The Untranslatable, a Poetic Place
Utako Shindo(ORCID: 0000-0002-8884-0551)“Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy(By Creative Work and Dissertation)”
February 2017
The Centre for Ideas, VCA&MCM
The University of Melbourne© Utako Kanai Shindo 2017contact: utako@utakoshindo.info

ABSTRACTThis research project is concerned with ‘the untranslatable', which I identify as that which, in art,
resists translation into everyday language yet touches me lovingly and truthfully. Through a mannerof ‘poetic translation’ that is experiential and reflective as well as semantic and material, and byquestioning how an artwork can embody the untranslatable, the project develops concepts to think
about the untranslatable and to articulate its presence within an installation artwork that allows for
new meanings to enter through audiences’ engagement with the work. Informed by philosophical,
theoretical and artistic works that share concerns with the oppositional and draw our awarenesstowards neutral, subtle and nuanced appearances and understandings of the world, the research
investigates the poetic works of art that liberate and provoke our perception and sense of being inthis life-world.
The research is undertaken through my experiencing and reflecting on these elements: mygrandmother’s poetic enunciation about Mt. Aso, shifting shadows of an acrylic cube (a remnant),
and Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of chora and ma as a place for translation/transference, which is
untranslatable. This process, which in turn draws resonant voices from various disciplines, notlimited to either Western or Eastern knowledge, to ancient or contemporary time, to one side or
one sex, is manifested in my art-making and thesis writing; my artworks inspire and test my thesis,
together investigating these five key concepts: ‘Pure Language’, the ‘Poetic’, ‘Shadow’,‘Transference’ and ‘Embodiment’.
Chapter One explores philosophies of translation with a focus on Walter Benjamin’s concept of‘pure language’ considered untranslatable. My first installation work Understanding of misunderstanding,joins images of different landscapes in a manner akin to literal translation of my grandmother’senunciation. Chapter Two discuses ‘poetic use of language’ as articulative of the ineffable(untranslatable), through elaboration on Friedrich Hölderlin’s theory of poetry, Toshihiko Izutsu’s
philosophy of Zen articulation, and Luce Irigaray’s philosophy of linguistic and psychoanalytic
practice. My video work, Topologies between the Three, poetically translates conversations about Mt. Aso
by opening silent and metaphoric spatiality between expression and perception. Informed byintersecting studies on elusive appearance and perceptual ambiguity in philosophies of translationand perception, Chapter Three examines shifting ‘shadow’ (image) as an artistic medium,
exemplified and discussed in art, including works by Agnes Martin and Junichiro Tanizaki. In my
installation works, Distancing for Opening, Watakushi ame and Mokudoku, ‘shadow light/light shadow’visually and spatially transfers across images faintly printed or surfaces embossed with the acrylic (aremnant). Chapter Four articulates the ‘transfer’ process as the embodiment of the untranslatable,
inspired by the Greek-Latin and the Japanese derivations, illustrating the ‘transfer’ (utsuru). In thisprocess, the positive is engendered from the negative, which is aligned with art historical andphilosophical views that images metamorphose and knowledges transform in ‘distance’ orii‘movement’ between the works and the spectators. In response to Derrida’s interpretation, my final
exhibition, ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I
have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget, intends to open ‘a poetic place’, with my built walls and visual
works, where images transfer (utsuru: reflect, project, trace, emerge) within rooms (ma) throughaudiences’ experience and reflection. This is captured in the film, The Untranslatable, A Poetic Place,shot through the gazes of others, in keeping with how my grandmother’s enunciation ‘transfers’ thelife of Mt. Aso. The chapter further elaborates on this life as what conveys knowledge (sensitivity)of ‘love and longing for motherhood’, in the light of the Mirokubosatsu statue clad with nuance of
shadow as in love, Rainer Maria Rilke’s articulation about life and longing, and philosophical claims
that chora is both motherhood and untranslatable. Chapter Five articulates one’s experience of‘embodiment’ of the untranslatable as temporal, receptive and generative, in reference to otherbodies and words: my grandmother, Mirokubosatsu, hokahi (containing utsu: hollowness andemptiness) and the Chinese ideogram of poetry 詩 (word-temple, latently filled with chant or
shadow), and through proximate examination of the female artist’s body (mine). My video work,
Gesture of Shadow, externally captures metamorphosis of her shadow from a mountain to a butterfly.
The excerpts of my journal writing, during the final research residency, witness a temporaltransference of something external (hoka) into her body, anticipating its emergence as a birth of art.

As anyone struggles with that which resists translation in art, The Untranslatable, a Poetic Place, iswritten for both artists and audiences. Within the context of this thesis, ‘the untranslatable’ can bebest defined as the life that drifts as it metamorphoses and transforms our experience in andreflection on the world in a more rich and poetic manner. As it ‘transfers’ in variant ways, it can
only be embodied temporarily by the poetic work of art; in a poetic language that contains ‘fertilesilence’, an architectural body that internalises emptiness/hollowness, or an enduring form of lovethat longs for motherhood. This embodiment is perceived and experienced as ‘shadow light’ (astruthful, an aid to knowledge) that shifts; an ambiguous image that shimmers; a nuance of love thattrembles; or a poetic place that opens.

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DECLARATIONThis is to certify thati.

this thesis comprises only my original work toward the PhD except where indicatedin the preface.

ii.

due acknowledgement has been made in the text to all other material used.

iii.

the thesis is fewer than the maximum word limit in length, exclusive of tables,
maps, bibliographies and appendices or that the thesis is 44,383 words as approvedby the Research Higher Degrees Committee.

...............................................................

iv

PREFACE

I acknowledge that third party editorial assistance was provided in preparation of the thesis
by Ms. Samantha Semmens. Assistance from Ms. Semmens was limited to editorialintervention in accordance with the Australian Standards of Editing Practice as follows:Standard D; Language and Illustrations, and Standard E; Completeness and Consistency.
I acknowledge that all figures and citations from material, including third party copyrightmaterial, are included in the thesis within insubstantial portions, and in accordance with the
Fair Dealing Provisions for Research & Study, as all listed in Illustration and/or
Bibliography sections.
I would also like to acknowledge the funding support to this research project as theresearch scholarship provided through Australian Postgraduate Award, and as the research
grant provided by the Faculty of VCA & MCM at the University of Melbourne.

v

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to acknowledge the patient and loving care and support, and rigorous andinspirational criticism and advice, offered and provided to this project, by my principal
supervisor and artist, Dr. Elizabeth Presa, my external supervisor and philosopher, John
O’Dea, my mentor artists and committee members for my candidature, Takemi Azumaya,
Neil Malone, Dr. Kiron Robinson, my editor and artist, Samantha Semmens, my friend andacademic, Dr. Yoko Akama, my mother with the most receptive heart, Masako Shindo, andmy beloved husband and artist, Dr. Manabu Kanai.
I would like to express my sincere appreciation to my friends, and to my fellow artists,
researchers and writers, who provided my exhibitions with physical and technical assistanceand help, academic and creative input, feedback and responses, and enthusiasm andencouragement: Christian Capurro, Jeremy Bakker, Dimple Rajyaguru, Dr. Katsuhiko
Suganuma, Dan Rule, Ben Andrews, Celine Marks, Elodie Hiryczuk, Fran Van Riemsdyk,
Hamish Carr, Adela Mora López, Hiroshi Matsumura, Satomi Tanaka and Sumi Kanazawa.
I would like to extend my appreciation to those who maintain and look after the venues, art
institutions, centers, and sites where I exhibited artworks, undertook residency programs,
and conducted research: the cafe Slope, BankART NYK Yokohama, Archetopia, Museo
Taller Erasto Cortés, Perimeter Books, Aplus Studios, HAGI ART, Clear Graphic, Sutton
Projects, Bogong Centre for Sound Culture, and the Melbourne University South Bank
campus.
I would like to thank my colleagues and lecturers at the Centre For Ideas, with whom I
went on a wonderful journey into poetics and philosophies of art, and the PhD candidates
across VCA & MCM with whom I shared laughter and tears over the joy and struggle ofthesis-writing, in the study lounge on campus.
I would like to say arigatou to all my friends and my family members for their sending
continuous yells to me across oceans over the last four years.

My deepest appreciation and my dedication of this work to my grandmother, Hiroko Kai,
for the life and the poetry that she has gifted to me.

viTABLE OF CONTENTS

Title pagei

Abstractii

Declarationiv

Prefacev

Acknowledgements

vi

Table of Contentsvii

Illustrationx

INTRODUCTION

1CHAPTER ONE: Experience and Reflection of/as Translation

10

Introduction
1.1 Being Foreign in the Translatable World10

a. In a room (ma or utsu), I ask: How can an artwork embody the untranslatable?
b. A video work: Gesture of Shadowsc. Hokahi-bito (a foreigner) in the globalized art and academic world
d. Observation of the untranslatable: An art project, 内在の風景̲Naizai no Fukui
e. Agamben and Nishiyama’s critique of global translatability
f. Significance of the untranslatable in art and the everyday: My grandmother’s poetic enunciation
1.2 Translation and the Untranslatable

16a. Derrida’s remark in Anyone conference and ‘Passe-Partout’, and Benjamin’s ‘The Translator’s Task’b. Berman’s articulation of Translation as ‘experience and reflection’c. Three elements for my poetic translation in this research project
CHAPTER TWO: The Untranslatable; Fertile Silence and the Poetic

21

Introduction
2.1 The Untranslatable: Unforgettable, Pure, Silent, Poetic

21

a. ‘Unforgettable’ in my grandmother’s memory, ‘pure language’ in Benjamin’s Translator’s Task
b. An installation artwork: Understanding of Misunderstandingc. Two streams of Thoughts: Jewish-Christian Theological Thought, and German Romantic Thoughtd. Michio Mitsugi’s interpretation of Hölderlin’s Pure word (Zäsur (Cäsur)) as ma
2.2 The untranslatable_ a Place, Ba/field, Interval

25

a. Izutsu’s reason and effort in philosophizing Zen
b. Izutu’s interpretation of Zen Silence, ‘ba/field’c. Irigaray’s notion of the ‘interval’d. “Human, seeing Mountain, Mountain, seeing Human”, Understanding of Misunderstanding
2.3 The Untranslatable, Articulated through a ‘Poetic’ Use of Language

