Artist’s Unknown-Self-Night Watch Kentaro TAKI text for exhibition E-Night Watch, 2023, Koganecho Bazzarr 2023
The title of E-Night Watch came from Night Watch(1642) by a Dutch painter, Rembrandt, a painting of a matchlock vigilante. His piece symbolizes the Dutch golden age after its independence and was offered by the captain of Matchlock Vigilante for their portrait. This piece tells us about the daytime scene, however was considered that was a night scene about the time when the group was sent out, because of its faded color and title. Actually, vigilantes had fewer chances to dispatch when the painting was finished. We can find it as the ambiguity of today’s society, that the aggression to beat the bad ones, but fades away as a relic when the time of peace comes. The question is what is our safety myth, and how much we cost for it. So taking over for neighborhood watch in mid-century, I exhibit this time to focus on the safety and the aggression of the security camera, a technology for self-defending, which is installed in every single house and company building.
In the U.K., it is estimated that over 6,000,000 security cameras are working, and 2,000,000 of them were settled after the London Olympics in 2012(i). Following London, the number of camera settings in other cities are increasing, and more than 5,000,000 of them are working in Japan(ii). Looking at the effect of the measures, the number of crimes was downed to half after the security camera setting. Every time we have international and festival-like events such as summits, Olympics, and world expos, to keep cities symbolically safe, the negative elements, crimes, poverty, and other unclean images are excluded as the town’s noises. So what is, and for whom, the clean image, safety, and security of the city? On the other hand, when security power goes by too much, it is suspicious that the security regarding civilians must be protected as potential crimes. In 2021, JR East train company decided that they would detect a person’s criminal record by using a security camera(iii). However, they stopped this plan finally because of the viewpoint of human rights and social agreement. The original plan was to collate a database of the police station and criminal records of people passing by, and to check their activities and who would be potential criminals. This sounds like such a Sci-Fi story is now realized by existing technology, which means we have to consider the moral inclination of the technology more than before.
And now, these stories remind me of a noise canceler type headphone as well known in the audio technology field. This headphone seals up listeners’ ears by cups shutting out sounds from outside, and it has a microphone inside, which checks sound waves of noises and immediately generates antiphase sound waves to mute noises from outside. The sound is shaking airwaves, so if we could add opposite shaking air movements to kill them. Thus technologically it’s possible to make artificial silence inside of headphone, and a listener just can listen to sounds from a music player.
This realization of artificial silence may be connected to the execution of social exclusivity by using any technology today. Making mosquito tones to let young people move out from the front of convenience stores, the eviction of homeless people from parks and public places by settling objects called “Exclusion Art”, these examples adapt the negative affordance which people instinctively get out from certain places without any human executioner. This tendency is now enforced with IT technology, and happening here and there, which can be named Noise Canceler Culture. This culture can kill noise not only in advance but also includes cancellation culture kills sooner something becomes an inconvenient issue by the mass media and the populace.
Behind crimes, terrorism, and any other critical behavior in our lives, several social unstable such as poverty, and discrimination can be a trigger for them. So it is not the essential solution to cancel superficial noises without exploring radical factors. Polics must be for investigation and solve them, however, we’ve never seen it to confront them, unfortunately. If technology affordance could realize a city without crime, it must mean less peace like a paper doll without any substance. Giving cases as cream without fat, caffeine-less coffee, and nonalcohol beer, Slavoj Žižek pointed out that these exist to get rid of the negative essence which is denied by accident, and indicate that things in virtual reality become real existence in the real world. This simulacra without any reference issue seems the mega-superficial world illustrated in the film Matrix(1999). For the city without crime, also for the disease-free society, the non-casualty-war, and the painless life, without any obstacles and crises, “is it worth living in and surviving?”, that is the question of Žižek.
E-Night Watch, exhibition, Koganecho Bazzarr 2023
Standing on the diversity of the world, it is not simply cut out negative substance but is needed to return to the primitive viewpoint to include noise. I think it is worth it to plan how to keep our city's security not to definite noise outsiders and potential crimes rather than to get rid of them easily, if we try to do unstable praxis to bet. Our basic instinct was designed for surviving with denial of the other (erasing noises) from viewpoints of biology and psychology for sure. So when we think about it We have to face the aggression and the bellicosity inside of us, for our self secures. This controversy, without any exclusion of the others, that is to say recognizing the others in our insides for our survival, has been spoken about in the field of philosophy for a long long time.
