On the last Sunday of May I went to Jonanjima, a factory island in Tokyo Bay. The island is known primarily for its camping ground and artificial beach, and there aren't many other buildings than factories. To get there one has to ride the monorail that connects Hamamatsucho with Haneda Airport, get off at Ryutsu Center station, and then catch a bus. On Sundays and holidays there’s only one bus per hour, and since a walk would probably take about an hour I decided to take a taxi. My goal was a recyclying plant, but not for inspecting the factory itself, but to see an art exhibition that has been shown there (titled "Variation on a Silence: Project for a Recycling Plant", 5/13-29)
It’s not one of those old factories that have served their duties and are about to be closed down. Construction on the plant was completed in late April, and since operations won't start before July the event took place in the clean and brandnew setting of a factory before its opening. We're talking about a place near Haneda, so you can imagine how many jumbo jets are crossing the sky above the factory every day. We're also talking about a place on the seaside, and although still May it was pretty warm and sunny - conditions that shed some kind of futuristic light on the factory with a design that’s best described at "functionally beautiful". Since there was still time until operations at the factory commence, there weren't any machines set up yet. Instead, an array of ambitious artworks more or less created in accordance with the environment were displayed, resulting in somewhat an antagonism between the works and the spacious venue.
Upon entering one first got into Kondo Kazuya’s installation "Flying Man", in a space divided by partition panels in the 2F gallery. In the dimmed room the visitor walked down a staircase of some ten odd steps, from where one could see what looked like someone’s study room projected onto three screens on both sides of the stairs. Jumping into ones eyes were things like a scarily old-fashioned word processor, and a fake human skeleton. In the displayed book shelf were titles like "Encyclopedia of Sciences" and others that hint - to those familiar with Abe Kobo - at the fact that the library shown belongs to the den of the novelist who died in 1993. In front of the screens, in the center of the space, a table was placed on which a monitor showed how letters were typed at unbelievable speed and kana characters were converted into kanji on a word processor. The title is without doubt a reference to Abe’s posthumous text "Tobu Otoko".
Shown in equally high speed on a monitor in the middle were sequences of black and white photographs of word processors, synthesizers, four-wheel-drive engines and others. As you might know, Abe was reputed as a fan of things mechanical, and his frequent photographic activities resulted among others in a city themed photo essay published as a regular feature in "Geijutsu Shincho". The essay was of course also included in the collected edition, and the man in charge of this book’s packaging happened to be Kondo Kazuya. The "Abe Kobo Exhibition" held in 2003 at Setagaya Literary Museum reportedly also featured a video installation made up of pieces of the "Tobu Otoko" text and Abe’s photos (I didn't see that one myself). The visual elements this time were probably the same, but coupled with music by Ikeda Ryoji, and above this added an interactive aspect, I found that this display went very well with the "factory" setting. Ikeda’s massively inorganic music seemed to taylored exclusively for Abe and the factory.
After 14 minutes of being blown away by sounds and visuals, I proceeded to the other side of the partition panels, where 710.beppo’s "0.7 tons for music" had been waiting. This piece consisted of a metal plate equipped with an industrial vibrator, on which visitors could walk to experience extreme vibration. Especially the head is shaken so intensely that things like window frames appeared blurred, resulting in a trippy feel. According to the artists (vokoi and Furudate Ken), that was only "vibration at half power"… If they gave full steam it would've been impossible to stand on the platform, and it would have influenced also the DVD playing next door. Furudate, by the way, is also a member of The Sine Wave Orchestra.
Exhibited in a generous layout on the third floor were Tone Yasunao’s sound piece "Paramedia Centrifugal", Pol Malo’s styrofoam installation "Mirrors", four objects made of laptop computers, monitors, mobile phones and forklifts (!) by Christian Marclay, and Hirakura Kei’s video work "Text, Mountain, Quasi-parts". Parts of Marclay’s contribution and Hirakura’s work were using straight pictures of a factory on the surface, which doesn't mean however that the themes of their works were "recycle" of "factory" at all. It was rather a well-balanced display with a pleasant feel of "cautious distance", and about most of the works on display one can say that they could only come to fruition at this particular venue. In this sense, it was a masterfully site-specific exhibition.
Irie Takuya of setenv, who organized the event, explains that the people of Re-Tem Corporation, the company that operates the recycling plant, have a deep insight, and accepted also works that "don't necessarily have to deal with ecology or recycling as their central theme". Also Sakaushi Taku, the architect responsible for the factory’s construction, has participated very actively inthe project. Once the factory commences its operation as a recycling plant it won't be possible anymore to hold exhibitions there, but Re-Tem is apparently considering to buy one of Christian Marclay’s works and put it on permanent display. Wouldn't it be great to have more "limited time exhibitions" like this one?
Ozaki Tetsuya / Editor in chief / REALTOKYO