Visual culture Jam promotes a meeting between London and Tokyo

Jam's poster/divulgation with Paul Simon's drawing

The first Jam happened in 1996, inspired by the idea of "jam session" - an informal meeting among different musicians, which renders improvisation, exchange and unique moments of creation. Joining fashion, video, music, photography, media, graphic arts and new technologies (whew!), for the first time, a big institution like the Barbican blended so many and so different languages.

This time, Jam has come to blend even more, because it celebrates a meeting between Tokyo and London. Defined as a concept the "cosmopolitan culture globalisation at the beginning of the new millennium", the exhibition shows a selection of British and Japanese talents. From drawing to photography, from television to computer, from street fashion to dandy, crossings, dialogs and contrasts are just some of the multiples trajectories the exhibition proposes.

Fashion people in the tube. Paul Simon's drawing in exhibition at Jam.

The mix of languages and media enriches the result: there is fashion designer making video, sculptors with an eye in streetfashion, musician exposing objects. And it is that the Jam's great merit.. As the designers of the 68/76 brand say, "we're going round movies and web sites. To make just clothes, is something which can take you to the insanity, mainly in London, where everybody is crazy about getting the ideal look. We try to mix and add details to the clothes which can make the people think."

And as the street fashion is a strong point, besides the exhibition of fanzines and magazines, music selected by DJ's and the explicit aesthetic influence from the clubs and pubs' flyers, the crossings are made in other and several senses. The Paul Davis' drawings hand over immediately to the steady East End's goers - one of the London trendy areas at the moment - through clothes, hair and accessories. In the same way, the Tomoaki Suzuki's sculptures are completely full of style. Street fashion beyond the photograph.

Tomoaki Suzuki's sculptures. Street fashion in wood.

And yet if, reasons specifically fashion were important, it is good to know that Jam counts on:
- the Hussein Chalayan's airmail dress - stirring concepts of presence and absence;
- his aeroplane dress, in "video-partnership" with Marcus Tomlinson;
- Sheley Fox collection, inspired in the Braille code: for beyond the fashion view it explores sensations;
- Undercover's outfits, showing unused common stitches for different materials;
- The slide projections over croquis, from Simon Thorogood, extremely inspiring for textile development or printing; - the Elaine Constantine's photographs, an important presence in the fashion image of the last decade.

Hussein Chalayan's aeroplane dress in video from Marcus Tomlinson.

And more, computer is what isn't missing. For many of the artists, mainly the Japanese, the space is that: digital. Prominence for the pets simulation which can be sent by e-mail, from the artist Kazuhiko Hachiya, shaking off the relations between pleasure and technology. And even Shiseido - the exhibition's sponsor - produced its own stand with the Beauty Navigator: in days determinate, the cosmetic brand offers to the visitors the opportunity of printing results of different techniques and make-up products, in an "interactive virtual make-up" experience (!)

Jam is concentrated, mainly, at Barbican Gallery, on the floor above Helmut Newton Work. But it is also spread, reinforcing once more its concept. It appears unexpectedly on other floors of Barbican Centre and in other galleries of the town, like Dazed & Confused and the Artomatic. And as it couldn't let be, it expands on the net through the unlosable web site www.onlinejam.co.uk, specially designed by Airside. Besides showing much from the exhibition, it is itself, a great work of design.

In the physical spaces, the design is signed by Shin and Tomoko Azumi and challenges the parameters of a conventional exhibition. In the middle of much artificial white grass, unusual furniture and good ideas like Jessica Odgen's clothes over a wooden ramp and magazines suspended by elastic supports. Real or virtual, delicious jam. Impossible don't get mixed.

Until 08/07/2001
Barbican Gallery - Barbican Centre - Silk St., London EC2. Metrô Barbican.