By the way, it doesn’t have any connection to such a huge historical issue, I, Taki in 2000, noticed the property of video which is an eye machine, and I created a self-visual-identification structure for the audience to look at themselves when they see my artwork. By adopting analog video technology, I express to show ”the others may see me like this,” or “to see activity how to see itself” by using temporary media which is different from a mirror. After that, I moved to imagine a figure with camera-head, because the camera technologically simulates the function of the eyes of the human body. With fantasizing such an imagination, it was about the time when I was wandering a city a night, I found that many video systems with camera-monitor are already installed everywhere in the city. Security cameras, when I saw them, I had an urge to accomplish an unfinished figure only has a head and an eye and is hanging down from the building. Then I started my project to give bodies for the machine only to see in the city.
It’s actually places began in the city, S, fall 2021. It was a part of interventional art projects in the urban space, I counted how many security cameras were set and where to be in the city named S, and I reacted for them to one-way watch pedestrians and inhabitants for 24 hours a day. It was to keep a balance of seeing, so I intently act as while the security camera watches us, we may watch them. That’s why their boy plate was made with a reflecting material to show how security cameras see us. In the phase of researching this project, I temporarily put a mirror plate under a security camera and took photos and videos of it. Just the beginning of it, the S-city policeman stopped me to ask what was going on. On suss of Minor Offensive Act on my action, but after two-time hearings and confiscation of physical evidence as mirror plates, I was not sued for any crime and the policemen returned the plates finally. In the visual evidence from the security cameras, still images were extracted, which showed Taki moved from one camera to the next. It was unexpected art documentation by cops, the law enforcers.
To stand on a viewpoint of the controlling society by double phases as information way and physical way, surveillance methods that the authority watches the nations, becomes now old school, the much worse and serious situation we have, may be mutual surveillance among civilizations and users through utilizing convenient services caused by people’s unconscious self-regulation and limitation to act in public space while the surveillance camera unconsciously may watch them(iv). This situation is almost caricature-like, which is no more about panopticon, a group of people may be watched, but synopticon. A person can be watched by many and unspecified eyes by technology.
Thus, for consideration of keeping security for one’s community, our discussion doesn’t finish talking about just whether to set security cameras or to save priority of our privacies. Adopting IT services, a cheap cost technological trick for the solution to get rid of superficial noise, has an apprehensive to conceal deeping and consideration for the problem. In my show here, I made the situation that the audience sees art but them to be seen by art. I know this is a kind of paranoid way for you. Also in my collage series, every character has a camera eye on their head, which are black hollow hole that may not see anything and may be not watched by anyone.
