\u201cMIWA YANAGI: Myth Machines,\u201d the artist\u2019s first solo exhibition in 10 years, has toured five cities between February 2019 and now. In addition to notable past work, it features the new photographic series \u201cThe Goddess and the God separate under the Peach Tree,\u201d which draws on the story of the god Izanagi throwing peaches at his pursuers (as recounted in the Kojiki<\/em>). As part of the exhibition, Yanagi also launched the \u201cMobile Theater Project\u201d together with universities and other institutions from Kyoto, Takamatsu, Maebashi, and Fukushima, creating four machines that automatically perform scenes from plays by the likes of William Shakespeare and Heiner M\u00fcller without human involvement.<\/p>\n Furthermore, the exhibition spaces have all played host to \u201cMM,\u201d a live performance staged and directed by Yanagi, in which the four machines are joined on stage by the transgender actor Noemi Takayama. Here, Mneme, the first machine, apathetically picks up skulls from a conveyor belt and throws them at a wall. Terpsichore (which resembles the Marcel Duchamp sculpture \u201cBottle Rack\u201d) reacts to that sound, vibrating like the reflexive applause of an audience, while Melpomene wriggles and flaps its limbs, which have been tied together with a rope. The main \u201cmyth machine,\u201d Thalia, moves around flashing its LED lights, illuminating things, playing music, and speaking lines. Yanagi describes this as \u201can attempt to establish tragedy and comedy in wastelands and frozen landscapes, where neither stories nor song have ever existed,\u201d but the machines\u2019 precise replaying of the same lines, as in perpetual motion, also makes them resemble “teleprompters” that serve up words to be idly repeated by humans who have given up on thinking, or secretly programmed \u201cterror machines\u201d intended to facilitate reckless politics.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n