If you are work­ing near Wil­lis Street today you could use your lunch hour to sample two very dif­fer­ent exhib­i­tions.

The Japan­ese Embassy on Level 18 and 19 of the Magest­ic Centre on 100 Wil­lis Street is always worth a vis­it to give you that thrill of sur­vey­ing the city from the floor to ceil­ing glass win­dows of a shiny tall build­ing.

Today is the last day of the a pho­to­graphy exhib­i­tion at the Japan­ese embassy, Gaz­ing at the Con­tem­por­ary World: Japan­ese Pho­to­graphy from the 1970s to the Present.

Cross­ing the road you can vis­it a sound install­a­tion that has been set up in vacant com­mer­cial space at 141 Wil­lis Street.  Pop­u­lar Arche­ology: A Sound Archive is one part of lar­ger pro­ject called Let­ting Space that is look­ing pretty excit­ing.

Pop­u­lar Arche­ology is focused on redund­ant tech­no­logy and is con­struc­ted with a vari­ety of tape decks play­ing tape loops of dis­in­teg­rat­ing frag­ments of New Zea­l­and singles that made the top 10 between 1967 and 1994 in a wall of sound com­pris­ing over 30 tape play­ers.  You have until 9 May to catch this show but it would make a nice jux­ta­pos­i­tion with the show across the road for today only.