Talk:Provoke (magazine)

"Variously also translated as"

Variously also translated as 'provocative resources for thought', 'provocative materials for thinkers', 'provocative documents for the sake of thought' and 'provocative documents for the pursuit of ideas'

That suggests to me that on the magazine itself, it's not translated. (I've never looked inside a copy of the magazine. Each copy I've seen [in show windows, etc] has said on the front cover "Provoke" [in roman letters], but little or nothing else.)

But the list of issues is formatted in such a way as to suggest that there were two titles. Maybe take the italics away and put the English title in double quotation marks?

I get the impression that back in those days the Japanese post office, or the book distribution system, or both, required publications to have titles in Japanese script. Anyway, various publications had titles in roman letters, and katakana equivalents only inconspicuously, in the colophon. My guess is that this is the case here, too. If so, the primary Japanese title would be "Provoke", not プロヴォーク or "Purovōku". FWIW, the title of the ja:WP article is "provoke (雑誌)", i.e. "provoke (magazine)". -- Hoary (talk) 10:47, 13 January 2015 (UTC)

Do you mean like this, in the lead for example?: "Provoke" (Purovōku, プロヴォーク). I copied the style of using italics from Creative Camera and Album (magazine). -Lopifalko (talk)

Now it's

1. Provoke: Shisō no tame no chōhatsuteki shiryō = Provoke No. 1. Provocative Resources for Thought.

I'm surprised that it was 1. Provoke, but can't check this immediately. I'll assume for now that this is correct. If so, I'd say:

1. Provoke: Shisō no tame no chōhatsuteki shiryō ("1. Provoke: Provocative Resources for Thought")

Maybe I'm just nitpicking, but I see italicized-title equals italicized-title as saying that the publication itself sports one title in one language and one in another (as is very common for Japanese photobooks and magazines). ¶ "But in English we don't have number-then-title!" No we don't, but this is no less strange in Japanese. -- Hoary (talk) 09:02, 14 January 2015 (UTC)

What you say makes sense. I was quoting from the Art Institute of Chicago

These images appear to make a case for 'Provoke 1'. -Lopifalko (talk)

Another source

Here's Ferdinand Brueggemann on Provoke. At first glance this may seem to be just another blogger; but of course it was written for (significant) publication, so it's citable. Good stuff, too. -- Hoary (talk) 02:24, 31 January 2015 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Online Communities

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 January 2023 and 18 April 2023. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Andrew34jack (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Andrew34jack (talk) 02:58, 14 February 2023 (UTC)

Hello Everyone! As part of my Online Communities course, I have added some content into the original article, and incorporated some of the existing content into mine. Please let me know if there are any questions or feedback that you can provide. Thank you. - Andrew34jack (talk) 10:50, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

I noticed that I had neglected to add an edit summary to my most recent edit. I added the sections Historical Background, Purpose of Provoke, Style, and Disbandment. I also moved a paragraph from the original Details section into the Style section. My apologies. - Andrew34jack (talk) 11:03, 9 March 2023 (UTC)

A bit dubious

The article is much improved. Good! However . . . I read:

• Due to rigid standards for art imposed by the communist government that became dominant during the postwar period: For less than one year, Japan had a more or less socialist government. For the rest of the time, conservative, I believe, though I could be wrong. Which communist government was this? (And whichever government it was, did it really impose rigid standards? For some matters -- depiction of the imperial family, depiction of genitalia -- yes. But generally?)
• During a time where the Japanese mediascape was being reorganized around digital and audio-visual media, paper was gaining the perception of being outdated.: True of the 21st century, but what has this got to do with the time of (original) publication of Provoke?
• The first substantial academic investigation into Provoke is Chapter 3 of Fabienne Adler's 2009 Ph.D. thesis "First, Abandon the World of Seeming Certainty: Theory and Practice of the 'Camera-Generated Image' in Nineteen-Sixties Japan" (Stanford University). How do we know that this was the first?

-- Hoary (talk) 05:36, 21 March 2023 (UTC)

Hello? Pinging Andrew34jack. I now have a copy of Kapur's book. Now, where within it is this talk of "rigid standards for art imposed by the communist government"? I realize that there were a lot more constraints than I was thinking of on 21 March; but are the standards you're talking about those imposed by the occupation government, those imposed by the almost uninterruptedly conservative Japanese government, or those imposed by the disproportionately communist art-world functionaries of the time? -- Hoary (talk) 06:34, 2 April 2023 (UTC)

Hello Hoary. My apologies for the late reply. Thank you for taking the time to look through my edits. My argument within the article concerning your second point is that seeing as Provoke put great emphasis on the printing process and using that in itself as a form of expression, it can be taken as a direct opposition to the changing media landscape of the time. As highlighted in Gyewon Kim (2016), so much of the design choices made by members of Provoke arose out of direct opposition to what they were seeing at the time. Including the emphasis on the paper printing process, which was losing its cultural capital in favour of more modern technologies of the time.

