“Ambiguous Senses / Misleading feelings 2” by Akiyo Tsubakihara, Yosuke Kawamura

Title:

Ambiguous Senses / Misleading feelings 2

Artist(s) and People Involved:

Performers:



• Akiyo Tsubakihara
• Yosuke Kawamura

Symposium:

• ISEA2002: 11th International Symposium on Electronic Art

Venue(s):

• Warehouses 4 & 20 on the Garden Pier in the port of Nagoya , Nagoya , Japan

Artist Statement:

The relationship between space and body within a media-oriented society interests me greatly, and as the theme for this piece I have chosen “Ambiguous Senses/ Misleading feelings” as relates to the legs and body, using legs and images of legs to express this theme.

While I am an artist, or in other words, a person who sees and draws, I am also a performer, or an actor. My perceptions of “sections” of the body, and how I perceive the relationship of the “moving body” to the “body as a stationary Image”, is an extremely important question.

In art history, body parts, or selected body members, have often been used for “artistic exercises”. Sketching part of the body, such as the head, hands or legs, is seen as a natural step when starting a piece of art or even a simple study for a piece of art. As a viewer/drawer it is possible to see only part of the body, and that section can be isolated in any manner. However, the performer can only focus his attention on part of his body, and can only put importance on a specific member. He cannot actually cut out and isolate that part. While the actor can concentrate on a certain body part, he cannot connect that part with 1 other parts. The part is an indivisible called a body, and when one end trembles, the vibration is conveyed to the other end at a distance. How should the artist/performer interact with this matter called a body to which he is unwillingly connected?

In the actual performance, I use real legs and images of photographed legs. These movements are random; they do not carry a special message, nor do they try to express anything. However, the image of the actual legs and images moving near and far cause confusion; the viewer falls into a state of confusion and experiences “ambiguous and misleading sensations”. The act of walking does not have any particular story to it, however, it might appear that this performance is trying to express something. One reason for this is that the cut legs belong to an actual body, and are always connected to a body. The actual legs and projected legs are seen in an “misleading sense”, that is, as somehow connected to a body.

Contributors:

text: Akiyo TSUBAKIHARA / translation: Sarah Nishida Rumme