Masayuki Akamatsu “Thales’ Engraving” exhibition review
Introduction
The typhoon had passed, and it was getting cold all at once. The atmosphere on the 3rd floor of the Maruka Building, where NEORT++ is located, feels like it’s appropriate for autumn. Well, this month I would like to send you a review of the exhibition “Thales’ Engraving” by Masayuki Akamatsu.
Exhibition Review
This exhibition features long-exposure photographs and videos by Masayuki Akamatsu (hereafter referred to as Akamatsu). Akamatsu has been creating interactive music and video works as a media artist. Some of his works include installations and performances, and his expressions are truly diverse.
On the other hand, the exhibition at NEORT++ is Akamatsu’s first photography exhibition.
Keep moving
Akamatsu explained the title of this exhibition, “Thales’ Engraving”, as follows.
“Thales’ Engraving” refers to a photograph or video of the starry sky that uses a special long-exposure method. Star trails appear in the dark night sky, sometimes with clouds or thunder, as well as airplanes or satellites. The camera is digitally controlled by a unique device and program, and it takes several tens of minutes to several hours to shoot. With this kind of function, you can get a variety of images that differ each time depending on location, time, weather, and so on.
One night in the city-state of Miletus facing the Aegean Sea, Thales was walking while looking up at the starry sky. Because he was so immersed in looking closely at the stars and searching for their truth, he was unaware of the roadside ditch and fell into it. The important thing here is that he was on the move. His behavior seems bizarre for the time because celestial bodies are generally observed at a fixed point, such as a robust observatory. So let’s imagine the stars reflected in his mind and eyes. That is the essence of “Thales’ Engraving”.
Observing while moving causes the complex phenomenon of relative motion. Putting Ptolemaic or heliocentric theories aside, in addition to the motion of the stars relative to the Earth’s rotation, if the observer also moves, then the result is an even more chaotic multi-body motion. It has an unpredictable complexity and presents a flowing and captivating representation of the sky. Similar to marbling, where ink is dripped onto the surface of water and the pattern transferred to paper, let’s expose the dance of the stars in the night sky. That is the imagery of “Thales’ Engraving”.
Thales was an ancient Greek philosopher who was also familiar with mathematics and astronomy. He is said to be the father of science because he rationally explained the origin of the world rather than depending on myths or fables. His achievements include Thales’ theorem, estimation of the height of pyramids, prediction of solar eclipse, and the timing of the olive harvest. It is also known that he was an unparalleled sports enthusiast, and therefore could certainly be called a moving observer and a running philosopher.
As Akamatsu’s explanation suggests, chaotic beauty emerges through “continuous movement,” and in the exhibition space at NEORT++, a long-exposure video of the starry sky is projected, and works printed on acrylic panels are hung to form complex phases of light. One might call it “dynamic stillness”. And this “continuous movement” may be an important keyword in dealing with digital expression in the future. With this hypothesis in mind, let us consider Akamatsu’s works and digital expressions a little more.
Dynamic Stillness, Beckett, and Digital Expression
“Dynamic Stillness” is also a subject often dealt with by the Irish playwright Samuel Beckett. He established the genre known as “Absurdist Drama”, in which he depicted people who were fatigued in his plays.
What can I say about this amazing color? About this Wriggling Stasis (cette stase grouillante)? Here everything moves, swims, escapes, returns, crumbles, and is reshaped. Everything ceases without ceasing. It’s like inside a stone a thousandth of a second before the molecules revolt and erode. (According to Beckett, 1989, 35. Mori, 2021, p. 29)
When looking at Akamatsu’s work with this sense of Beckett’s gaze, I noticed that “a certain ethical attitude emerges when facing a work that incorporates digital expression”.
Digital expression is not limited to a single medium. It includes computer graphics, video, VR, AI, and NFT. While moving across these various mediums, the artist constructs an appropriate distance for a certain pursuit. It may be an architecture/network for an aesthetic/ethical truth. For example, one might have the attitude, “How much distance should I have from the medium of photography?” while at the same time questioning the “sense of distance” with regard to the medium of installation. This is close to an “ethical questioning of the subject”.
How far should I go with photography? How far can I express myself through photography? What questions should I ask you, the viewer? ……
Alternatively, it may be rephrased in this way, that the “sense of distance in the network between mediums” may be what constitutes an artist’s identity.
