Video
Follow Me
DVD video
2010
2:01 minutes
In this video, Follow Me (2010), I started with Netflixing several hundred movies to collect scenes within which an actor/actress/animation character says “follow me” based on specific situations. I then Twittered the actions or ideas highlighted or implied by these situations. Through this work, I attempt to interrogate human authority, power relationship in gender, and the need for popularity – all connected with the keyword, “follow me.”
Rooted in my background of growing up in Japan as a follower of American culture, such as Hollywood movies, I always made sure whether I was a correctly social person to follow the stream of the times, news, and trends rather than exploring them originally. One way to put it is that I was under a type of social-spiritual totalitarianism. Also, each scene rapidly changes from one to another with high tempo while I am typing a Twitter status. This reflects the life speed of Internet people –Netizens.
Bathroom Conductor
DVD Video
2009
3:04 minutes
In Bathroom Conductor, I conducted the Hungarian Waltz while wearing a white facial skin mask within a bathtub.
Included in the video is some iconic footage, such as the Beijing Olympic opening ceremony, the mass moonie marriage,
and a Nazi orchestra.
This is done in such a way so as to illuminate the metaphorical over-controlling political power, and its social impact.
Daily Ritual - Cutting Flower -
DVD Video
2008
10:07 min
Daily Ritual-cutting flower- is a reflection on our controlled society and accesses the unspoken agreement in human relationships.
I begin by cutting beautiful randomly selected flowers in a ritualistic manner.
I conclude with a cautionary reading of the event’s surrounding the Tower of Babel by a Dutch speaker, and it’s slightly changing to literal imagination scene with the rapid speed art auction voice.
The nature of these images and ideas range from the theological to the social and ideological.
And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.- From Genesis 11:1-9
Breathing Under the Deep Sea
DVD Video
2008
3:04 minutes
Breathing Under the Deep Sea investigates a thought experiment.
In essence, it is as if I voluntarily stop to breathe to make sure that I am in control, and that I am not indeed ruled by outside forces.
This piece shows melancholic abstract puzzles. The contrast between boiling water and walking under the sea is the symbolic metaphor of this piece.
This is similar to a relationship between the water and air, as well as personal emotion and systematic restraint from the head.
I am not interested in figuring out the contrast, such as black or white, and happy or sad. My focus is more about the fluidity cobweb zone.
Unknown Myth
DVD Video
2008
3:17 minutes
In this performance video piece, Unknown Myth illustrated the opening of the mental door to smash flowers. This art process is I call psychological mathematics.
For example, if I start with a wrong recognition of my voice, such as a wrong numerical formula during the building of content in the art piece
the logical tower will be a failure.
The difference from pure mathematics is that all of the pieces are not always having the correct answer. I am not sure about what is the correct answer.
I guess it’s closely connecting with my satisfaction of the work, but it’s not about perfection. Even if I reach at 1+2=4, it will make sense for me.