30

a. Articulating the ‘ineffable’ through Zen’s ‘poetic use of language’b. Derrida’s letter to Izutsu, deconstruction and translation of poetryc. Zen’s poetic use of language, Marker’s observation of ‘spring’ as untranslatable
d. A video work: Topology Between the Three, an opening of silent, enigmatic placee. Haiku, an ink brush painting, or shadowsvii

CHAPTER THREE: Nuanced Shadow

36

Introduction
3.1 The Shadows Appearance in Philosophy and Art

36

a. Acrylic cube (mobile utsu), variant shadesb. Sensation & cognition_the sensible & the intelligiblec. Sallis’ discussions on dianoia & eikasiad. Stoichita’s history of shadows in Western art, Tanizaki and Izutsu’s observations of shadows in
Eastern aesthetics
e. Artworks serve Shadows in a Japanese house
3.2 Multistable Perception (‘perceptual ambiguity comes in degrees’)

42

a. O’Dea’s discussion on Gestalt-shift (multistable perception)b. Krausse’s elaboration on one’s experience of works by Agnes Martinc. Manipulation of contextual clues (eg. Distancing for opening)d. Murata’s argument: a ‘form’ of expression in the everyday
3.3 Shadows mediate knowledge

47

a. Casati’s articulation of ‘shadow light’, Isozaki and Tanizaki’s observation of a flash in darkness
b. Takemi Azumaya’s Eclipse series, and his knowledge, A installation artwork: 目読_Mokudoku
c. Lovatt’s and Barthe’s shimmering and the neutral, Eastern monochromatic, Works on paper: 私雨_watakushiamed. Martin’s poetic title of Little Children Loving Love, Proust’s writing ‘yellow patch on Vermeer’s panting’
CHAPTER FOUR: Transference

54

Introduction
4.1 ‘Imago’ (life and image) Transfers

54

a. Derrida’s remark: translation as transference, Shinfuji’s articulation: from sanagi-pupa, anima-soul toimago-image-butterfly
b. From utsu to utsuru (utsuroi): transfer, project, reflect, trace, and emergec. Derrida’s ‘remainder’, ‘trait’ in drawing and printing: Nami no Ma ni Ma ni [at the Mercy of the Waves]
4.2 Prolonging Life Through a Poetic Translation

59

a. Benjamin and Berman’s translation: survival through transformation, my reflection: Understanding of
misunderstanding, Topology Between the Three, Gesture of Shadowsb. Warburg and Didi-Huberman’s image in motion, Rancier’s ‘Emancipated Spectator’c. A film: The untranslatable, a poetic place
4.3 Longing, Love, a Form of Prayer

64

a. Architectural works that informed the experience and the knowledge for the final exhibition to transfer
b. Titling the work: Where it is … ; Hosono’s song: Koi wa Momoiro [Love is Pink]
c. My visit to the statue of Mirokubosatsu in Nara, guided by Kamei’s bookd. Rilke’s Letter to a Young Poet, Burchill’s discussion on pre-chora and motherhood
Conclusion (through quiet transferences, the life remains alive)
CHAPTER FIVE: Embodiment70

Introduction
5.1 Vulnerable Body, an Emptied Container

70

a. Mirokubosatsu and my grandmother, their bodies in painful transformation, enables the embodimentb. The body of the translator and the artist: how poetic translation is experiencedviii

(i) between semantic languages (English and Japanese)(ii) between life (the world) and the language of art; 詩 a temple of the word)(iii&iv) a poetic work emerges as images, sounds or trembles; 影 向 (Shadow Coming)
5.2 My body, as a site for the embodiment74

a-d. Journal entries
5.3 Conclusion (the embodiment of the untranslatable, a poetic translation of life)

78

CONCLUSION

81

Bibliography

88

Appendices1. Catalogue poster for ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I
have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget (the final exhibition), text by Dr. Katsuhiko Suganuma and the author.
2. Review on the final exhibition, by Dan Rule.
3. Images from the final exhibition by Christian Capurro.
4. Film from the final exhibition, filmed by Dimple Rajyaguru and Ben Andrews, directed and edited by the author.

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ILLUSTRATIONS
Utako Shindo, ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来Image on Title page

たのか_how I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget, (detail), installation with constructed
walls, photographs, prints, drawings, various paper, fabric and a projection of video works,
dimension variable, Sutton Projects, Melbourne, 2016. Photo: Christian Capurro.

Listed by Chapter.
CHAPTER ONE: Experience and Reflection of/as Translation
Figure 1.

Utako Shindo, Gesture of Shadows, (video still), video work, 3min 43sec. 2016,
on view at www.utakoshindo.info/exhibition/gesture-of-shadows/.

Figure 2.

Immanent Landscape, 2010, (exhibition installation view), West Space, Melbourne. Photo: Christian
Capurro.

Figure 3.

Wherefore Art thou?, 2010, (a public talk series), Japan foundation, Sydney. Photo: Japan Foundation
Sydney.

Figure 4.

内在の風景_Immanent Landscape logo, designed by Dion Tuckwell.

Figure 5.

Cultivating a Field for artists and audiences, 2011, (symposium), Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo. Photo:
Kazuhiro Masuda.

Figure 6.

The window view from the hospital. Tokyo, August, 2012. Photo: the author.

CHAPTER TWO: The Untranslatable; Fertile Silence and the Poetic
All images by the author.
Figure 1-2.

Utako Shindo, Understanding of misunderstanding, (detail), mixed media, 70 x 130 x 12 cm, Slope, Tokyo,
2013. Photo: the author.

Figure 3-5.

Shindo, Understanding of misunderstanding, (installation view), 2013.

Figure 6-8.

Utako Shindo, Topology Between the Three, (video still), video work, 3 min 55sec. 2014-2016,
on view at www.utakoshindo.info/exhibition/topology-between-the-three/.

CHAPTER THREE: Nuanced Shadow
Figure 1.

Shadow and reflection of the acrylic cube. Photo: the author.

Figure 2.

Eduard Daege, The invention of Painting, oil on canvas, 176 x 135.5 cm, National Galerie, Berlin,1832.
Photo: Staatliche Museen zu Berlin Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz.

Figure 3.

Claude Monet, Self Portrait on the Surface of the Lily Pond, Giverny, photograph, 4x 5 cm, Collection
Philippe Piguet, Paris, 1905.

Figure 4-5.

Still from the film, Maboroshi [Maboroshi no hikari] by Hirokazu Koreeda, 1995. Extracted by theauthor from the DVD, Maboroshi [Maboroshi no hikari], Tokyo: Bandai, 2003.

Figure 6.

Joseph Jastrow, the duck-rabbit, illustration, (original appears in Trends in the Cognitive Sciences, 1899, p.
312) in O’Dear, John., “Art and Ambiguity: A Gestalt-Shift Approach to Elusive
Appearances,” (the draft, to be appear in Phenomenal Presence. eds by F. Dorsch, F. Macpherson, andM. Nida-Rumelin, Oxford University Press, forthcoming). Figure appears on p.12.

Figure 7.

Jungle foliage image. in Leopold, David A. and Logothetis, Nikos K., “Multistable phenomena: changing
views in perception,” in Trends in Cognitive Sciences 3-7 (July 1999): 254-264. Figure appears on p.261.

Figure 8.

Agnes Martin, Paintings from 2001, installed with Yellow Donald Judo Benches selected by Martin.
The Harwood Museum of Art, University of New Mexico, Taos
Archives. http://www.harwoodmuseum.org/exhibitions/view/59 Accessed September, 15, 2015.
x

Figure 9.

Reconstruction of Brunelleschi’s first experiment, in Krauss, R., “THE /CLOUD/,” in Agnes Martin, edited
by B. Haskell, 155-165. N. Y. : Whitney Museum of American Art, 1992. Figure appears on p.161.

Figure 10.

Agnes Martin, Leaf, acrylic and graphite on canvas, 182.9 x 182.9 cm, Modern Art Museum of Fort
Worth, 1965. Archives. http://www.themodern.org/collection/leaf/1129 Accessed August 30, 2015.

Figure 11.

Utako Shindo, Distancing for Opening, (installation view), oak, acrylic sheets, inkjet print, 60.5 x 73 x
154 cm, Perimeter Books, Melbourne, 2014. Photo: Christian Capurro.

Figure 12.

Shindo, Distancing for Opening, (middle view), 2014.

Figure 13.

Shindo, Distancing for Opening, (detail), 2014.

Figure 14.

Takemi Azumaya, Mizu no Shouzou I_eclipse, lithograph, 66 x 86 cm, 2008. Image courtesy the artist.

Figure 15.

Utako Shindo, 目読_Mokudoku, (installation view), colour pencil, yupo-trace paper, steal, magnets,
dimension variable (60 x 84 cm each sheet), HAGI ART, Tokyo, 2015. Photo: Manabu Kanai.

Figure 16-17.

Shindo, 目読_Mokudoku, (middle view and detail), 2015. Photo: the author.

Figure 18.

Agnes Martin, Little Children Loving Love, acrylic and graphite on canvas, 60 x 60 in, private
collection, 2001. Reproduced in Glimcher, A., ed. Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances.
London: Phaidon, 2012. Figure appears on p.186.

Figure 19.

Utako Shindo, I rain_Watakushi ame, (installation view), water color, glassine, MG Litho, 47 x 88 cm,
Sutton Projects, Melbourne, 2016. Photo: Christian Capurro.

Figure 20.

Utako Shindo, I rain_私雨, (installation view), water color, glassine, MG Litho, 47 x 48 cm,
Sutton Projects, Melbourne, 2016. Photo: Christian Capurro.

Figure 21.

Photo of the reproduction of Martin’s “Little Children Loving Love”, in Glimcher, Agnes Martin: Paintings,
Writings, Remembrances, on p.186. Photo: the author.

Figure 22.

Johaness Vermeer, View of delft, oil on canvas, 96.5×115.7 cm, Mauritshuis, 1660-1661.
Archive. www.mauritshuis.nl/en/explore/the-collection/artworks/view-of-delft-92/ Accessed
October, 20, 2014.

CHAPTER FOUR: Transference
Figure 1.

Shindo, Distancing for Opening, (installation view), 2014.

Figure 2.

Utako Shindo, Shadow Drawing_autumn, graphite on awa-gami paper, 27 x 38 cm, 2013. Photo: theauthor.

