About Sex and Rope 

During the last century, NJ Parkin met a young Japanese student studying English in the UK. Although, he had no interest in the subject matter, through their relationship she encouraged him to explore and practice kinbaku, a form of Japanese bondage. He admits he found the whole process uncomfortable, restraining a person for erotic somatosensory stimulation, even though it was consensual. Being a novice, she encouraged him to accompany her to London's Soho district to learn more about Kinbaku by exploring the various outlets selling bondage paraphernalia. And on a return trip from Japan she brought him back a present - a Japanese bondage magazine that formed the basis of this artwork.

Their relationship lasted about six months and ended when she returned to Japan.

Creating Sex and Rope

Sex and Rope was produced by the artist NJ Parkin in 1997. To create his digital art collage he used an ALPS MD2010 MicroDry printer, Adobe Photoshop,  Dell Computer, Microsoft Windows 95 operating system and images scanned from a Japanese bondage magazine published in the last century. The Kanji, Hiragana and Katakana characters were hand-drawn with Tipp-Ex correction fluid, embedded on Mellotex paper.

ALPS MicroDry Technology 

In November 1948 Katsutaro Kataoka started the Kataoka Electric Company in Japan. In 1964 (the year the artist was born) he changed the company name to ALPS Electric Corporation. The artist preferred using  ALPS MicroDry technology because it was far superior compared to most inkjet printers at the time - producing  clear, waterproof, fade-resistant images. However, because ALPS printers were slower than most inkjet printers, ALPS failed to achieve massive worldwide sales.  In March 2007, ALPS withdrew support for its MicroDry technology. Even back in 1997 the ALPS consumables were difficult to source - the artist imported his from Ireland.