https://youtu.be/DMdIIk8schc
Under Water
Video installation / 2007 / 14min. (endless repeat), color, silent.
This piece was produced as a video installation first. I made 8 photographs from the same image as the video. The image is fictional Landscape that combines two or more photographs that I took of a Japanese beach that is famous for its strange rocks.
I printed the composed landscape on a big piece of paper with an inkjet printer, and I retook with a digital camera for making animation.
I dropped bicarbonate solution on the top edge of the printed paper to liquefy the ink and gradually hide parts of the image on it. The retakes captured not only the slowly disappearing image, but also the changes in the texture and form of the surface of the paper.
Thus, at first, we think we are looking at a beautiful beach, but soon it is revealed to be a photograph whose image is gradually being eroded by dripping liquefied ink. The changing surface of the photo helps bring us to this realization. Consequently, in the last scene, we realize that we have been left looking at a soggy piece of paper with running ink.
There is a certain type of landscape, which everyone praises and says is "ideal", and in most cases it's painted from imagined, fictional buildings. It looks completely natural and realistic, but it was artificially created, from the mind of the artist. People seek this ideal landscape, which doesn't exist in reality, on special journeys, such as the Grand Tour.
There is another type of landscape. This one is painted as a garden, with fake ruins put around it, and which is artificial, after we've sought an ideal landscape like those from a painting. The ideal landscape painted in paintings is realized as a garden, which then reminds us of the idealized painting. It's an endless circle.
There is a certain scenery, and it is not clear where it is, from where I look at it, or with whom I see it. Anyway, it's in front of me, I stand on the edge of the scenery.
by artist comment at Solo Exhibition "Miniature Garden" 2007, Yuka Sasahara Gallery, Tokyo
Photo work
Photo work
【Exhibition / Screening】
2015“Tenkei", un petit GARAGE, Tokyo
2012 "The Collector", ROPPONGI HILLS A/D Gallery, Tokyo
“KAIGASHIKOU 2012”,GEIDAI Art Plaza, Tokyo University of the Arts, Tokyo
2011“VILLA TOKYO”, organised by Raster Gallery, Redevelopment District in Kyobashi, Tokyo
2010 "Hi! Sansui", Korean Cultural Center, Beijing
2007 Solo Exhibition "Miniature Garden", Yuka Sasahara Gallery, Tokyo
2007 "Sustainable Art Project 2007 KOTONOHA"
organized by Tokyo University of the Arts, Former Iwasaki Residence, Tokyo
2007 "Tradition and New Age -The Ink, a Monochrome World- "organized by Tokyo University of the Arts, Former Sakamoto Elementary School of Taito-Ward, Tokyo