Figure 3.

Utako Shindo, Penséen ir de alguna manera, (installation view), digital print, window, Museo Taller
Erasto Cortés, Puebla, 2013. Photo: the author.

Figure 4-6.

Work in progress (Nami no Ma ni Ma ni), oil pastel, tracing paper, 21 x 27 cm (each), 2013.
Photo: the author.

Figure 7.

Utako Shindo, 波の間に間に̲Nami no Ma ni Ma ni, (detail), oil pastel, tracing paper, dimension variable,
Sutton Projects, Melbourne, 2016. Photo: Christian Capurro.

Figure 8.

Shindo, 波の間に間に̲Nami no Ma ni Ma ni, (installation view), 2016. Photo: Christian Capurro.

Figure 9.

Shindo, 波の間に間に̲Nami no Ma ni Ma ni, (detail), 2016. Photo: Christian Capurro.

Figure 10.

Shindo, Understanding of misunderstanding, (installation detail), 2013.

Figure 11.

Shindo, Topology between the Three, (video still), 2014-2016.

Figure 12.

Shindo, Gesture of Shadow, (video still), 2016.

Figure 13.

Reading Night, (an public event as part of 目読_Mokudoku), HAGI ART and Cafe, Tokyo, 2015. Photo:
Manabu Kanai.

Figure 14-17.

Utako Shindo in collaboration with Dimple Rajyaguru and Ben Andrews, The Untranslatable, a Poetic
Place, (film still), film, 9min 46sec, 2016, on view at www.utakoshindo.info/exhibition/where-it-is/.
xi

Figure 18-19.

Photo by Christian Capurro, from Utako Shindo, ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it
does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget, (middle view),
installation with constructed walls, photographs, prints, drawings, various paper, fabric and a
projection of video works (Topology Between the Three and Gesture of Shadows), dimension variable,
Sutton Projects, Melbourne, 2016.

Figure 20-22.

Photo by Capurro, from Shindo, ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget, (installation view), 2016.

Figure 23-24.

Daniel Libeskind, the Berlin Jewish Museum, Berlin, 2001. Photo: the author, October, 2014.

Figure 25-26.

Luis Barragán, Casa Luis Barragán, Mexico City, 1948. Photos: Almerto Moreno, in Casillas, M. ed.,Guía Casa Luis Barragán. Mexico City: Fundación de Arquitectura Tapatía Luis Barragán, 2008.
Figures appear on p. 12 and 17.

Figure 27.

Chuguji_Temple, main building, Nara, 1969 (originally 7th Century). Photo: the author, November,
2015.

Figure 28-29.

Photo by Capurro, from Shindo, ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget, (installation view), 2016.

Figure 30.

Landscape of Ikaruga, Nara. November 2015. Photo: the author.

Figure 31.

The Miroku-Bosatsu statue, Chugu-ji Temple, Nara, 7th Century. Photo, entitled “130 Seated Bosatsu(National Treasure) Nara Chugu-ji Temple” on the postcard sold at Chugu-ji Temple. ©飛鳥園.

CHAPTER FIVE: The Embodiment
All images by the author.
Figure 1. 4. 5.

Photo taken during the residency at Bogong Centre for Sound Culture (BCSC), October 10-23, 2016.

Figure 2. 3. 6.

Video Still (work-in-progress), filmed during the residency at BCSC, October 10-23, 2016.

CONCLUSION
Figure 1.

Utako Shindo, shadowlight, archival print, 40 x 60cm, 2016.

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INTRODUCTION
What is it? The working definition of the untranslatable
As an artist and an audience member, I notice something in an artwork that resists translation into
everyday language. I experience it as a shift, oscillation, drift or movement between the sensible(sensation) and the intelligible (cognition). My attention is held by this ‘in-between’ spatiality. Then,for a brief moment, it touches me lovingly and truthfully.
I call it ‘the untranslatable’, as I am inspired by the French philosopher, Jacques Derrida’s
discussion on the Greek concept of chora and the Japanese concept of ma. Chora and ma commonly
indicate negative (in-between) spatiality, such as the void, blank, interval, gap and so forth, which
Derrida recognises to be both untranslatable and a place for translation, transference andmovement in both a semantic and material sense1.
To be touched by the untranslatable, lovingly and truthfully, has a significant impact on me,
as it transforms how I experience and reflect on the world. I feel liberated, and, at the same time,able to see what was previously unnoticeable.

Why investigation into the untranslatable matters to me as an artist/spectator?
Having worked as an artist, and sometimes as a curator and translator, in the globalised art andacademic context for the last decade, I observe the demand imposed on an artwork to betranslatable into verbal and written languages. This often comes from an attitude that conceives anartwork as a tool or an object to serve existing ideologies or/and marketable values.
This demand, however, paradoxically exposes the untranslatability of art. My experience of
the untranslatable, which I have just described, moves me to argue against such a conception that
ignores the autonomy of works of art. Does a work of art not liberate and provoke one’s
perception of the world by suggesting more nuanced understandings of the world, rather than byrepresenting already defined translatable views?
However, I acknowledge that it is a difficult task to articulate how the untranslatable isimportant to the work of art in verbal and written language, precisely because of its
untranslatability (into everyday language).

How have I set up this research project?
This difficulty has forced me to look around; I have found that my awareness of something in art
which resists translation is shared by others. Indeed I identify that there are other thinkers andartists who have developed concepts about what I am calling the untranslatable. They include
Derrida, as introduced earlier, Walter Benjamin, Antoine Berman, Friedrich Hölderlin, Toshihiko

1 “Discussion A-1” in Anyone, ed. Cynthia C. Davidson,, (New York: Rizzoli International Publishing 1991), 90.

1

Izutsu, Luce Irigaray, John Sallis, Junichiro Tanizaki, Roberto Casati, Arata Isozaki, Takemi
Azumaya, Agnes Martin, Seigo Matsuoka, Atsushi Shindo, and Rainer Maria Rilke.
Their voices have supported me to establish this research project not to translate theuntranslatable but to develop a set of terms that can help us to think about the untranslatable, inturn deepening our understanding of works of art.
In carrying out this project as an artist researcher, I have addressed the following twoquestions, by which I have manifested the research processes and outcomes in my artworks as wellas my thesis:
What is the untranslatable in art?
How can an artwork embody the untranslatable?

Prompts for the questions
These questions are inspired by the following elements, in which I identify something that is
untranslatable. Hence, they are the direct prompts for this research project.
(i) My grandmother’s poetic enunciation about the view from the window, which we saw
together.
(ii) Shifting shadows and reflections of an acrylic cube (a remnant).
(iii) Derrida’s interpretation of chora and ma as a place for translation/transference that is
untranslatable.
My previous art project, which I curated and attended to as an artist, was intended to betranscultural; however, it resulted in revealing ‘what cannot be translated’ between artworks andconcepts, expressing this in the two-word title Immanent Landscape_内在の風景. Though factuallywrong due to her dementia, it was my grandmother’s enunciation about a landscape (i) that called
my attention to the untranslatable; not as a struggle of translation but as a generative gap that can
open an artistic scene/place. Around the same period, the shifting shadows and reflections of anacrylic cube (ii) also caught my eye. (I intuitively made a link between shifting shadows and theuntranslatable.) Their nuance and subtlety struck me as more artistic than the kind of artwork thatis easily translated into a prosaic language. I made the link between the opening of an artistic scene
and the shifting appearance of shadows when I encountered Derrida’s discussion on chora and ma(iii): a place of translation/transference/movement, considered to be untranslatable.

Approaches to the research questions
In response to the two research questions, these three elements have informed my approach to art
making and have generated the sub-questions that frame the chapters of the thesis (see below).
The last question was generated as the research progressed.

2• What is the untranslatable in art?
_What does it mean to ‘translate’? (Chapter One)
_How can the untranslatable be articulated? (Chapter Two)
• How can an artwork embody the untranslatable?
_How can ‘shadow’ be considered an artistic medium? (Chapter Three)_How can ‘transfer’ be considered an artistic process? (Chapter Four)。How do I, as an artist, experience the embodiment of the untranslatable? (Chapter Five)

Brief outline of the research process (reflected in the narrative of my thesis)_How and what this research is set up to do?
Chapter One first frames this research project, in the way that I have just described, by discussing
how, in which context and what this research is set up to do.

• What is the untranslatable in art?
The chapter elaborates on my struggle, as a Japanese artist researcher, to write this thesis in English,by pointing out that this struggle is not only mine: the Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben saysthat the dominance of English is not innocent2. The Japanese philosopher and translator, Tatsuya
Nishiyama also expresses his concern with the invisibility of translation in the era of global
translatability 3. Yet, this globalised demand of translation is a tangential struggle in this research
project. My primary concern is not with the untranslatability between languages (Italian andEnglish, Japanese and English, and so forth); it is with the untranslatability that I identify in art.
Interestingly, however, as the three elements indicate, I became attuned to the untranslatability ofart through this tangential struggle, in the invisible act of translation. Hence, my investigation of
the untranslatable in art begins with examining the very act of translation, in the latter half ofChapter One.

_What does it mean to ‘translate’?
I refer to the modern and contemporary philosophers, translators and theorists who considertranslation poetic. For Walter Benjamin, in his influential essay, ‘The Translator’s Task’, to translate
2 “Giorgio Agamben. Resistance in Art. 2014,” Youtube video, 0:36, posted by “Saas-Fee: European Graduate School,” March 2, 2015,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=one7mE-8y9c
3 Trans. the author, T. Nishiyama, “Yakusha Kaisetsu: Honyaku Kono Sakusou suru Mono [Translator’s note: Translation, thisentanglement],” in Honyaku ni Tsuite: On Translation, John Sallis, (Tokyo: Getsuyousha Publishing, 2013), 310.
3

is not to exchange meanings between different languages but to intend pure language 4, which isconsidered untranslatable. It is suggested that the distance between pure language and the subject(translator/language that translates) can be bridged through literal translation (as though joining
fragments together lovingly).
I discuss how my installation artwork, Understanding of Misunderstanding, comprised of small
pieces of paper and objects, links different images of landscapes in a similar way. I also reflect how
the work simultaneously presents shadows and reflections, metaphorically suggesting theuntranslatability of Mt. Aso in my grandmother’s enunciation.
This process of experiencing and reflecting on her enunciation through making and seeing
my artwork, resonates with Antoine Berman's definition of translation as to experience and reflect5.
In this process, the object of the translation transforms and the subject metamorphoses, hence it isrecognised as a poetic translation.

