S.N. Among all the artists who visited Japan recently. I think Mr. Allington's work must be the most interesting to young intellectual Japanese art lovers of today, Because those young Japanese may well be able to grasp the problems they are facing in this modern world, through his work, in which those problems are expressed sharply. It's already been a hundred years since Japan was confronted with modern European culture. In the beginning, I think, Japan accepted this European rationality as for one of the means for technological and economical development. As a result, Japan has developed economically to the stage we see it today, and finally we are beginning to consider and judge the European culture and its essence. We are now trying to reassess the difference between Japanese culture an European culture, from a totally different and new base. So, for us, your experiment of reassessing the internal "origin" of European culture is very interesting and attractive.

E.A. Yes, that's probably true. But I also think that, although you say that Japan has been influenced by Western Culture in its present form for a hundred years, the modern form of Western culture isn't that much older in reality. And I think, even in the West, it's maybe too close for us to assess it properly. Perhaps I'm rather unusual in my point of view, but I think we are coming to a time even in the West where we must reassess our culture. I'm not saying that people are reassessing it, in many senses I don't think they are. But I think that if we don't reassess our culture now, then we will be in serious trouble. The culture we somehow created is getting out of hand, is becoming a monster, is going to devours us if we don't think about it properly. You probably know the piece of music by Philip Glass called "KOYAANISQATSI", which is an American Indian word for a world out of order, a world of chaos; it also means the world devouring itself. We seem to have a system that devouring the world and slowly, too slowly in the West we are starting to realize that is not so good, And I feel that the time has also come for us as well as yourself to reassess it, not in religious nad spiritual terms, but internally and structurally, if we are going to live good lives,

S.N. I think it was in the late 19th century, in so called "the age of crisis", that the question of the "origin" arose for the first time in Europe . And it may be possible to say that herein lies the origin of the "modern".

E.A. I suppose it was towards the end of the 19th Century or just before the First World War, the present system of things fell into place. Especially just before the First World War when there was a huge sense of a new world. And world where technology was going to make people's lives so much better was almost universal fancy. It could perhaps be said that everybody had a great belief in the future of the machine age of dream idea. And then during the mid First World War this concept was shattered in actually yet somehow managed to survive as a concept.

S.N. And modern art was born in that "machine age" and in "the age of crisis". I think the essence of the problem, with which the modem culture was confronted in that period and the problem you are trying to express are based on the same foundation. But of course, that problem didn't appear as total at that time, therefore I believe only a small group of people, such as Nietzsche, was aware of the problem. But now, in our "modern times", the existence of this problem of "origin" and meaning is so much clearer.

E.A. You are quite right. There were certain philosophers, of Nietzsche is perhaps the most significant and a few other people, Artist for instance who understood the duality of the "new era" and were able to express these issues in their work, which is why these figures are so important to us today.

S.N. The problems which Nietzsche confronted in his day are now visible on the surface of our society. And are apparent even in our everyday life, they are becoming clear in total and are becoming of paramount importance. Your work is so interesting, because, it seems to me, you are trying to express the meaning of the modern culture through your work. You are trying to express it, not as fragmented phenomena, but in totality. And I think this is what it makes your position very unique, in contemporary art.