The transparency of experience
This exhibition takes place in a former sushi restaurant, a former medical clinic, and a station roundabout located on the “Takeuchi Kaido Yoko-Oji” (Ise Kaido), the oldest highway in Japan, which connects the Kaiju district to Sakurai Station in a single straight line.
Through art, by focussing on that which we are normally unaware of in our “experience," we may reveal hidden aspects of our daily life and future.
Will Hall
《Landscape/ Various Dimensions》
Mirrored viewing devices, steel, aluminum, etc. 2023
Concept: The subjective experience of depth perception is intricately tied to the physical structures of our visual system. Neural signals, a result of conscious and unconscious movements of both eyes, positioned approximately 6-7cm apart, create the familiar spatial quality of our surroundings. Through an assembly of mirrored viewing devices, the viewer can manipulate the distance and timing between their eyes and disrupt this normally unquestioned process. The effect is an altered perceptual experience which oscillates between heightened depth perception and moments of disorienting discomfort. This engagement with an often-unchallenged perceptual process calls into question the mechanisms that construct our familiar interpretation of reality
Nakako Okamoto
《Inner Landscape》
Sensory deprivation room( Masato Tanaak× Nakako Okamoto, 2021), pencil on the wall, infrared camera, monitor, 2023
She has been pursuing the relationship between creativity and the brain, inspired by a unique consciousness-altering experience she had in the past. Initially, she experienced a sudden clarity of the senses and a sense of happy oneness with self and the world. This state of mind and body has been scientifically studied in many countries.
In the 1950s and 1960s, studies were conducted mainly in the U.S. using sensory deprivation chambers in which external stimuli such as visual, auditory, and cutaneous sensations were blocked, and 40% of subjects experienced some form of hallucination. This is believed to be because the brain is unable to receive the necessary stimuli from the outside and receives self-generated information from the inside.
In this work, Okamoto spent three days in the "sensory deprivation room and continuously draw on the wall. In a room with total darkness and silence, she saw countless blue and white sparkling lights and swirling patterns. With each passing day, the boundary between inside and outside of her body became blurred, and the flow of time seemed less constant. She drew the landscape she saw in this very "transparent" place.
Toshiyuki Kuwabara
《Dish》
resin, video A (13,15 mins), video B (1min), 2023
I was so devastated that I had no choice to search for "why is death so sad." on internet . After 19 years of her (a pet cat) life, her image was right in front of me as an endless supply of sadness. No words of comfort or philosophical solutions made sense as to why I was so sad. With a sadness I had never experienced before taking over me, I could not help but record her body.
These are 577 images of her body from multiple angles (Image B). From these multifaceted images, it is possible to calculate and reconstruct the appearance. Thinking that I would never see her again, I was able to immerse myself in the recording for the 30 minutes and 44 seconds it took to capture the 577 photographs.
Although I had taken 577 photographs, when I generated her appearance from the data, it did not feel right to duplicate the form in three dimensions. At the root of my grief was the desire to not only extract a shadow of her face, but also to feel more of her presence in this body.
When I was thinking about this, the act of "eating" came to mind as a way to incorporate her presence into my body. By creating a dish in the shape of a restoration of her last appearance and eating the volume of her former existence, I could take in her body and absorb the sense of her presence.
If we pour a tidal amount of water into the dish in her form, it will be 2,854 ml. That is just a number. I decided to drink up her transparent aspect over the course of a day.
Sandeep Biswas
《Between Past and Present》
photograph, slides show (3,40 mins9, 2022-2023
Time also changes our observations and memories, which transform
into faint fragments of certain personal visual experiences.
My series of multi-exposed and sketchy photographic images is a revisit
to many such layers of memories and identities. They come from
specific locations where I spent the most important part of growing up
as a child, and presently they have become a juxtaposition of my own
past and present.
I am trying to identify everything with the same childlike excitement
and enthusiasm, yet it does not feel the same.
I suddenly find myself dealing with that nostalgia at a time when
suddenly I find myself revisiting my sense of belonging and a home from my past,
which was the true essence of my growing up.
Multiple memories start to play on my mind. I start losing track of time
with my vision fading and unclear.