_How can the untranslatable be articulated?
With an attempt to develop sets of terms to articulate the untranslatable, Chapter Two further
extends investigation into Benjamin’s notion of pure language, understood as untranslatable as wellas ‘expressionless and creative’. It originated in the idea of the ‘pure word’, elaborated by the 17th
century German poet and translator, Friedrich Hölderlin, in his theory of poetry (art). Thissuggests that the concept of the untranslatable is observed in the connection between the theoryof translation and the theory of poetry (art). This ‘pure word’ is called Zäsur (Cäsur) which means
caesura: a counter-rhythmical interruption in a verse6. It is also interpreted as ‘fertile silence/ma (mameaning ‘in-between space-time’ in Japanese)’ by the Japanese translator and theorist, Michio
Mitsugi7. This suggests another useful perspective for my investigation into the untranslatable, in
Eastern thought, namely Zen articulation.
According to Toshihiko Izutsu, Zen articulates the ineffable (untranslatable) by Zen’s
poetic language that is engendered from what he calls ‘ba/field’8, which is also understood to be
fertile silence. This particular spatiality prompts transference between subject and object, and thisfusion engenders a poetic language which embodies a semantic network of suggestive associations.
A similar generative ‘interval’ is observed by the philosopher, Luce Irigaray, between a speaker anda listener in psychoanalytic practice. She recognises it as calm, opening and enigmatic 9.
These shared views on fertile silence as generative in-between spatiality that engenders
poetic languages, echo with my video work, Topology Between the Three, which is concerned with theuntranslatability of my grandmother’s poetic enunciation. I discuss how the work, which iscomprised of footages of Mt. Aso and the subtitles of conversations, intends to open a space
4 “The Ttranslator’s Task, Walter Benjamin,” trans. Steven Rendall, TTR: traduction, terminologie, redaction vol.10, n2 (1997): 152-156.
5 Trans. the author, Masaki Kishi, “Antoine Berman ‘Honyaku no Jidai: Benjamin “Honyakusha no Shimei” Chukai' wo Yomu [‘Reading

Antoine Berman’s ‘L’âge de la traduction: “La tâche du traducteur" de Walter Benjamin, un commentaire’],” Invitation to Translation
Studies no.6 (August 2011): 34.
6 Hölderlin’s Sophocles – Oedipus &Antigone, trans. David Constantine, (Northumberland: Bloodaxe Books, 2001), 63.

7 Trans. the author, Michio Mitsugi, “Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Translation”, Interpretation and Translation Studies no.9 (2009): 189.
8 Trans. the author, T. Izutsu, “Zen ni okeru Gengoteki Imi no Mondai [The problem of meaning in Zen language]” in Ishiki to

Honshitsu: The consciousness and reality of existence, (Tokyo: Iwanami,1991), 370.

9 L. Irigaray, “The limits of transference” in The Irigaray Reader, ed. Margaret Whitford, (Massachusetts, Blackwell publishers, 1991), 115.

4

between the artwork and the audience, what is seen and what is shown, and what is said and what isheard.

• How can an artwork embody the untranslatable?
_How can ‘shadow’ be considered an artistic medium?
The poetic use of language, which is considered articulative of the ineffable (untranslatable) in the
Zen context, includes not only the semantic but the visual language, such as ink brush painting. Itsvarious shades of gray between black and white are characterised as monochromatically reticent yet
metaphorically rich. This resonates with my fascination with shifting shadow, with which I identify
the untranslatable. Thus, in Chapter Three I discuss how shadow can be considered a poetic
language or an artistic medium.
I first examine the concept of shadow (image) in the intersection between translation andperception (appearance). According to the philosopher, John Sallis, in the ancient Greek, ‘the forceof translated word (dianoia)’10 is measured by ‘the possibilities for interpretation (eikasia)’.
Interestingly, the word eikasia indicates both image and shadow, and translation is recognised as‘double seeing’: ‘to see through’ (eikasia) and ‘to think through (dianoia)’. This resonates with myexperience of the untranslatable as shift, drift or oscillation between the sensible and theintelligible, which is also reminiscent of Irigaray’s recognitions of in-between space as ‘interval’.
Similarly, philosophy of perception studies the appearance of ambiguous shadow and image, toquestion the traditional perceptual model that divides sensation from cognition.
A shadow (image) that appears to shift, drift or shimmer is unique in the sense that
although it is immaterial and dependent on supporting materials (grounds), surroundings andviewers’ perception, the strength of its impact on us belies this dependency. Its impact is akin to
the power love has to alter the lover’s perception. In fact, western art history tells that the contourof a lover’s shadow originated painting 11. In the medieval East, there is an Islamic philosophicalconcept: ‘shadowy imaginal’, which is described as a shimmering and drifting thing with nosubstance, yet which is more real than any physical substance 12. As depicted in Junichiro Tanizaki’s
In Praise of Shadows, pre-modern Japanese aesthetics values shadow more than the actual objects
or structures of architecture, where the shadow is oriented towards beauty and people are expected
to differentiate subtle degrees of shades in order to complete the beauty13.
In this regard, the theory of multimodal perception (Gestalt Shift) informs us about how
perception of subtle and elusive appearance is possible, and how we can cultivate such a perceptual
ability through ‘practice’. This supports my argument in the second part of Chapter Three thatmaking and seeing an artwork can be a form of ‘practice’, as the work of art uniquely prompts dispreferred or alternative perceptions. In reflecting on my installation artwork, Distancing for Opening, I

10 John Sallis, On Translation, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 51.
11 Victor I. Stoichita, A Short History of the Shadow (London: Reaction Books Ltd, 1997), 7.
12 Trans. the author, Toshihiko Izutsu, Ishiki to Honshitsu: The consciousness and reality of existence, (Tokyo: Iwanami,1991), 202-204.
13 J. Tanizaki, “Innei Raisan [In Praise of Shadows]”, in Innei Raisan [In Praise of Shadows], (Tokyo: Iwanami, 2005), 32.

5

discuss how the work manipulates what are called ‘contextual clues’14: spatial attention, instruction,
semantic associations, visual imagery and so forth, in order to draw viewers' attention to what isnormally unnoticeable. The work utilises atmospheric conditions in the exhibition venue (abookstore) to create ambiguous shadows and reflections of acrylic sheets upon a faintly printed
image of a shadow.
In this way, shifting/ambiguous/subtle shadow contributes to philosophical, aesthetic andartistic knowledge of elusive existence (the untranslatable). However, the Platonic conception of
shadow, which is still dominant today, positions shadow (as well as art and poetry) against light,
truth, knowledge and philosophy. The contemporary philosopher, Roberto Casati, who claims
shadow as a valuable aid to knowledge as well as vision15, provides my research with usefulconcepts of shadow that differ from Platonic shadow. One of them, ‘shadow light’, is both spatial
and visual, which resonates with the contemporary architect, Arata Isozaki’s understanding of
darkness as a ground of all phenomena where light only passes ephemerally16. It also relates to
Izutsu’s description of articulation as a flash17 that emerges from the depth of ba/field only
momentary.
This leads the last part of this chapter to examine artworks in which I observe ‘shadow light’ as
motif, material or medium. Takemi Azumaya’s lithograph, Eclipse, defines contours of an ice cubewith shadowy darkness. The shimmering, subtle and neutral presence of Agnes Martin’s paintings
confounds ‘oppositions’ such as image and material. My installation artworks: Mokudoku andWatakushi ame are both made out of embossing and color transferring processes. The surfaces of
the works are receptive of ‘shadow light’/‘light shadow’ that moves across architectural andatmospheric surroundings, poetically reflecting, in turn, my experience of the untranslatable withthe acrylic cube.
These works of art suggest that nuanced perception and expression of shadow (asshadow light) allow us to gain nuanced understanding of the world. In this sense, shadow can beconsidered a poetic language and an artistic medium, which articulates the untranslatable. It evenmediates knowledge across different forms of art. One of the most beautiful examples is found in
Proust’s In Search of Lost Time, where the novelist (a character in the story) expresses his perceptionof a small yellow patch on the wall—the shifting appearance of ‘light shadow’—in Vermeer’s
painting in front of him 18.

_How can ‘transfer’ be considered an artistic process?
‘Shadow light’ (shadow), as a poetic language that articulates the untranslatable, is observed in theprocess of transference—light transfers from/into darkness (fertile silence, ba/field, interval). This
14 J. O’Dea, “Art and Ambiguity: A Gestalt-Shift Approach to Elusive Appearances”, the DRAFT to be appear in Phenomenal Presence.

eds. Fabian Dorsch, Fiona Macpherson, and Martine Nida-Rumelin (Oxford University Press, forthcoming), 15.

15 Roberto Casali, Shadows (the original Italian edition is entitled, The Shadow Clubs), (N.Y.: Vintage Books, 2004), 10.
16 A. Isozaki,“Yami no Kukan [Space of Darkness: spiritual structure of illusion]” trans. Hiroshi Watanabe, in Arata Isozaki, eds. Ken

Tadashi Oshima and Arata Isozaki (London: Phaidon, 2008), 153.

17 Toshihiko Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism (Massachusetts: the Imperial Iranian Academy of Philosophy, 1982), 131.
18 Marcel Proust, The Captive (vol.5): In Search of Lost Time, Trans. C K Scott Moncrieff, (Project Gutenberg Australia, 2014), under “thecaptive,” accessed July 3, 2015, http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks03/0300501.txt.