After all, when you get out from this show to the outside of town, if you could find any unfinished object only with its head and eye in Koganecho, and feel the impulse to finish it, it might be that your awareness was evoked. It is my secret wish which is nobody knows an artist's story.
《Knappe Beruerung》(2021)は2021年5月に完成し、10分のヴィデオ作品として同月デンマーク、コペンハーゲンの音楽祭で初演された。ドイツ、フライブルク在住のピアニスト、中村麗の依頼で彼女の書籍出版にあわせた企画として、複数の映像作家が中村の演奏を視覚化し、映像作品として残すという趣旨で、小生も参加することになった 。本作に至る経緯として、作者のヴィデオ・モニターのフレームと身体の関係を綴ってきた拙作《Living in the Box: Dimension》(2007-2013)がある。このシリーズは発表の機会を経る度に変化・変奏されており、この機会に忘備録として一連の流れについて記しておきたい。
シリーズは習作のSD版として小型のモニター(これ自体は2005年のエロディ・ポン展で使用したものを流用)を縦においたものを恵比寿のアートスペースで展示しており、その後同習作版はVCTから出版したコンピレーションDVDにも収録された 。 そしてさらに発展版のインスタレーション《Living in the Box:Specimen》(2007)が目黒区美術館の企画展「目黒の新進作家-七人の作家、7つの表現」で展示された。この時は出演してくれた伊逹麻衣子と大江直哉とともにインスタレーションの前でパフォーマンスを行っている 。この後HD版のシングルチャンネルが作成され、ドイツ、メキシコ、インドネシア、フランスでの展示やイベントに出品された。大江伊達らとツアーした2009年にはベルリンでライヴパフォーマンス、またフランクフルトで開催された日本映画の映画祭Nippon Connectionのオープニング・アクトを行っている。 この流れとは別に2013年にはドイツのカールスルーエにあるZKMでのコンサートにて、渡辺裕紀子作曲の《Living in the Box II for piano》が中村麗によって演奏された。
当初は自分の体でテスト撮影をしたが、これが酷くてとても見られたものでなく、まず見られる身体・晒される身体に長けている人を思って、伊逹に声をかけたのを覚えている。伊逹は作品の趣旨とまだ未分野の開拓であることをよく理解してくれ、毎回の撮影で見事にこちらの意図を越える動きを見せてくれた。本来ならステージを縦横無尽に踊ることが本分であるコンテンポラリー・ダンサーをわずか数十センチの狭い区切られた箱の中で踊って欲しいという演出に彼女は快く付き合ってくれた。学校の撮影スタジオに、箱の前や上にカメラを固定し、女子学生をアシスタントにして、伊達が裸体となって箱の中で演技するのを、サブでチェックしながら収録が行われた。舞台で見られることに慣れている伊達の動きが素晴らしく、ショットのほとんどが1~2テイクで追えることができた。彼女のパフォーマンスを彫刻のように標本箱に閉じ込めるような作業が何度か続いた。 制作と発表を繰り返す中で、身体と他のものの比較を試みたくなり、本や色の付いた日用品、コップ、金魚や蛇、昆虫も登場するシーンが付け加えられたバージョンが作られた。HDV版の《Living in the Box: Dimension》(2007-2013)の箱の構成はピート・モンドリアンのコンポジション・シリーズを参考にしたこともあって彩りが欲しくなったということだ。また最終的に箱を伊達麻衣子が大槌をもって、破壊するシーンが加えられて、2013年のバージョンが作られている。
区切られた箱は確かに近代が目指してきた効率化と合理性を象徴しており、その中に有機的な人間の身体がどのように配置され、のたうち回りながら生き残るのかを見ることができる。ヴィデオアートの文脈ではゲイリー・ヒルが筐体を外してブラウン管のみにした大小の画面に身体の部分を大写しにして並べた《Inasmuch As It Is Always Already Taking Place》(1990)を思い浮かべる人もいるかも知れない。ヒルが丸裸にされたCRTという機械と裸体を重ねたに対し、《Living in the Box》はもう少し身体をモノとして扱い、標本のように閉じ込めて蒐集する印象が強い。今年2月に亡くなったイ・オリョンに言わせるなら、前者は広がりを求めて身体がTVモニターという殻を破って出てきたように見えるのとは、対照的に後者の私の作品は空間的にも意識的にも縮みの志向を持っている 。
2021年の《Knappe Beruerung》は一部にこの《Living in the Box》の撮影素材を使いつつ、基本的には中村麗の演奏姿を捉え、様々な形の箱の中に標本化するような試みとなった。ピアニストの労働である演奏姿を、いくつかのシークエンスに分解し、再構成する作品となった。コロナ禍で世界的に芸術家や音楽家の仕事がなくなったのに対し、ドイツのゲーテ・インスティテュートの「ヴァーチャル・パートナー・レジデンス」のプログラムによって三者の制作体制をとることができた。中村はフライブルクに、瀧と渡辺はそれぞれ日本の横浜と長野に居た為、2020年の暮れにオンラインの会議が持たれた。中村の主旨としては渡辺作曲作品に映像を付ける(その他中村のコラボレーション作品数作にヴィジュアルがつくというシリーズ)というものだった。
渡辺は2007年の《Living in the Box: Specimen》を目黒美術館で見ており、それをテーマにした前出の作曲《Living in the Box II for piano》を作っており、その初演がZKMでの中村の演奏だった。こうしたプロセスを経て、今回は自作のヴィデオの実験が2007年にインスタレーション展示になり、その展示にヒントを得て2013年に現代音楽の作曲作品として演奏され、そしてまた2021年にその音楽作品にヴィデオをつけることになるという14年越しの円環として繋がった。コロナ禍で気分も落ち込んで、経済的にも厳しい生活を強いられていた自分にとって本当に嬉しく、アーティスト冥利につきるというか、コンセプトや形式が時を経て評価され、育まれていくことを改めて理解した。
コロナ禍の私たちの置かれた状況は、奇しくも2007年の拙作《Living in the Box: Dimension》の閉塞空間に閉じ込められた身体のようになった。そのような環境下の表現者三名が「ヴァーチャル・パートナー・レジデンス」のプログラムの形式を借りて、《Knappe Beruerung》は2021年1月―5月かけて行われた。まず渡辺の作曲を中村が演奏した仮の音声ファイルと楽譜を元に瀧が絵コンテを作成した。
元々のコンセプトの特異性もあって、単なる音楽プロモーション映像ではなく、実験的すぎる映像でもない、容易には形容できない映像になったのではないか。コロナ禍での制作だったことをうっすら仄めかしたかったため、よく目を凝らしてみると箱の中にこの期間よく見慣れたアイテムが写り込んでいる。また後日、撮影時の中村のパフォーマンスがよく確認できる映像を切り張りして、CG加工などがない《Knappe Beruerung -unplugged-》も制作した 。今回の制作により2007年の撮影テープをデジタル化することができた。これを元に要素をそぎ落とした4K版のディレクターズカットというべき《Living in the Box》(2007-2022)も制作され、ARTOSAKA2022のエクスパンデット部門として大阪の名村造船所跡地で展示された。この最終版で足掛け15年作り続けてきたシリーズに一旦の区切りがついたと考えている。