Lines into uncharted territory<\/b><\/p>\n
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Held at MEM as part of a local program in connection with the Yebisu International Festival for Art & Alternative Visions 2019, Tatsuhiro Ariyoshi\u2019s exhibition \u201cto elephant time\u201d revolved around a new animation work with the same title.<\/p>\n
The most noteworthy quality of Ariyoshi\u2019s animations is that particular feeling I would call \u201ccoldness\u201d that wells up from the drawn lines. They make the viewer sense the presence of something on a scale that exceeds that of human (warm-hearted) intent. The screening of \u201cto elephant time\u201d as part of the exhibition was an occasion that embodied this very potential of Ariyoshi\u2019s lines in an ideal way.<\/p>\n
Looking back at the artist\u2019s work up to date, it seems that Ariyoshi has undergone some transformation from the \u201cstorytelling\u201d animations from his Musashino Art University days, via the \u201cmetamorphosing\u201d works made while studying at the Tokyo University of the Arts\u2019 graduate school, to his recent works involving \u201crupture and destruction.\u201d The general direction of these works can be described as very \u201canimation-like\u201d in a way \u2013 depicting movements charged with a sense of vitality, projecting the inner workings of individual human beings, or being otherwise based on \u201chuman\u201d and \u201corganic\u201d qualities (regardless of that superficial coldness that is always there).<\/p>\n
What the viewer gets to see in \u201dto elephant time\u201d are inorganic lines. There is no such thing as \u201cillusory life\u201d in the lines that continuously appear on the screen. They just keep moving around unrelated to each other, but never connect to form something like a specific organic body.The disconnected images that appear one after another without ever representing anything concrete, are reminiscent of works involving drawn elements in the realm of experimental film \u2013 \u201dLove Songs\u201d and other \u201cpaintings on film\u201d by Stan Brakhage, for example \u2013 much rather than animation. In such works, there is no assumed connection whatsoever between the drawings\/paintings on each frame to those on the respective preceding or subsequent ones. As a result, even though there is movement, it doesn\u2019t produce any receivable meaning.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s almost like a secret private language that only the speaking person understands, or some ancient or alien language that we have no way of deciphering; like a murmur, words that are uttered and left alone. Manifested on the screen are sceneries somewhere between life and non-life, that seem to be coincidentally discovered by those watching. It\u2019s such unfathomable something that is depicted also in \u201dto elephant time.\u201d<\/p>\n
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While the first half of the work unfurls in images that one can only describe as \u201ca bunch of lines moving around,\u201d things take a different turn in the latter part. The initially fine lines gradually grow thicker, and transform into increasingly concrete shapes. Now there are blue elements in what was all black and white up to that point, and the hand-drawn lines show a morphing kind of behavior that one associates with motion graphics. And then, the work suddenly ends\u2026<\/p>\n
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About that ending that seems all too abrupt, the artist explained in a talk session during the exhibition period that he \u201csuddenly felt as if something had turned around.\u201d Now what could that \u201csomething\u201d be? The lines in this work move in ways that suggests a \u201cspace exploration\u201d kind of action, and the \u201celephant\u201d in the title probably refers to some kind of connection to something large and far away from us. \u201cTo elephant time\u201d is a work that functions like some kind of tool for entering as yet uncharted territory beyond the realm of (organic) human life, and capturing traces of something we have never seen before, in images for us to look at.<\/p>\n
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