6

observation mirrors Derrida’s remark that chora and ma are untranslatable, as a place for translationand transference in both a semantic and material sense. Thus, Chapter Four is concerned with theidea of transfer, as that which processes the embodiment of the untranslatable in art.
With this enquiry, both Japanese and Greek-Latin terms show us an inspiring etymologicalsequence. The verb form of the noun utsu, meaning hollow or emptiness in Japanese, is utsuru,
indicating variants on ‘transfer’: reflect, project, trace and emerge. As stated by the editor, Seigo
Matsuoka 19, and the curator, Atsushi Shinfuji 20, the subject of this ‘transfer’ is considered spirit,
atmosphere or human psychology, and results in forming an image. We find the identical derivationfrom Greek to Latin: the Greek noun pyche, meaning pupa or spirit, originates the Latin term anima,
meaning soul in movement, and imago, indicating butterfly or image.
This analogy, which shares a view that something emerges (transfers) from negative spacetime, depicts transformation and metamorphosis of life into a new form (of art). The Roman poet,Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, articulates this as a survival of life through transference. This inspires
the modern art historian, Aby Warburg, to conceive image as what remains/survives (nachleben) inmotion21. His concept can be linked to Benjamin’s idea that the life of the original work is
prolonged through translation that aims towards pure language. This idea is further articulated inBerman’s view that poetic translation enables this prolonging through forming new work and newunderstanding in the processes of transformation and metamorphosis.
These perspectives facilitate my reflection on my art-making, which is, in fact, always prompted by‘transfer’ (a variant on utsuru) movements. These movements let images appear as reflection,
projection or trace (embossment) to be grounded on materials (such as paper, perspex or wall),which then bear remainders of this ‘transfer’. This is how my works maintain disciplinarily
divergent forms across drawing, printing, photography and video projection. This is evident in the
installation works I have created using these forms.
For instance, my work, Nami no Ma ni Ma ni [In the Mercy of Waves] is made out of repetitive
color transfer processes between sheets of paper, whose surfaces are left with embossment andfaint color, looking like cast-off skins or remainders of some life form. In my series of video
works, Topology Between the Three and Gesture of Shadows, an image of Mt. Aso transforms fromlandscapes to atmospheric movements; and a silhouette of my hand metamorphoses from amountain to a butterfly, as though it is the surviving life of Mt. Aso.
This unfolding of the transferred life, image or form, as described, cannot be fixed as itshall remain liberated. These works appear to my eyes only in reflections of my experiences, thus,
must differ from those of others. The life of my work, thereby, perpetually transfers (prolongs/
survives/remains) through audiences’ poetic translations of the work. For further elaboration, I
examine ‘distance’ between artworks and audiences, which the philosopher, Georges DidiHuberman, positions in the movement of the spectator22, and Jacques Rancière regards as a path

19 Trans. the author, Seigo Matsuoka, Nihon to iu Yarikata - omokage to utsuroi no bunka [Japan as methods: Culture of reminiscent-shadow

and transferring], (Tokyo: NHK publishing, 2006), 91.

20 A. Shinfuji, “Katachi ha Utsuru [Form Transfer]”, in Iconomorphosis: Selected Graphics from the NMWA Collection, eds. Atsushi Shinfuj

and Naoko Sato (Tokyo: The National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo & The Western Art Foundation, 2009), 10.

21 Georges Didi-Huberman, “The Surviving Image: Aby Warburg and Tylorian Anthropology”, in Oxford Art Journal, 25.1 (2002): 68.
22 G. Didi-Huberman, “Forward_Knowledge: Movement (The Man Who Spoke to Butterflies)” in Aby Warburg and the image in motion,

by Philippe-Alain Michaud (N.Y: MIT Press, 2004), 16.

7

for new knowledge23. Audiences of my installation artwork, Mokudoku, provide proximate accounts.
In brief, one, who is a dancer, experiences ‘seeing’ the work bodily as well as visually, in literally
moving between images in the installation context; another, a photographer, finds her gaze
unfocused in drifting between what she has and has not yet intellectualised.
Insights into the idea of ‘transfer’—transference, translation and movement—in making,experiencing and reflecting on an artwork, correspond closely to Derrida’s recognition that thisprocess is a place that is

untranslatable, and his suggestion of a possible answer to his

accompanying question: “What is the place for translation that is untranslatable?”. This leads me todemonstrate how my final solo exhibition for this PhD project intends to articulate theuntranslatable as a poetic place.
In brief, the exhibition, an installation, ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it
does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget, is framed by my built
walls inside the existing architecture of the venue. Through this, I create in-between spaces (roomor ma) where audiences navigate their way from one image to another grounded on multiple piecesof small works on the walls. The light coming through the windows as well as video projections
from the back of the wall, allow images (nuanced shadows) to appear and disappear from/into
darkness (fertile silence) behind the wall. These transfer processes in the embodiment of theuntranslatable prompt the opening of a poetic place. This is captured in a film entitled The
Untranslatable, a Poetic Place, through the gazes of the cinematographer and the filmmaker. This film
reflects on their experiences of the work, yet something about this film evokes for me the way inwhich my grandmother’s enunciation opens a poetic scene and prolongs the life of Mt. Aso.
These poetic works of art are able to transfer this life of Mt. Aso, which I personally interpret as asense or knowledge of ‘longing for love’. The final installation, indeed, intends to convey (transfer)
this sense (knowledge), as implied in the title of the work, ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget, after a linefrom the Japanese song, Koi wa Momoiro [Love is Pink], whose verse and music oscillate between
atmospheric shifts and human emotions.
Artistically, I also absorb this sense (knowledge) of ‘longing for love’ from otherrecognised and inspiring works: the Berlin Jewish Museum, Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial in
Vienna, Casa Luis Barragán in Mexico and the statue of Mirokuboatsu Hankashiyui in Chugu-ji temple
in Nara, Japan. Regardless of locational and contextual differences, the way ‘shadow light’ passes
through these places provokes the sense of ‘longing for love’. The last destination is particularly
unforgettable. As suggested by the art critique, Shinichiro Kamei, the statue literally embodies thetransformation of life (future Buddha) who conceals its pain (it throws its body away to save us andsooth our pain and grief in this world) behind its balmy expression24 (its ‘archaic smile’ propagatedfrom ancient Greece through the Silk Road to Nara). Its gesture, clad with ‘shadow light’ and windpassing through the temple from/to the adjacent field, calmly embodies the nuance of love, which
prompts our prayers.
23 Jacques Rancière, The Emancipated Spectator, trans. Gregory Elliott (London: Verso, 2009),11.
24 Trans. the author, Shinichiro Kamei, Yamato-ji Junrei [A Pilgrimage to Yamato Temples] (Tokyo: Shincho publishing, 1953), 84-85.

8

As regards ‘love and longing’, another informative image is depicted by the poet, Rainer
Maria Rilke, which draws our attention again to subtlety and nuance: all beauty in nature thatpatiently transforms (grows, unites, increases) is love and longing in the form of quiet endurance;
longing is for a kind of motherhood that contributes to the birth of life25. Fascinatingly, as
proposed by the philosopher, Louise Burchill26, this motherhood (in other words, groundlessground) is also articulative of the ancient Greek concept of chora, which Derrida considers
untranslatable. These linkages allow me to tie life and love—and characterise a place for translationthat is untranslatable—to motherhood as well as fertile silence. From this place, both life and lovetransfer and temporarily gain an art form. This also leads me to speculate that we will be provoked
and remained alive, as we absorb life and love, embodied in such an art form, through experiencing
and reflecting on it.

。How do I, as an artist, experience the embodiment of the untranslatable?
Chapter Five provides more intimate accounts of my own being and body, through asking how ‘I’,
the subject of poetic translation, experience the embodiment of the untranslatable. This importantbut difficult question was raised at my PhD completion seminar, extending this project and thesis
beyond my final installation artwork. Yet my discussions in this chapter shed light on who executes
the research and the installation.
The final question locates ‘me’ in a vulnerable position as an object of investigation but
also connects my body to other bodies that are important to this research. Both the statue of
Mirokubosatsu and the body of my grandmother (whose dementia has progressed throughout mycandidature) are in the vulnerable state of transferring from/into somewhere ‘external’ to thisworld. In reference to Matsuoka’s discussion27, I further elaborate on the idea of ‘external’,
expressed as hoka, in Japanese, which originally indicates spirit/god/unknown information thatdrifts and temporarily transfers into hoka-hi (an empty container) or hokahi-bito (someone who issocially marginal, such as a bard or an orphan). Importantly, this temporal embodiment is
considered a birth of art. What is more, hoka, also meaning ‘foreign’, includes me in these objects(hoka-hi, hokahi-bito), since I, as a Japanese artist, always remain external/foreign, to some degree, tothe globally dominant culture. Besides, I keep moving from one location to another like a seasonalbird.
For it to be a receptor, the architecture (body) of hoka-hi or hokahi-bito must contain utsu
(hollow, emptiness) inside. This understanding is coincidentally expressed in a part of my name
(Utako): Uta, written in Chinese character as 詩, comprised of ‘word(言)’ and ‘temple(寺)’, together
meaning ‘poetry (詩)’. In fact, as claimed by the composer, David Shea28, the architecture of atemple is designed to be filled with vibration/resonance caused by chanting. This conceptualisation
25 Rainer Maria Rike, Letters to a Young Poet, trans. M.D. Herter Norton, (New York: Norton, 1954), 38.
26 L. Burchill, “In-Between “Spacing” and the “Chora” in Derrida: A Pre-originary Medium?”, in Intermedialities: Philosophy, Arts, Politics,

eds. Henk Oosterling and Ewa Plonowska Ziarek, (Lanham: Lexington Books, 2011), 47.

27 Trans. the author, S. Matsuoka, “Ma= shu to kyaku no kouzou [Ma=the structure of the object and the subject]”, in Ma - 20 years on,(Tokyo: Tokyo University of Arts, 2000)

28 David Shea, “Architecture and Sound,” (a lecture) in seminar series Poetics of Body, the Center for Ideas, the University of Melbourne,

Victoria, Australia, September, 5, 20169

of a temple as a receptor of these material and atmospheric shifts, can be linked to the term yougou( ), which literally means ‘shadow coming’, illustrating a temporal embodiment of drifting spirit/
god into various kinds of body. This understanding of a temple as a poetic place reminds me of
my final exhibition; in particular, the way the external is transferred through sheets of paper hung insuch a way as to generate shading, rustling and shivering through interaction with the outside world,like a membrane inside a body.
Close observation of my being and body occurred during my undertaking of the artist-inresidence program in the Victorian Alps on the Bogong High Plains. Bogong means a brown moth in
the local Aboriginal language, thus implying transformation and metamorphoses. Beyond myintention and control, the ‘I’, as a subject and an object in this chapter, is immersed into rich playsof light-shadow in mountains that exhausted me with constant descent and ascent. My journal
writings describe in detail the ‘I’, as a place or container, emptied and filled with something
external. I directly excerpt some writings, as I conceive them as a flesh of my embodied experience.
(These writing articulate the ‘I’ as a female artist).
As rediscovered, it is ‘she’ whose life is transferred via my grandmother, grounded bymotherhood. Through experiencing nature’s cycle both in and outside of her body, this female
artist’s body is emptied to receive something untranslatable, or love, which makes her patiently
form an artwork. Through her difficult yet poetic task, as described previously, the untranslatable
continues to transfer from the place (artwork) into another body (audience) who may experience it
as shifts between appearance and perception, form and expression, sound and texture, or ‘shadow
light’.