I am mapping a fragment of my own history using double exposure,
single images as well as diptychs in order to express the vacuum of
space and time. I try to search for meaning in everything, yet I resist the
effort for the sake of simple pleasures. I am just simply staring through
various surfaces.
Shivani Aggarwal
《Weaving traps Ⅰ＆Ⅱ》
video (1,53 mins), crocheted wire work, 2023
The works in this project are derived from the idea of emptiness that social beings tend to deal with, while living within their restrictive boundaries. The uncomfortable restrictive spaces, notions, boundaries that we deal with and the emptiness it leaves us with is where I derive my works from.
Emptiness and time often intrigue me.
To have and be in nothingness gives me immense energy to work and fill it with thoughts. The space expands and contracts almost organically. It becomes a space of infinite possibilities. Time too stops in this endless space.
I often start to think…
Do I hold and stitch this moment?
Do I measure this nothingness?
Do I expand it to explore its vastness?
Do I get lost in it?
The act of weaving and stitching is inherent to my practice. It is transcendental as one looses oneself to create something almost organically and also a metaphor to understand the world itself.
How the interwoven threads form a pattern, which changes their very form making the threads become a fabric.
The crocheted wire work ‘weaving Traps II’ is a never ending project, woven stitch by stitch to symbolize the same. The metal thread becomes an element, which defines these boundaries. It marks a territory defining emptiness, whether it is sewed on canvas as a mesh or crocheted into this enormous sculptural trap giving emptiness a lucid physical form along with it becoming a shield between the inside and the outside space.
Masato Tanaka
《Golden Atmosphere》
yellow pencil on wooden floor and furnitures, lighting fixtures, electronic components, 2022
Will Hall
Born in the UK, 1980. Based in Kyoto. Graduated with BFA Painting - Glasgow School of Art , 2000. Completed with MFA/ PhD Media Art - Kyoto City University of Arts, 2012/ 2015.
Our perceived reality is but a fraction of the vast information received by our brains. Attempting to consciously and spontaneously comprehend this overwhelming influx often proves futile. Yet, maybe, through these seemingly meaningless acts we can unearth truths hidden beneath the ordinary facade of our perceptual existence.
Nakako Okamoto
Born in Nara in 1973. Based in Nara. Graduated with BFA in Oil painting from the Aichi University of the Arts. Graduated with an MFA in Painting from the Wimbledon College of Arts, London, UK in 2005, and then completed her Ph.D. in Media Art at the Kyoto City University of Art in 2013. Established the Kaiju in 2021.
Due to her personal experiences with hallucinations and altered levels of consciousness throughout her youth, Nakako Okamoto has been enthusiastically engaged in studies that explore the relationship between artistic creativity and the brain. Okamoto conducts scientific experiments using transcranial magnetic brain stimulation and undertakes practical fieldwork exploring different magnetic fields for her research with electromagnetism and geomagnetism. Her cross-disciplinary studies of art, cognitive neuroscience and cultural anthropology aid her in her continuing pursuit of the origins of creativity.
Toshiyuki Kuwabara
Born in Aichi in 1986. Based in Tokyo. Graduated oil painting course from Tokyo University of the Arts in 2011, Graduated with an MFA degree in Media Creation from the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS) in 2013. Project Lecturer at Tokyo University of the Arts.
While focusing on the 'objects' that establish visual experiences that affect factuality, sense of reality, perception, psychology, and emotions, I continue to research and create works on the latent possibilities and questions of seeing.
Sandeep Biswas
Born in New Delhi, India 1971. Based in India.
He has a Bachelor in Fine Art from Delhi College of Art, New Delhi ( India ) 1993 and has been a visiting associate fellow with the department of photography at the Kyoto University of Art & Design, Kyoto ( Japan ) with support of the Japan Foundation Fellowship 2001-2002.
He has also received the India Habitat Center Fellowship for photography 2005 and Senior artist fellowship by Ministry of Culture in India 2017.He is a curator with online global platforms VASA-Project and Galeria Quarentena.
In the last few years he has been creating metaphoric imagery based on his observation and reaction to a fast paced changing urbanization around him. His recent series of multi-exposed and sketchy photographic images is a revisit to many layers of memories and identities. Mapping a fragment of his own childhood they become a juxtaposition of his own past and present.
