Theoretically I could say that there is no reality in the media. Yet I have to admit that I have some- how certain idea of geographical and historical world-view which I usually believe to be the real- ity. I have re-constructed this tentative reality unconsciously from vast amount of informations which consist partly of what I experienced myself but mostly of what I saw as forms of represen- tations i.e. visual informations such as paintings, films and photographies, knowing that they can be false and manipulative. Moreover, I vaguely believe that this particular reality reconstructed by myself should be more or less identical with the reality of others. Thus I, as a member of so called civilized society, have groundless confidence that we all have a common world-view which ap- pears as a collective of images which are illusory and inevitably superficial.

In my case, the process of reconstruction of the reality goes almost automatically so that I can hardly question or even notice it. As log as I can not experience all of occurrences myself, I’m supposed to learn things by informations provided by others.

How we see our world is used to be how mass media wants us to see it. How is the situation now? Has the internet become democratic medium comparing to TV or news paper as some would

claim? Or power of mass media still consolidates its position? The answer can not be found eas- ily, since no one knows what integral of internet is. However, now I would like to examine how it changed our perception towards images and our surroundings.

Today we walk through the world of network as we do in real life thorough streets near by. Need- less to say, the most significant point of this activity which is normally called “surfing”, is that we do it on global level. So our world, our world-view more to say, seems to have become even smaller and more comprehensible. Geographical distance thus visually disappeared in our con- ception of the world. If the act of watching TV can be likened to riding roller coaster, on which you have certain rail already provided by media corporations, using internet is like driving through a maze of highways. Nevertheless, cars and highways i.e. infrastructures are still required and must be provided by others. In this sense, internet can never be democratic as it is vaguely believed to be, because it requires certain financial foundation of individual users.

It is true that once we have access to the internet, we will get the ability to express ourselves to a large amount of audience globally. The problem is that we are now encouraged quite passively to be an active member of this network society which is basically faceless. The Carnival of Ven- ice is thus revived but digitaly. Capitalism took the idea of individuality and self expressiveness of each consumers to sell products. Self expression through selection of commodities is in fact still the biggest motivation to buy. In addition, act of creation seems to be utilized by capitalism as well so that we buy things to express ourselves not only thorough selection but also through “creation”. Consumption and creation, those two almost conflicting concepts are strongly con- nected today as never before and internet functions as fundamental element of this circulation.

Image recording media such as photography and video are spreading drastically as digital infor- mations over the globe. There was time where only professionals published their works, that is over now. Every single consumer has chance to create, recreate and publish. From this point of view, the internet is more democratic than any other media as we all consider it to be. Benefit- ted by its virtual democracy, the whole amount of visual informations increased enormously in last decade. As long as one can see, it is hard to distinguish those images from reality. They are familiar to us because they are created by consumers like ourselves with same kind of equipment as we possess and thus already integrated deeply into our daily life. The power of mass media might have been weakened. However, what is now so dominating is the power of networked mass communication which merges even mass media.

Incoherent juxtaposition by the media occurs on different level today. The possibility of combina- tion is just infinity. Every possible images which are provided by professionals can be seen on thesame level with everything by amateurs. Sometimes simple home video footage reflects more reality than professional journalistic images. Quoting Guy Debord, our society has become theat- rical and spectacle, network of mass communication fuels the spectacle increasingly and it slowly comes to the visible surface.

It is almost meaningless to mash up of fictional images and journalistic documentations within a single framework of an artwork because it will be mashed up again with other materials anyway when it is published. On the contrary, instrumentalized footage could even disadvantage the re- ality which they are supposed to transmit.

“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”

William Gibson wrote his “Neuromancer” in 1984, beginning with this line. Sadly enough, there is no visible dead channel in the world of internet which makes us imagine and contemplate what the nature of the media is. Our sky has no color just empty, zero. We can never actually see it.

In the world where whatever informations are available, imagination would not be required. Images would give us instant answer but they plant inevitably biases, prejudices and preoccupa- tions in us, since most of images are basically made by “others”. The world is used to be fur- nished with “second-hand perception” as Susan Sontag once put in her essay “The aesthetic of silence”. It is now furnished also with third-hand, forth-hand perceptions.

Imagination must be the key of our era. It is not too late, because individual imagination is not yet utilized by consumerism unlike creation, even though I believe it will be someday if we keep not imagining.

Video Installation version of “Heads” is invited to 20th International Videofestival Bochum. The competition starts on 10th June and I’ll be there till 13th.

All in all, the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act.
- Marcel Duschamp

結局のところ、創造的行為というものは芸術家だけによって為されるのではない。観客は作品に内在する資質を判読、解釈する事により作品に外界との接触をもたらし、それにより創造的行為へ貢献しているのである。
- マルセル・デュシャン

I’ll take part in a group show “Les maitres fous (Bad masters)” at Freies Museum Berlin. The exhibition is titled after a film with the same name by a french film maker and anthropologist Jean Rouch.
Many of the artists have worked together already for the event “Mauerfall Ritual” previously.