In regards to your third point, as I am not the one who wrote that section I am not sure of the answer. But I will look into it.

For your first point, I will look back at Kapur and find out more specifically which party imposed those standards.

On a side note, I am struggling to find people who may be willing to provide some feedback to the article. Are there any areas on Wikipedia or any other Wikipedians I could reach out to? Thank you. Andrew34jack (talk) 02:34, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

I've taken a look at Kapur's book and have identified pages193-194 and 266 for reference. I believe it would be the communist party who had strong control over most of the prominent artistic establishments of the time. I am not well versed in Japanese political history, so I am not sure as to specifically which party Kapur refers to. Andrew34jack (talk) 03:26, 6 April 2023 (UTC)

Thanks for getting back to the matter, Andrew34jack. I'll start by going back to my three questions/suggestions/moans above.

On the commie government (not!): Among the three choices I give above, it's "those imposed by the disproportionately communist art-world functionaries of the time", I believe (although this wording can probably be improved). The JCP set itself up in opposition to both (i) the US occupation government (whose initial work to remove belligerent nationalism and prevent its resurgence was quickly eclipsed by its effort to quash anything, e.g. communism, that threatened to stand in the way of US aims in the Korean war) and (ii) the almost uninterruptedly conservative government. To your page numbers 193–194 and 266 (thank you!), do look again at pp 181–182 and consider adding these to your augmented reference(s).

On the "mediascape": Kim writes (on p 236): Provoke’s inquiry into the nature of paper as a medium [...] also touched the issue of paper’s social meaning and material performance, at the onset of the era of electronic information and mass communication. Paper was considered a medium too classic, humble, bureaucratic, and thus unappealing for creative expression in the late 1960s, at a time when the mediascape of Japan was being reorganized around audio-visual media. No mention there of digital this or that (which is hardly surprising, as two decades would pass from the publication of Provoke before personal computers became at all common). "The era of electronic information and mass communication" and "the mediascape of Japan was being reorganized around audio-visual media" are both somewhat ambiguous, but I'll point out that radio, records and television were all flourishing in Japan in the 50s (let alone the 60s), and photography magazines (both those aimed at photography enthusiasts and those, like the US Life, aimed at the general, casual reader) were flourishing too. I'm not providing reliable sources for what I assert ... but Kim doesn't do so either.

On "The first substantial academic investigation": I suggest simply cutting this. Even if we find a reliable source (RS) to back this up, and we acknowledge that yes, a chapter within an unpublished thesis was the first -- well, I'd like to see what this or some other RS identified as the ground that it thereby broke. ("Bloggs credits Adler with being the first to point out [blah blah]", or similar.)

And let's look at the write-ups for the other examples of academic research:

• "In 2010 a journal article on Daidō Moriyama put his photographic experimentation of the late 1960s and early 1970s in the context of his contributions to Provoke." Sounds very humdrum.
• "Yuko Fujii's 2012 Ph.D. thesis on Provoke was entitled 'Photography As Process: A Study of the Japanese Photography Journal Provoke' (City University of New York)." Yes. And so?
• "Matthew Witkovsky's chapter Provoke: Photography Up For Discussion' in the 2016 exhibition catalogue Provoke: Between Protest and Performance contains new research." Uh-huh. Namely?
• "An article from 2016 by Gyewon Kim proposes that Provoke used paper as a metaphor for the city, thereby critiquing the Japanese state's imposition of homogeneous urban planning and design." For me, Kim's prose -- another sample: "[the Provoke artists'] exploration into various dimensions of the materiality of paper [...] encouraged them to engage in the production of an excess of figural representation that could provide an entry point from which to dismantle the normative system of semiotics" (p 233) -- at times tends to the somniferous. So I may be missing something. But the closest thing I notice is on (p 238), and it's lucid: that in their subsequent book, "[the Provoke photographers'] approach to the city was thus implicitly opposed to the images of organic and functional city promoted by the state." Which isn't close at all. (Yes, she does also write "[Tōmatsu and Provoke] also shared a counteractive vision toward the established national authorities that cast a heavy shadow on lived spaces such as the Shinjuku district, where the different desires of underground artists, strippers, and pedestrians were intermixed" (p 239), but I find this hopelessly obscure.)