Shivani Aggarwal
Born in New Delhi, India 1975. Based in India. She has a PostGraduate certificate in painting from Wimbledon school of art (London, UK) where she was studying under Charles Wallace art award in 2003-04. She has had many solo exhibitions in cities like London, Lahore, Mumbai, Delhi and Dubai along with a solo project at the India Art Fair in 2013 with Studio Art gallery New Delhi.
Her works echo the ethos of the times we are living in where anything and everything loses its defined purpose due to situational intervention, whether personal, economic or ecological.Her recent works explore the idea of confinement and emptiness. These times of physical isolation and social distancing made us focus on the loss of purpose.
Emptiness may not be negative. It can give clarity to think, generate ideas and look at aspects, which were ignored due to the time rush.Emptiness can be a space with infinite possibilities.
Shivani took the liberty to engage with, weigh, measure and play with this emptiness.
Masato Tanaka
Born in Nagano in 1988. Based in Tokyo.
Graduated with an MFA degree in Media Creation from the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS) in 2013.
In recent years, Masato Tanaka has been working on the creation of installation works with a unique approach that looks at the act of seeing or appreciates appreciation itself, under the theme "Observation for the Sake of Observation". Consulting the various fields of science, medicine, philosophy and anthropology, Tanaka’s installations are the product of an intricate process that is not bound by material or technique.
[Artist]
（Kaiju district）Will Hall, Nakako Okamoto, Toshiyuki Kuwabara, Sandeep Biswas, Shivani Aggarwal, Masato Tanaka
（Honmachi-dori）Omult.Venzer, Tomoko Yamashita
[Dates] 2023/10/20(Fri)-30(Mon) , Closed Tue-Thu, 11:00-17:00
[Entrance Fee] Free rates system
[Access]
Venue 1: Old medical clinic (Information center)
〒633-0064 26-1 Kaiju, Sakurai City, Nara, Japan
[Railway] Kintetsu line/JR line, Sakurai Station, 15 minute walk from South Exit
Venue 2: Higo-Sushi
〒633-0064 19 Kaiju, Sakurai City, Nara, Japan
[Railway] Kintetsu line/JR line, Sakurai Station, 15 minute walk from South Exit
Venue 3: Sakurai station south exit
〒633-0064 1259 Sakurai City, Nara, Japan
[Railway] Kintetsu line/JR line, Sakurai Station, 1 minute walk from South Exit
【Events】
2023/10/22(Sun) 14:00-, Free, at Venue 2 (Higo-Sushi)
Symposium [Creating the future of Sakurai area]
1. " Ten years of development of Sakurai city, " Kawabata Norio: HANARART exective
2. " Making the HANARART and creating a place for Sakurai city ", Nara Women's University Internship Students
2023/10/28(Sat)14:00-, ¥500, at Venue 2 (Higo-Sushi)
Artists Talk
Will Hall, Nakako Okamoto, Toshiyuki Kuwabara, Sandeep Biswas, Shivani Aggarwal, Tanaka Masato
2023/10/29(Sun)14:00-, Free, at Venue 2 (Higo-Sushi)
Talk show [ Contemporary art scene in India]
Sandeep Biswas, Shivani Aggarwal
About the HANARART
"Nara Machiya Arts Festival HANARART" is an art project aims to promote the culture and lifestyle of Nara from past to future by discovering the local values in the prefecture.
Through our cleaning projects and idle residence tours help to enhance the use of townhouses (Machiya), create community power through local associations and development groups, as well as new values through contemporary art. Our objective is to disseminate art via more exchanges with visitors and promote new regional values to overseas countries.
Over the past 12years, the number of idle townhouses that have been utilized as shops and housing for immigrants has increased to 45 since the start of “HANARART”.
Four areas of the HANARART2023
Uda Matsuyama area (Main Area) October 20 (Fri.)-30 (Mon.), 2023, 10:00-17:00 Closed Tuesday-Thursday
Kashihara/Imai area October 20 (Fri.)-29 (Sun.), 2023, 10:00-16:00 Open throughout the exhibition period
Sakurai Kaju/Honmachi-dori area October 20 (Fri.)-30 (Mon.), 2023, 11:00-17:00 Closed Tuesdays-Thursdays
Yoshino-cho Sanchaya/Tonokawa area October 21(Sat.), 22and (Sun), 2023, 10:00-17:00