I’ll be there on the vernissage on 28. January. 2010.

COLLABORATIVE ARTWORK DONE LIVE WITH AND BY YOU!
ONE WEEKEND TO INVEST THE TOP FLOOR OF THE TACHELES AND CREATE ALL TOGETHER A COLLECTIVE ART PIECE.

: Experimental party with 20 plastic artists from painting to lights works, video, installation and more, performers and live musicians will create with you and while the party is going on, art pieces inside the whole space.

Eintritt : 6 Euro one night/10 E two nights
doors : 22h

Mauerfall Ritual
Fri. 30th October 22h - Sun. 1st November 12h (break saturday afternoon)
Tacheles top floor, Oranienburger str. 54 - 56a, 10117, Berlin.
S1 or S25 Oranienburgerstraße / U6 Oranienburger Tor

The new album of ping is now to download.
pingのニューアルバムがこちらからダウンロードできます。

- Make something which experisences, reacts to its enviroment, changes, is nonstable.
- Make something indeterminate, which always different, the shape of which can not be predicted precisely.
- Make something which can not “perform” without the assistance of its enviroment.
- Make something which reacts to light and temparature changes, is sbject to air currents and depends, in its functioning, on the forces of gravity.
- Make something which the “spectator” handles, with which he plays, and thus animates it.
- Make something which lives in time and makes the “spectator” experience time.
- Articulate something natural.
- Hans Haacke 1965

- 体験し、周りの環境に反応し、変化し、不安定である何かを作りなさい。
- 常に違っていて、その形が正確に予測できない、不確定な何かを作りなさい。
- 光と気温の変化に反応し、空気の流れに左右され、そしてその機能上重力に頼る何かを作りなさい。
- 「観客」が手に触れ、遊び、そうする事によって命を吹き込む事の出来る何かを作りなさい。
- 時間の中に存在し、かつ「観客」に時間を体験させる様な何かを作りなさい。
- 自然な物事を明瞭に述べなさい。
- ハンス・ハーケ 1965

Thank you everyone for coming.

This time I improvised it live with slide projector as I did it last time. However, as I consider it now, it turned out to be somehow more resonant with music as well as dance performance than last time. (We had actually a guest dancer as you see her in photos above.)

Conceptually seen, I regard accidental nature as the most essential point of my work. So I decide myself for last performance to keep distance from any manipulation and just let water evaporate as I show it in my installation work. But it didn’t really resonate with music, thus didn’t work a performance. So I changed my way of thinking about live performance a bit. Minimum control could help audience to grasp my concept. As long as “I” perform it live, manipulation is quite inevitable anyway.

Sparkling mineral water did really good job. I poured it directly into a small plastic bag which I set in a slide projector which projects the contents of the bag. The image projected by the slide projector here is not any more a “representation” of something but only “presentation” of what’s actually happning inside of the projector. That is the thing I must keep to show the accidental nature of a situation. To make it technically as simple as possible is also essential, so that every audience including children can imagine how it work without knowledge.

A video documentation of this performance will be uploaded.

来て下さった皆さんありがとうございました。

前回と同じく今回もスライドプロジェクタを使っての即興上演となりましたが、今回は前回よりも音楽に共鳴できた気がします。（上の写真にも写っていますが今回はゲストとしてダンサーを迎えました。）

概念的に見れば僕は偶然性を作品の中心に据えています。そのため前回のパフォーマンスではあらゆる操作を避け、僕が自身のインスタレーション作品でやっている様に水の蒸発する様子を投影しましたが、音楽に上手く呼応せずそのためパフォーマンスとしては機能していませんでした。ですから今回は少しパフーマンスに対する考え方を変え、必要最低限のコントロールは観ている人達にとって僕のコンセプトを理解する手助けとなると捉えるようにしました。「僕」が即興で何かを演じる限りはどのみち操作する事を避ける事は出来ないのですから。

ガス入りのミネラルウォーターはとても良くやってくれました。スライドプロジェクターの中に設置した小さいビニール袋の中に水を注ぎその様子をプロジェクターが投影するようにしました。ここでプロジェクターによって投影された像は何かを描写している訳では無く、実際にプロジェクターの中で起こっている事を提示しているに過ぎません。この事はある状況における偶然性を見せる為に僕が留めて置くべき事でしょう。子供達も含めて全ての観客に仕組みがどうなっているかを想像してもらう為に、技術的にはできる限り簡単にするという事も重要です。

近々このパフォーマンスのビデオをアップする予定です。