city is deciphered through iconography and economic networks interpreted from a western perspective. The ephemeral imagery is collected from advertisements, printed material, television, computer software and games, and digital photographs to create a sample composite of the city's surface."

Sean Snyder was born in Virginia Beach, USA in 1972. He studied at Boston University and lives in Berlin. Recent exhibitions include GPS: Global Positioning System" at Palais de Tokyo in Paris; Living Inside the Grid," at New Museum in New York; Manifesta 98 in Rotterdam, and the Berlin Biennale. 4 1/2 Minutes is his debut publication.

Pub date:    November 2003            
Dimensions:   176 pages, 17 x 24 cm (6.7 x 9.4 in.)
Subjects:    Art/Photography/Tokyo/Urbanism/Architecture/Cultural Studies
Illustrations:   141 images in color and b/w
Price:      $24.95/€29.95/17.95
ISBN:       0-929445-19-8            

Distributed by Delano Greenidge Editions in North America, Airlift Book Company in the UK.
Call+1 (917) 492-8014 for more information.

Advance galleys and images are available on a limited basis. For book requests, images, or further inquiries, please contact Arthur Fournier at ajfournier@thing.net or by telephone at +1 (917) 492-8014.

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Based in the village of Harlem in New York City, Delano Greenidge Editions is an independent publisher of visual books. For more information, please e-mail dge@thing.net.