It was for three years from 1998 to December 2000 that I worked with Mr. Tomiyama.

The title of Asahi Journal's "The Sense of Modern Languages (Gendaigo-kan)," originally a project of Tadashi Iizawa, changed often and rolled between popular magazines such as Central Review (Chuo Kouron), Camera Mainichi, and Taiyo before finally becoming the "New Sense of Modern Languages (Shin Gendaigo-kan)" in Monthly Modern Times (Gekkan Gendai) at the end of the century. It was then that I was chosen as a writer by Mr. Tomiyama.

The era is summarized with a single word, and the writer and photographer did their best to express themselves from their own perspectives. At random, I mention previous great writers such as Kiyoteru Hanada, Mitsuharu Inoue, Kobo Abe, Ayako Sone, and Kenzaburo Oe and cannot help but question why I would undertake the position of successor of the series. However, I audaciously enjoyed serializing. When looking over the materials again, the first word I was given was "Pikachu." The significance of this is different compared to the previous great writers' "Rosen (Route)," "Rentai (Coupling)," "Shuso (Supplication)," "Kyoyo (Tolerance)," "Kenjin (Sage)," "Kamitsu (High Density)," "Kachi (Value)," and "Tenkan (Transition)." I took up the issue in a case in which children who had seen the animated cartoon had convulsions, and I wrote that we can only live in a world that has such a flickering relationship between an illuminant and our eyes, because the illuminant known as a TV screen or computer monitor has become an interface vital to the human race. If we think about it, this 'flickering' is perhaps a characteristic of the Heisei era. It is an era when there is constant connecting and disconnecting and in which stories cannot be continuously written. It is an era when perspective cannot be grasped and in which only the flickering of lights exist. In a world in which everything is being digitized, one cannot help but dissect even each moment of wallowing in grief, and if one wishes to go on resisting that, he has no choice but to maintain connections by sheer force of will. Actually, it would be inaccurate if we fail to point out there is also an ultimate recklessness in progressing while diving into the midst of such 'flickering' and striving to think beyond the speed of digitization.

In 1996, two years before I began "New Sense of Modern Languages (Shin Gendaigo-kan)," Mr. Tomiyama had already decided to strive to think more quickly than the speed of digitization. This is because Mr. Tomiyama used a digital camera for the photo album entitled Zen Training, containing pictures of the innermost parts of Eihei Temple (by the way, one of the first digital pictures is commemorated in the photo album on page 61). Mr. Tomiyama used Canon products, which had just been developed, and he made a copy of all photos with resolutions of 1.3 million pixels, grainer than current photographs. Mr. Tomiyama appealed to people with his photographic collections.

When asked, Mr. Tomiyama simply answers with the gruffness typical of a Kanda-born Tokyo native, "It's so dark, the image can only be recorded with a digital camera." As an experienced photographer, Mr. Tomiyama, who would be 61 that year, has discarded accumulated technology without regret and easily set foot in unknown territory.

Mr. Tomiyama continues to be situated on the cutting edge of the hour-by-hour development of digital cameras. I actually visited his home the other day and saw the arrangement of computer equipment surrounding Mr. Tomiyama, who invited me from the living room to "Please come in." I saw Apple LCDs, several Macintosh G4s, various media equipment that I had never seen before, and well-arranged cables. These were splendidly stored beside a comfortable-looking kotatsu (heated low table), and immediately upon peering into a back room, I could see a high-precision printer piled with other equipment. Perhaps, there were more extraordinary digital devices situated in places I would not see. If one wishes to "connect the meanings by sheer force of will to wallow in grief," one may as well shut himself up in a darkroom and insist on developing pictures. Insistence on analog may also be one approach, but Mr. Tomiyama did not do that. He willingly digitized his work, and he easily accomplished-in my words-the ultimate audacity of striving to think beyond the speed of digitization.

I believe that Mr. Tomiyama's attitude-which does not grow dark with grief, would rather place the body in the flow of the world and escape serious situations by a hair-comes from his essence as a photographer. We can naturally and clearly understand this by viewing the photographs he has continued to take. No matter which example, they are all the same. For example, for the theme of 'Traffic War,' he pictured men who extend their necks by orthopedic surgery or Shinto priests walking over an overpass. Such pictures do not even portray traffic accidents or even a car, but the pictures nevertheless express the theme with humor and slight bitterness.

Mr. Tomiyama said that the work he has been doing has been satirical. Yet, generally speaking, those who make satirical jokes usually never place their bodies in the flow of the world. They see the world from a distance rather than accepting things head-on and then criticize. It is clear that Haruo Tomiyama is different from them, because he went forward into the flickering digital world. If I were to use the previous example to explain this, he thoroughly pondered 'Traffic War.' Furthermore, he secretly immersed himself in the subject, and in the very end, he resolves a situation humorously. Mr. Tomiyama is striving to surpass the speed of digitization in the midst of a digital world, always forcing himself into the center of the era of the world while simultaneously seeking to shake off that very era or world.

Haruo Tomiyama debuted as a professional in 1961 (the year that I was born), which was a year after he set up his camera on the roof of the Prime Minister's Office when the Kishi Cabinet approved the Japan-U.S. Security Treaty, and Mr. Tomiyama surprised the world with his series "The Sense of Modern Languages (Gendaigo-kan)." As he said, "The time in which I actually take pictures is quite short." The images evoked from a particular word must have already been completed within his mind and afterwards been realized through a machine.

Mr. Tomiyama has surprisingly continued that process for 45 years. In other words, he sought to always be in the midst of the era and the world, and at the same time shaking off that same era and the world.

We may have to call these movements themselves that are so characteristic of Haruo Tomiyama, "The Sense of Modern Languages (Gendaigo-kan)." Actually, Mr. Tomiyama says this:

If I photograph them, they all become "The Sense of Modern Languages".

I am honored to have been able to reach the end of the 20th century with the movements of Haruo Tomiyama.

Itou Seikou