2021, two-sided video installation
Photo: RYOICHI KAWAJIRI
Photo courtesy: Sapporo Cultural Arts Community Center SCARTS
The video features a person, snails, and a cleaning robot, all three seemingly on the same horizon, but spending time without crossing each other separated by invisible “walls” (VR space, wood vinegar, infrared light). When the position of the “wall” switches, each of the three moves to the ground where the other existed. If you look closely at the floor surface of the exhibit, you can find traces of their actions.
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This work was created for the exhibition With Others at a Long Distance, which took place in Sapporo JP in Sep-Oct 2021 and focused on technology in the remote age.
The COVID-19 pandemic brought attention to technologies, such as online calling or meeting, that help people connect with those who are far away, but also to technologies that help divide those who are close by. Such as, for example, alcohol spray, which removes viruses from the palms of your hands. There was also news about the wild goats that came to the city after the lockdown had left it empty of people. There was no fence or wall between the city and the goats’ habitat even before the lockdown, but they had probably spontaneously been excluded from the city by the noise of cars, exhaust fumes and the presence of people.
Like alcohol spray and exhaust fumes, we humans intentionally/unintentionally build various walls against the non-human others.
Humans can make walls, but this might also mean that humans can also break them down, move them, or temporarily relocate them. It is more like a partition, like a bran, rather than a wall.
A place that is for me can sometimes become a place for someone else, or a place where someone else and I can meet, pass each other and communicate. I imagine a city, a house or a room that is more like a resilient ecosystem.