From this point of view, when looking at Akamatsu’s exhibition, the network that Akamatsu tried to show is shown by the complex line segments shown in “Thales’ Engraving”, the trajectories of light that seem to intertwine, and the continuous movement, may overlap with chaotic beauty.
Akamatsu’s attitude, at NEORT++
Furthermore, the images taken for this exhibition are not long-exposure photographs of natural phenomena, but are works that mix “intention and accident” through the rotation of a motor controlled by a program.
Akamatsu made all of the equipment used for this shoot, and he did very little editing after the shoot.
The equipment that Akamatsu made himself adds and combines images on the spot and outputs them in real time. This process overlaps with the nature of generative art. (For details, please refer to the archived video of the talk event.) The rotation of the two axes by the two motors incorporated in the equipment shows the relationship between the earth’s orbit and its rotation (or the movement of people living on the earth).
Akamatsu told us that he felt a “contradiction,” or perhaps a sense of frustration, in keeping something that is continually changing at any rate stationary. On the other hand, he also spoke of the possibilities that existed in this process as follows.
However, I realized that the acceleration (power) of a moving object reaches its maximum when it comes to standstill, and I came to expect that this is the power of expression.
It could be said that the “stillness”-like possibilities demonstrated by Akamatsu are concentrated in “photography. Furthermore, the term “dynamic stillness” seems to bring out the attitude of Akamatsu, who has been presiding over a movement called “critical cycling” in recent years. From the perspective of “riding a bicycle,” Akamatsu advocates “moving,” and develops this into a question involving our ontology.
The world is changing. In the 21st century, mankind is finally putting the brakes on modernism, which has fallen into convenience and lost its balance.
And now, our living space has acquired a new reality, connected to the virtual infrastructure by media technology, symbolized by mobile devices. But this living sphere is so plastic that it tends to overgenerate and run amok. We need media representations that reconfigure the invisible space-time. In such a situation, our keyword is the restoration of balance. (…) Beloved, let’s get on our bicycles and reboot the world together! (from the “Critical Cycling Declaration”)
I am delighted to be able to develop a fragment of Akamatsu’s ambitious attempt as the “Thales’ Engraving” in NEORT++.
The works are being sold as NFTs, but at the same time, physical works printed on acrylic panels with the “Thales’ Engraving” series will also be shipped.
NEORT++ will continue to “keep moving” as we expand our search for new sales formats.
Reference
Beckett, Le monde et le pantalon, 35。ベケット「ヴァン・ヴェルデ兄弟の絵画、あるいは世界とズボン」(ベケット『ジョイス論/プルースト論』岩崎力訳、212)、森尚也（2021）「サミュエル・ベケットの〈うごめく静止〉 — — ライプニッツとゲーリンクス — — 」『神戸女子大学文学部紀要』（59）による。
About Artist
赤松正行／Akamatsu Masayuki
Born in Hyogo, 1961. Media artist. D. in Fine Arts from Kyoto City University of Arts. Professor and Dean of the Graduate School of Media Arts and Sciences, Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS). He is also the director of Critical Cycling. He creates interactive music and video works, and in recent years has been examining the influence of technology on people and society through his work on the theme of mobility and reality. His representative works include the book “2061: Max Odyssey,” “Textbook of iOS,” the apps “Banner” and “Decision Free,” the exhibition “Time Machine,” and the “AR Art Museum,” as well as the development of advanced IT products such as “セカイカメラ” and “雰囲気メガネ", which are part of the “AR Art Museum” project.
About Writer
waxogawa
Curator, Artist. Born in Ishikawa, 2001. Faculty of policy management at Keio University. 3rd member of AMSEA (Art Management of Socially Engaged Art at University of Tokyo). Director of "Minato Media Museum" at Ibaraki prefecture. Worked as below: "語りうる可能性の全て" (2021), "Cubed of conjunction" (2022).
About Exhibition
Terms: Sep 11, 2022 — Oct 2, 2022
Open: 14:00–19:00
Closed: Mon, Tsu, National holiday
Site: NEORT++
Address: 3F maruka, 2–2–14 Nihonbashi Bakurocho, Chuo-ku, Tokyo