10

CHAPTER ONE: Experience and Reflection of/as Translation
This chapter establishes the context, background and importance for my research project to aim atinvestigating the notion of the untranslatable, and creating an artwork that can embody theuntranslatable. I begin by introducing key concepts, ma, utsu, chora, ruthmos and hoka, throughdiscussing a room where my thesis writing and art-making have been based. I, then, reflect on mypast experiences previous to this research, to identify the untranslatable in the struggles oftranslation, to which contemporary philosophers and translators also pay attention. This leads me
to discuss the works by modern and contemporary philosophers, Walter Benjamin, Jacque Derrida
and Antoine Berman, who equally challenge the traditional definition of ‘translation’ yet articulate it
differently. To conclude the chapter, I articulate that my PhD project has been a work of ‘poetictranslation’, which is not a method but ‘experience and reflection’, listing the three objects for my‘poetic translation’ in this research project.

1.1 Being Foreign in the Translatable Worlda.
I am writing this thesis in a room that I would like to call ma, meaning blank, gap or room inJapanese. This ma is called the study lounge, located at the Southbank campus of Melbourne
University, in which I have spent a lot of time as a research candidate—reading books, taking notes,
writing papers or grant applications, talking to other candidates, or shooting photographs andvideos when I am alone.
The contemporary Japanese architect, Arata Isozaki, speculates that “the oldest form of
the concept of ma is utsu”1 which “signifies the void inside a certain substance”. It was believed thatthe sacred—gods, old spirits, unknown information and so forth—come temporarily into this utsu.
It is, in some sense, a paradoxical space-time where the positive is engendered from the void. And
in this regard, it is reminiscent of the ancient Greek Democritus’s cosmology2: the principle ofmovement (rhuthmos) was attributed not to the atoms but to the void— in which the former
emerged.3 And the Platonic notion of chora, which “rhythmically vibrates between Void and Being” 4
owes to the notion of rhuthmos.
I would like to think that the hundreds of days and nights of hard work taking place, forinstance, in this ma, are in some sense sacred. In this case, the room, ma, might become like utsu or
chora, where the positive engenders from the negative. I say this because I have learnt that otherresearchers are, in one way or another, also working out ways to turn the negative into the positive,
or give a presence to an absence, through shedding light on or giving forms to these things:
1 A. Isozaki, “On Utsu, the Void,” trans. Ken Tadashi Oshima, in Arata Isozaki, eds. Arata Isozaki and Ken Tadashi Oshima (London:

Phaidon, 2008), 162.

2 Plato’s notion of chora which vibrates between void and forms, owes to Democritus’s understanding of void. And this chora is considered

to resemble ma. There are discussions on shared perspectives between the Greek ancient tradition and the Japanese ancient tradition. This
point is elaborated by the Japanese architect and thinker who proceeded Derrida at the Anyone conference, which this paper will touch on
later.
3 Burchill, “In-Between “Spacing” and the “Chora” in Derrida: A Pre-originary Medium?,” 46.
4 A. Isozaki and A. Asada, “A Fragmentary Portrait of Anyone,” in Anyone, ed. Cynthia C. Davidson, (N.Y.: Rizzoli International

Publishing, 1991), 65.

10forgotten memories, unheard voices, undervalued expressions, imperfect bodies, undrawn maps,
incomprehensible zones, or ‘the untranslatable’, which is the subject of my research.
For the last three and a half years, I have been asking the question, “How can an artwork embody
the untranslatable?”b.
As a way to start my discussion, let me elaborate a little further on another aspect of ma, as aconcept and as this room that physically exists.
In the ancient time of Japan, this ma space-time was much briefer than it is considered to
be now. According to the Japanese scholar, Seigo Matsuoka, this ‘brief ma’ was called hoka. It is the“externality” which “casually and suddenly opens somewhere”5 in “a brief period of space-time”.
Hence, hoka can be understood to be “ephemeral virtuality”6. And I attempt to say that this hoka
opened last summer in this room where I write this thesis now.
A ray of light entered through the window, straight across the room, reaching the otherside. The colour of pink on the wall was the deepest and strongest that I had ever seen. I was notintending this when I held my hand out, nor that the gesture would create the deeply translucent
shades of gray in the pink. The colour and the image on the wall presented an extreme beauty,
which even caused pain in my heart. Strangely, the shadow looked like it belonged to someone else.
The strangeness and the weightlessness made me forget about everything, as though I was falling inlove with someone, or possessed by something that I can never fully know, like spirits or gods. The
sense of longing was so strong that all I could do was let my hand drift and try to touch somethingthat was, perhaps, untranslatable. The shadows eventually began to fade as the sun set deeper. I
prayed for the shadows to stay present, but I soon accepted that they would eventually have tovanish. The time was reaching hakumei_薄明,
literally meaning ‘pale light’, indicating spacetime that is similar to dusk and dawn.
According to the philosopher Kiyoshi Miki 7, it
belongs neither to day or night, and it is an
ideal moment for one to contemplate one’s
own aloneness. This particular instance shedlight on my true aloneness that drifts ‘inbetween’ places and languages, and is only to
be witnessed afterwards, as a gesture of
shadows [figure 1].

Fig. 1. Utako Shindo, Gesture of Shadows, (video still), 2016.
http://www.utakoshindo.info/exhibition/gesture-of-shadows/

5 Tran. the author, Matsuoka, “Ma= shu to kyaku no kouzou [Ma=the structure of the object and the subject],” in Ma: Exhibition - 20

years on, eds. Editorial Engineering Laboratory, Tokyo University of Arts and University Museum, Tokyo: Tokyo University of Arts,
University Museum Cooperate, 2000.
6 Ibid.
7 Trans. the author, “Jinsei-ron Note [Notes for Theory of Life],” Kiyoshi Miki, Aozora Publishing, last modified February 24, 2014,

accessed July 22, 2014, http://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000218/files/46845_29569.html.
The modern Japanese philosopher, Kiyoshi Miki, studied Heideggerian philosophy in Germany and is known for his philosophy of thetechnique. He also writes books for the general public, one of which is this Jinsei-ron Note, originally published monthly in Bungakukai
magazine from1938 to 1941.
11

It is possible to say that from this opening of hoka (brief period of ma), an artwork wasborn. According to Matsuoka, in the ancient time, the appearance of hoka was captured andexpressed in words, objects or human figures. And this was considered to be the “birth of art”. 8
For instance, hoka (brief period of ma space-time) is transferred in the famous waka (whichis the classical Japanese verse) 9 from the 10th century, sung by the poet and scholar, Sugawara no
Michizane. Its latter phrases go, “Momiji no nishiki Kami no Ma ni Ma ni”10, meaning ‘a brocade ofcrimson leaves, here along with the gods’11 . The object, which waited for hi (spirits and gods) toenter, was called hoka-hi (wooden container). If people did not have these means, they waited for
hoka-hi-bito (nomadic people such as bard, beggar and orphan) to come, as they were the signs ofcelebrating hi (spirits and gods) visiting their place.
I find these ancient connections of utsu and hoka easier to associate with than the notionof ma that is highly formalised in the specific cultural context of Japan today. It is as though thegreater distance between now and then leaves space open in which I can imagine these concepts inmy own context, part of which is Australian. Hence, I am here less hesitant to express myunderstanding in a combination of English and Japanese words: “when the strong Australiansummer light entered, the room functioned as hokahi, and I became hokahi-bito into which hi
visited”.
c.
On reflection, this event showed me a condition that is necessary for the embodiment of theuntranslatable. That is, to remain external, or foreign. I say so because, in the modern
contemporary Japanese language, hoka, which originally meant ‘outside/external’, written in
Chinese characters as ‘外’ or ‘他’, or ‘else/others’, has also obtained a meaning of ‘foreign’, since thesmall volcanic islands were forced to reopen and confront the foreign nations at the time ofmodernisation.
And I express that I am foreign to you, the readers in Australia and other places. It issimilar when I am in Japan; a part of the ‘I’ remains foreign to others. I spent most of my 20s in
Melbourne, which had a profound impact on what I considered to be ‘I’. On reflection, it was not
only because of the cultural and linguistic ‘foreignness’ of this young nation; but the experience ofart that I was immersed in, through these very old lands and their nature, sometimes showed me a
glimpse of somewhere ‘else’. I will discuss this further in the last Chapter.
Nevertheless, let me express that as an artist and now a researcher, who works in the
globalised art and academic context, the English dominance (not as a local language but as a
globalised language) has caused me difficulties. My ‘foreignness’ has been constantly pressured to
become ‘translatable’ into the language. Not only from Japanese but also from my artworks. Artists
are asked to translate their works into verbal and written languages (and if they are not English,
then they should be translated into English), in order to be circulated and consumed by the
globalised art and academic discourse (which may be referred to as ‘the market’). I observed this

8 Trans. the author, Matsuoka, “Ma= shu to kyaku no kouzou [Ma=the structure of the object and the subject]”
9 A classical Japanese 31-syllable verse [short poem] written in a 5-7-5-7-7 meter [pattern].
10 A similar expression can be still found in Today in such a phrase as “Nami no Ma ni Ma ni”, meaning ‘drift at the mercy of waves’.
11 Sourced from ‘Japanese-English Bilingual Corpus of Wikipedia's Kyoto Articles’, whose content is translated by the National Instituteof Information and Communications Technology (NICT) from Japanese sentences on Wikipedia.

