THE opening of Floating Urban Slime/Sublime at Art Gallery Miyauchi was ushered in with a programme of performance events and talks. The first event last month was a performance featuring an abstract garment specially created by Hiroko Nakajima, a fashion designer and one of the exhibition’s participating artists. Performers engaged with the garment by responding to each other and the space around them to a select audience, a process photographed by another participating artist Kiyohito Miami.
FUSS Talk
This photographic record was then shown to performers the next day, on the exhibition’s opening night, for their interpretation and response. Keeping in line with the exhibition’s focus on spontaneity and error, curator of the exhibition Yutaka Inagawa, used this repetitive method to draw contrasts and parallels between the two performances and their outcomes. A more interactive approach was taken on this night, in which the crowd could take on the role of both audience and performer.
FUSS Talk
On November 19, the participating artists unveiled a hybrid between a talk and sound installation. This involved artists reading, alternating with an automated voice from Google, notes from the project concept and plans, fragmented poetry, phrases from the exhibition’s online countdown, artist statements and dictated scripts. Owing to the spontaneous, improvisational order of the readings, there was a clear contrast between the smooth, mechanical tone of the automated voice and the hurried or surprised “live” voices whenever it was their turn. This was further interrupted by a sound piece created by Soshi Matsunobe, who performed a live series of one minute “humming” as dictated by an instruction from an automated voice.
FUSS Talk
Installation view at Art Gallery Miyauchi
Installation view at Art Gallery Miyauchi
Installation view at Art Gallery Miyauchi
Installation view at Art Gallery Miyauchi
by Louise Lui
All images Courtesy of artists, Floating Urban Slime / Sublime and Art Gallery Miyauchi
Floating Urban Slime / Sublime will run until January 8, 2018 at Art Gallery Miyauchi, Hiroshima, Japan (Thursday – Monday)
Participating Practitioners:
Sze Yang Boo (SG), James Brooks (UK), Hua Kuan Chen Sai (SG), Yutaka Inagawa (JP), Megumi Iwafuchi (JP), Shoji Katsume (Studio Niji) (JP), Lens (JP), Rupert Loydell (UK), Soshi Matsunobe (JP), Kiyohito Mikami (JP), Nicola Morrison (UK), Hiroko Nakajima (JP), Tamaki Ono (JP), Wong Ping (HK), Tatsuo Sugimoto (JP), Shooshie Sulaiman (MY), Martin Thomas (UK), WE+ (JP), Ryota Yamada (JP), Peter Yeoh (UK)
Tumblr: Floating Urban Slime / Sublime
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