Meet your
ART FESTIVAL
Annex

This work is a video piece that stretches time to show various people playing and dancing with handheld fireworks in the darkness. The different movements, expressions, speeds, clothing, and complex scattering of sparks of the subjects reveal the individuality of each person. However, at times, people are replaced by different people in the darkness, and at other times, multiple people overlap through multiple exposures. The individual images gradually transform into repeating images, and eventually diffuse into a galaxy-like pattern.

Even seemingly complex movements and shapes can be perceived as simple patterns by changing our perspective and scale. Simple patterns are beautiful (just as synchronized dancing is beautiful), but beauty can also be found in individuality (just as there are dances that only certain people can perform). The further away we take or the wider our perspective becomes in order to see the beauty of the pattern, the less we can see the individual. Yet, we can still imagine and feel the beauty of the individual elements that make up that pattern.
Eyes, habits, worn-in high heels—this film captures a multitude of lights that reach us from near and far, illuminating various things.

"In Between... Us?" is a performance installation that explores the meaning of "the unknown."

At the heart of the work is a white structure reminiscent of tree roots, nerves, or a skull. Its form is inspired by the concept of a rhizome. This rhizome structure changes its state as it senses the surrounding sounds, voices, and environmental changes. It takes in the voices, lights, and various events that occur in that place, and changes its appearance moment by moment as if finding new meaning in them. Its behavior becomes detached from the artist's intentions and gradually moves beyond his control.

In performance, "voice" plays a crucial role. Vocalizations that precede words, and the emotions contained within them, influence the rhizome and the environment, updating their state. As voices overlap, separate, and resonate, new relationships that didn't exist before may be born. It's as if we ourselves are witnessing the emergence of communication that has yet to have a name or form.

To what is that voice directed? Is the change in the rhizome a response? It's even uncertain whether what's happening there can be called a "dialogue." In a space where performers, rhizomes, voices, light, sound, and viewers influence and transform each other, "In Between... Us?" brings to light the existence of the "unknown" that slips through the cracks of understanding and classification.

Co-sponsored by: Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT]
(Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture, Arts Council Tokyo)

"In Between... Us?" is a performance installation that explores the meaning of "the unknown."

At the heart of the work is a white structure reminiscent of tree roots, nerves, or a skull. Its form is inspired by the concept of a rhizome. This rhizome structure changes its state as it senses the surrounding sounds, voices, and environmental changes. It takes in the voices, lights, and various events that occur in that place, and changes its appearance moment by moment as if finding new meaning in them. Its behavior becomes detached from the artist's intentions and gradually moves beyond his control.

In performance, "voice" plays a crucial role. Vocalizations that precede words, and the emotions contained within them, influence the rhizome and the environment, updating their state. As voices overlap, separate, and resonate, new relationships that didn't exist before may be born. It's as if we ourselves are witnessing the emergence of communication that has yet to have a name or form.

To what is that voice directed? Is the change in the rhizome a response? It's even uncertain whether what's happening there can be called a "dialogue." In a space where performers, rhizomes, voices, light, sound, and viewers influence and transform each other, "In Between... Us?" brings to light the existence of the "unknown" that slips through the cracks of understanding and classification.

Co-sponsored by: Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT]
(Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture, Arts Council Tokyo)

"OPEN SITE 7" (Tokyo Arts and Space Hongo, 2022)

Photography: Kenji Takahashi

Image courtesy of Tokyo Arts and Space