12over the last 10 years, as an artist and researcher, and also as someone who has worked as atranslator and coordinator for international art projects and programs.
d.
Let me introduce one of these situations where I
observed this difficulty of translation between thelanguage of art and written and verbal languages. It was
the time when I was working on an art project, entitled‘Immanent Landscape’, which I was planning as a‘transcultural’ project. This idea was first born out of
my Masters research, in which I had explored the ideaof ‘haptic aesthetic’ and the Japanese spatial andtemporal concept of ‘ma’, both of which I employ toFig. 2. Immanent Landscape, (exhibition installation view),
West Space, Melbourne, 2010.

discuss an installation art practice that is visceral andexperiential. The ‘Immanent Landscape’ project proposedto generate space and time where this idea can be
explored artistically beyond cultural borders. So, theproject itself was in a sense expected to become a site(or place) for anyone to anticipate what ‘immanent’
could be. Therefore I undertook the project in Australia
and Japan, so as to facilitate communication among
participants and others who would be involved in the
project, through activities including exchanging

Fig. 3. Wherefore Art thou?, (a public talk series), Japan
foundation, Sydney, 2010.

dialogues, both in public and private, and creating exhibitions together [figure 2, 3].
However, apart from art, the project did not have a common language for verbal andwritten communications. Thus I was constantly translating the ideas behind the titles, Immanent
Landscape, in English, and Naizai no Fuhkei (内在の風景) in Japanese [figure 4]. In this constanttranslation, I struggled as it felt impossible to translate the nuance and the complexity of the ideas
expressed in the two titles. It was a painful feeling as this nuance andcomplexity had the potential to prompt an opening of a truly
artistic place, where artists and audiences could explore the idea of
Immanent Landscape - Naizai no Fuhkei (内在の風景) itself. This
impossibility of translation paradoxically highlighted ‘what cannot
be translated’ as most meaningful for the project, which originallyintended to serve art as a universal language and to create new
expressions, new meanings in a transcultural (trans-lingual)Fig. 4. 内在の風景̲Immanent Landscapelogo, designed by Dion Tuckwell.

manner.
Yet, over the course of the project, the difficulties kept increasing as I was caught up withthe constant necessity of explaining the project to people through talking or writing in Japanese or
English [figure 5]. I, as a curator and a participating artist, felt that I had failed to open and createsuch a place that could embody the idea of the project’s title, as well as creating a truly artistic place.
In fact, from the beginning to the end, the project was concept driven: ‘landscape’ and13‘immanence’. And it is a contemporary convention to
make an artwork or curate an exhibition. With thisfailure, what I learnt was that the defined contour ofthese concepts, became blurred, as soon as these words
were to be transformed (translated) into anotherlanguage: ‘landscape' into ‘風景’, ‘immanence’ into ‘内在’.
That is to say, the incompleteness of a concept
expressed in one language was revealed. This made me

Fig. 5. Cultivating a Field for artists and audiences,(symposium), Youkobo Art Space, Tokyo, 2011.

write in my note that “ I have not had an entire grasp ofthese particular concepts of 'landscape' and ‘immanence'. On reflection, I suggest that the problem
lies in the general attitude of the art world today where that which is produced and exhibited, or
opened as a place, all conforms to a ‘concept’, which has a limit, while an artwork on its own moves
around more freely than the concept which defines and limits itself. What is more, a concept isoften reduced to one language (English), hence one value system.

e.
Here, I shall elaborate on how this situation in which the global art and academic world isdominated by English has been recently discussed by others.
The Italian philosopher, Girogio Agamben talked about the English dominance, and about
what it does and how it is not “innocent”, in a lecture given in English to his students at theEuropean Graduate School in Switzerland in 2014. He started the lecture by stating that, “English
is not my mother tongue, something relevant will certainly be lost”. And he continued,…(t)oday general domination of English, in conferences, universities and other places ofthat kind, should not be considered so innocent… English is proper, let’s to say, to acouple of nations.12
Agamben’s speech, which was given in ‘plain’ English, made it visible that he had translated his
thinking from Italian into English. By doing so, he made students realise that the act of translation
is usually invisible therefore what is also hidden is how and for what it is executed.
Tatsuya Nishiyama, a Japanese scholar who also translates the texts of philosophers
including Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy, shares similar concerns about the invisibility oftranslational process in the globalised world. He elaborates on his concerns in one of histranslator’s notes, for the book entitled, Honyaku ni tsuite in Japanese, and On Translation in English,
originally written in English by John Sallis, a North American Philosopher. Nishiyama claims in histranslator’s note,
It is an era of ‘global’ translatability, which appears to make the borders transparent yet
actually hides the event of translation itself. Thus we are living in the era when thenecessity is obvious for us to question the traditional definitions of ‘translation’ again.13
12 “Giorgio Agamben. Resistance in Art. 2014”.
13 Trans. the author, Nishiyama, “Yakusha Kaisetsu: Honyaku Kono Sakusou suru Mono [Translator’s note: Translation, thisentanglement,” 310.

14

As I quote his writing here by translating it from Japanese into English, there is no doubtthat I live in “an era of ‘global’ translatability”. But, I should also point out that I became aware ofsomething obscure regarding the borders, which distract the event of translation by revealing what
disrupts.
f.
Let me come back to describe my observation further. Since completing my curated project,
Immanent Landscape -Naizai no Fuhkei (内在の風景), I continued to feel unsettled about my art practice.
It had always been situated in-between Japan and Australia, forming a milieu of its own within theinterrelationship among the language of art, and the Japanese and English languages. Hence, under
the pressure of being translatable to one or another, the unsettled feeling remained and indeed
increased (gathered momentum). But the moment when I encountered a particular visual
phenomenon, it presented me with a hint, a perspective on ‘what cannot be translated’ as what ismost important and truthful for the work of art.
The phenomenon occurred during my visit to my grandmother in the hospital where she
stayed during the summer of 2012. She was 99 years old then and starting to lose her ability toremember and memorise things correctly, which was due to her being on the threshold ofdementia. It was in the early afternoon of a clear sunny day. We were looking out the window fromthe 8th floor of the hospital. Underneath, the vast Western Tokyo landscape was expanding
towards the horizon demarcated by mountains and clouds [figure 6]. We were at the end of thecorridor, where there was no one around. It was almost two pm on this summer day, so the sun wasalmost above us, shining down on the world strongly. Everything looked so bright and clear.
Though the air temperature inside the hospital was kept nice and comfortable, I could feel the sun’sheat through the window. There was almost complete silence, except for the sound of a train
passing far below on the ground, slowly reaching the station nearby. “… We can see Mt. Aso overthere… so beautiful, isn’t it…”, she enunciated, originally in Japanese, after a time of silence.
Her translation of the view was factually wrong, as Mt. Aso is located not in Tokyo but insouthern Japan. Yet, her expression was so tranquiland beautiful, and sounded so artistic and poetic
that it felt more articulate than anything else. It felt
as if her enunciation embodied what cannot betranslated. It changed both how I saw the view andhow I understood the place where I was. Thistransformation felt overwhelming but so truthfulthat it convinced me to pay attention to what is
untranslatable, not as a struggle but as a prompt for
an artistic embodiment of the untranslatable.

Fig. 6. The window view. Tokyo, August, 2012. Photo: the author.

I argue that the difficulty of translation has made me aware of something that remains
untranslatable in art, something that possesses truthfulness and touches me lovingly. While I havebeen under pressure to translate everything into English, what matters to me is to notice theuntranslatable, which then requires me to open a border for this disruptive stranger to pass15

through. This could be seen as space of possibility, not in a sense translatable but enabling theacceptance of the untranslatable. So, there is an opportunity in the very act of translation that canturn its difficulty into possibility. Or it may be said that it can extract something positive from theEnglish dominance and the invisibility of translation. In my context, I attempt to do so by making
artworks that can embody the untranslatable.
I express that my research tries to stay optimistic about the status of being immersed in acurious yet relentless difficulty through the act of translation. It is because I can be both alarmed by
and attuned to the untranslatable that I am called to work through the many struggles of art. This
understanding resonates with how the notion of hoka suggests its unique capacity of being‘foreign’, which paradoxically gives birth to art, allowing one to experience and reflect on the world
in a more rich and poetic way. Therefore, I intend my PhD research, which investigates the notionof ‘the untranslatable’, to provide deeper understandings of a relationship between the artist, theartwork and the audience, and beyond.

1.2 Translation and the Untranslatable
In order to start investigating the notions of ‘the untranslatable’, I ask a simple question, “what isreally happening in the act of translation?”, and to be simpler, “what is it to translate?” This iswhere Nishiyama’s claim on the necessity to “question the traditional definitions of ‘translation’”14
becomes relevant. It relates to Walter Benjamin, Jacques Derrida and Antoine Berman, as thesemodern and post-modern philosophers and theorists have also questioned the traditional definitionof translation. And it is these philosophers who have actually informed the basic understandings of‘translation’ and the ‘untranslatable’ that have provided the ground for my PhD research project.
a.
I first encountered the notion of the ‘untranslatable’ expressed by Derrida in his dialogue withother participating thinkers and architects at the International Architecture Conference, called
Anyone, which was held in 1991. In the conference, other participants were struggling when trying
to translate the Greek term chora and the Japanese concept of ma into English as what similarly
indicates a particular place. However, Derrida drew their attention to their very act of translation.
He said,I think this is what architecture is about: translating while not translating, resistingtranslation and translating nevertheless. Why is that? What is the place, and I come backto the question of ma and chora and so on, what is the place for translation? The place
itself is absolutely untranslatable. The place for translation is ‘untranslatable’.15

14 Trans. the author, Nishiyama, “Yakusha Kaisetsu: Honyaku Kono Sakusou suru Mono [Translator’s note: Translation, thisentanglement],” 310.

15 “Discussion A-1,” 90.