I realize that much of this was added by NEGATIVEPOSITIVE, but that doesn't protect it from radical revision, or, if appropriate, deletion. A potted history of academic research could be helpful -- but I think this one needs so much revision that it's better just to remove it. Actual insights in published materials can be incorporated within the article (of course citing those published materials and crediting their authors).

I had intended to address other points as well, but this comment is already more than long enough for now. -- Hoary (talk) 00:39, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

Some more for you, Andrew34jack:

• "Daidō Moriyama joined for the second issue." → "Daidō Moriyama joined from the second issue."
• "This was especially evident in universities, where young people were becoming disillusioned with the political situation." Sourced to a page whose title has got garbled here.
• "Provoke was part of the photographic movement that arose out of the late 1960s and was motivated by the opposition artists had felt towards the traditional powers of Japan." Sourced to a paper that doesn't mention Provoke, and whose only discussion of photography seems to be of its role in the documentation of ephemeral performances and the like (though I may have overlooked something).
• "... mainly through the promise of a brighter future by encouraging increased consumption habits." Sourced to something for which no author is specified. But it turns out to have been written by Hannah Shiohara. Make sure that if a source specifies its author(s), the reference to it does too.*
• "It was during the preparations for the “Shashin 100-nen" (A Century of Japanese Photography) exhibition [...]" Perhaps "It" → "This"?
• "Members of Provoke aimed to change the traditional conceptions of Japanese photography. In particular, they proposed a new direction for documentary photography that was sharply different from their predecessors [... to one that would embrace] a "realism" approach to documentary photography." But in Japanese documentary photography, what was called "realism" (led by Domon) was the mainstream at the time. Some rewording is necessary, to prevent this misreading. (Yes, I know it's a misreading; but I did actually misread it that way.)
• "aggressive grain" → "prominent grain"?
• "industry standards for exposure times, correct temperature for the development process": A bit exaggerated, I think. Perhaps "manufacturers' recommendations for exposure times, developer temperature, and so forth"

HTH! -- Hoary (talk) 05:34, 7 April 2023 (UTC)

I made a few minor changes, mostly shortening the section headings. I will come back after these issues have been resolved. My major thought is: the content could benefit from summarization and copy edits. I'll be back.–CaroleHenson (talk) 02:55, 8 April 2023 (UTC)

I've addressed all your suggestions in the main space, except for one. Regarding the copy edit you suggested for the sentence, "It was during the preparations for the "Shashin 100-nen (A century of Japanese Photography) exhibition, where Taki was able to oversee the selection of hundreds of works by Japanese photographers", I believe the correct word choice would be "It" since I am referring to "where taki was able to oversee the selection..." in the first half of the sentence. Sorry if my explanation is confusing, if you still think it should be changed I will do so. Andrew34jack (talk) 05:54, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

* A bit more work needed on this point (I mean, the one indicated above with a gaudy red asterisk), I think. -- Hoary (talk) 00:47, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm not sure what more is needed for this reference. I have added the author name into the reference. Does anything else need to be included for this particular reference? I've gone and had a look at all the sources that specify authors, and changed the reference accordingly. Andrew34jack (talk) 02:32, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Yes, Andrew34jack, I think that the authors are all specified now. Thank you. The oddity that continues to stand out is Due to these rigid standards for art imposed by the communist government that became dominant during the postwar period, up to the late 1950s. Again, there was no communist government, let alone one that became dominant. (Japan was, and has remained, dominated by one conservative government after another.) -- Hoary (talk) 23:43, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

On the "Academic Research" section, I don't know if deletion of the section is warranted, but I see your point regarding the descriptions of the articles. Perhaps it would be better to simply list the academic articles in bullet points without any descriptions? Andrew34jack (talk) 05:57, 9 April 2023 (UTC)

I'd just delete the section, Andrew34jack, for the reasons I've already given. But perhaps that's just me. You might leave it, and see if anyone else suggests its removal (or removes it): if nobody does, then it can live on. -- Hoary (talk) 00:47, 12 April 2023 (UTC)

I'm uncomfortable with us mentioning or citing the two individuals' theses. WP:RS says "a paper reviewing existing research, a review article, monograph, or textbook is often better than a primary research paper". -Lopifalko (talk) 14:38, 18 April 2023 (UTC)

Which specific papers are you referring to? Andrew34jack (talk) 23:04, 19 April 2023 (UTC)