16

I now understand his statement as follows: opening “the place” by naming it untranslatable is thevery struggle of translation that precisely occurs in “the place”. And in so far as “the place fortranslation is untranslatable", it should always remain a struggle.
His observation also reminds me of the difficulty that I had experienced in translating‘Immanent Landscape’ in English and ‘Naizai no Fuhkei (内在の風景)’ in Japanese. It is perhaps related to
the fact that the idea of exhibition was actually born out of my Master’s research that investigated
the notions of ‘ma’ and ‘haptic aesthetic’, both of which I understood as highly experiential rather
than merely visual.
Derrida’s discussion of the ‘untranslatable’ can be traced back to an earlier essay entitledPasse-Partout, an introductory text for his book La Vérité En Peinture (The Truth in Painting) publishedin 1978. The title of the book, The Truth in Painting, is derived from Paul Cézanne's letter to Emile
Bernard, in which there is a line that says, “I owe you the truth in painting and I will tell it to you”.
Derrida, who finds this line a “strange utterance” 16, considers “the truth in painting” as Cézanne's
sign and “trait”, as in “a characteristic mark”17. This strange utterance of truth also reminds me of
how I felt about my grandmother’s enunciation which expresses what is significant to her. Hence, it
fascinates me when Derrida states he “ventured this book… for the interest - or the grace - ofthese remainders”. This “remains-the untranslatable”18. He further explains,
But untranslatable, it remains in its economic performance, in the ellipsis of its trait, theword by word, the word for word, or the trait for trait in which it contracts. 19
I shall point out that the above articulations of the ‘untranslatable’, for which ‘translation’plays an important part, are derived from Walter Benjamin’s classic essay, The Translator’s Task,
published in 192320. In his essay, Benjamin claims, “translation must in large measure turn its
attention away from trying to communicate something, away from meaning”21. It is necessary fortranslation “to follow its own path…in the freedom of linguistic development”22. This “freedom”
also requires our attention as it serves “pure language”23, which is central to Benjamin’s translation
theory. He defines “pure language” as what “no longer signifies or expresses anything but rather, as
the expressionless and creative word that is the intended object of every language” 24. (I will further
elaborate on this key to his theory in the next chapter.) He then gives us a visual metaphor for how
this “expressionless and creative word” 25 can be attained through a literal translation, a word-toword translation. At this point, it becomes clear that Derrida’s articulation of how the
16 J. Derrida, “Passe-partout,” in The truth in painting, trans. Geoff Bennington and Ian McLeod, (Chicago and London: The Universityof Chicago Press, 1987), 2.

17 I am referring to the translator’s footnote for the expression of ‘trait’. Koji Abe trans. Kaiga no Shinri [The truth in Painting], (Tokyo:

Hosei University Press, 1998), 6.
18 Ibid., 4.
19 Ibid., 5.

20 Derrida interpreted Benjamin’s theory of translation, in relation to his concept of ‘deconstruction’, in his lecture, Des tours de Babel[The Tower of Babel], given at Tokyo Nichi-Futsu Kaikan (Institut français du Japon - Tokyo) in 1983. This originated his essay ‘Des Toursde Babel’, published with English translation, in Difference in Translation (ed. Joseph F. Graham) in 1985.
21 Ibid., 161.
22

“The Ttranslator’s Task, Walter Benjamin,” 163.

23 Ibid.
24 Ibid.
25 Ibid.

17

untranslatable remains in a particular performance follows Benjamin’s understanding of purelanguage that requires a literal translation. He further presents this image,
Just as fragments of a vessel, in order to be fitted together, must correspond to each otherin the tiniest details but need not resemble each other, so translation, instead of making
itself remember the meaning of the original, must lovingly, and in detail, fashion in its own
language a counterpart to the original’s mode of intention, in order to make both of themrecognizable as fragments of a vessel, as fragments of a greater language.26
This image of creatively joining “fragments of a vessel” as in “fragments of a greater language” canbe linked to Derrida’s discussion during the Anyone conference, where he thinks of “architecturalbuildings”. These buildings are considered to be “places of translations, for translations which are
not translatable”27. In this manner of joining or building, translators or architects are positioned to
anticipate a gap in-between each fragment through the very act of translating a word or designing
an architecture, as their actions give a presence to a gap as a joint that is made visible.
When Benjamin, in the beginning of his essay, does question “the translatability of
linguistic construction”, he asks, “mustn’t they actually be untranslatable to a certain degree, if arigorous concept of translation is applied?”28 If we are to consider ‘joining’ or ‘building’ as a formor act of translation in the art context, I would then ask, can art-making be also considered as
rigorous translation? (Cannot art embody the untranslatable?)
I acknowledge that there are, indeed, criticisms towards these philosophers that their interpretations
ignore the practicality of translation29. And also, when I translate, I have, in practice, usually worked
at making sense to everyone. However, my experience also suggests that to make sense foreveryone in one natural language is impossible in the strict sense, in both reality and theory. Here, I
shall pay attention to why Benjamin and Derrida have redefined ‘what it is to translate’.
It is understood that Benjamin wrote the essay, The Translator’s Task, as an expression
against the dominance of the German language, which went hand in hand with the Germanizationthat was occurring in Europe during his time30 . Derrida, at the Anyone conference, was also
constantly calling attention to the dominance of the English language in the conference, adominance in virtue of which he “remain[ed] foreign”31. Hence he draws attention to the paradoxof the name of the conference, Anyone, as “Anyone is not just anyone”32. In this context, we cansee that there is a strong need to shed light on a risk that translators take to serve the homogenisingforce of a particular language.
As I have stated earlier in this chapter, the quests of these philosophers are still very much
relevant and significant to the current world. While there are criticisms among translators of these26 Ibid., 161.
27 “Discussion A-1”, 90.
28 Ibid., 152.
29 Trans. the author, Nishiyama, “Yakusha Kaisetsu: Honyaku Kono Sakusou suru Mono [Translator’s note: Translation, thisentanglement]”, 294-295.

30 Trans. the author, Mitsugi, “Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Translation,” 181.
31 “Discussion A-1”, 40.
32 Ibid., 41.

18philosophers, there are, indeed, supportive voices from other translators who critique and also
practice translation. Among these voices, the French translator and theorist on translation, Antoine
Berman, is the most inspiring voice for my research.
b.
In his book, L'âge de la traduction. "La tâche du traducteur" de Walter Benjamin, un commentaire, heinterprets and develops Benjamin’s theory on translation. The Japanese translator of this book(which is only translated into Japanese so far), Masaki Miki, describes in his interpretive article thatBerman’s development of Benjamin’s theory was done through “intended misinterpretation”.
Berman’s argument makes us aware of what can happen to the subject (the translator) in
the process of translation. Kishi indicates another visual metaphor with which Berman attempts toconceive “the intention towards the pure language” as “metamorphoses” of the language. It is said
that translation “transfers the language to the other through a succession of metamorphoses”. This
‘succession of metamorphoses’ appealed to me as similar to what Derrida discusses on ‘transfers’and ‘movements’ that take place in/as ma or chora.
Berman also puts the Platonic tradition of translation into question and focuses on thenotion of ‘reflection’, which Benjamin discusses in On the language of man. Indeed, the idea of‘reflection’ inspires Berman to propose ‘traductology’. According to Kishi, ‘traductology’ conceives‘translation’ to be not only methodological but hermenuetic33. This perspective is unique as it sheds
light not only on the original work, but on the translator, who has to ‘experience’ and ‘reflect’ on
him/herself in the process of translation. And this is why Berman employs ‘experience andreflection’ as a preferred definition for ‘translation’, to ‘theory and practice’. He claims that“translation is about ‘experience’, being opened…” 34 What actually happens in translation, in thisopening, is well summarised in Kishi’s article.
Translation should ‘métamorphose (Verwandlung)’ the original, which then becomesdifferent and new work - ‘what is poetic’ (this ‘poetic’ means not limited to poetry but art
and what a human produces). In other words, by translation, something immanent in theoriginal language emerges. Translation reveals something that is hiding inside of theoriginal.35
This ‘something immanent’ or ‘hiding’ shall be considered to be what Benjamin calls ‘pure
language’, which is recognised as ‘untranslatable’ by Benjamin and Derrida. But, in the case ofBerman, it is not considered to be something transcendental, as it is in the struggle of translationaccording to Benjamin. For Berman, the untranslatable is immanent but about to emerge itself, notas it is but as what it metamorphoses into, a poetic work. (I will properly discuss the idea of poetry
and the poetic in the next chapter).
c.

33 Trans. the author, Kishi, “Antoine Berman ‘Honyaku no Jidai: Benjamin “Honyakusha no Shimei” Chukai' wo Yomu [‘Reading

Antoine Berman’s ‘L’âge de la traduction: “La tâche du traducteur" de Walter Benjamin, un commentaire’],” 42.
34 Ibid., 34.
35 Ibid.

19

The above discussions on translation, as it is understood by Benjamin, Derrida and Berman, haveguided the language I use to describe my research project. Instead of calling my research method‘translation’, I describe my PhD project as a work of ‘poetic translation’, which is not a method but‘an experience and reflection’ in which the object transforms and the subject metamorphoses.
Therefore, the following Chapters Two, Three and Four will focus on my poetic translation of thefollowing three elements. The first and the third elements were touched on in this chapter as what
prompted and informed this research since its beginning. The importance of the second element,
which I will describe further in Chapter Three, increased as the research proceeded. Over thecourse of my candidature, I have repeatedly listened to, carried and unfolded these things in orderto relate to something in/about them that is untranslatable.
1) My grandmother’s poetic enunciation about Mt. Aso, as she looked out the window at the viewof western Tokyo from the hospital where she temporarily stayed during the summer of 2012.
Observation of emotional truth 36 in her poetic enunciation, “There, Mt. Aso. So beautiful, isn'tit?”2) The ‘pure’ and ‘abstract’ acrylic cube (as a remnant) found in the shop for display materials
near the nursing home where my grandmother stayed in 2013 and 2014. A simple, familiar
material, which captures a flash of light as shadow and reflection.
3) The transcript of Jacques Derrida’s remarks that he made at the architecture conference, Anyone
in 1991, in response to the Japanese presenters’ (the architect, Arata Isozaki and the thinker,
Akira Asada’s) discussions on ma and chora37 . “What is the place, and I come back to thequestion of ma and chora and so on, what is the place for translation? The place itself isabsolutely untranslatable. The place for translation is untranslatable. And if we define ma as aplace for translation, it’s a place for translation, not only translation in the semantic, linguistic
sense, but translation as transfer from, for movements, transference of objects from others,
and so forth. Ma as the place for translation is untranslatable. Chora as a place for translation is
untranslatable.”38

While I trace my experience of and reflection on these elements in Chapters Two, Three and Four,I will discuss the key notions of the untranslatable: pure language, silence, the poetic, nuanced
shadow, and transference. This will lead to the final chapter, in which I elaborate on the notion andact of ‘embodiment’ in my research context.

36 The Japanese philosopher, Kiyoshi Miki, discusses that “‘emotion’ is actually objective, and ‘intelligence’ is subjective” in his book

Jinsei-ron Note (Notes for Theory of Life).

37 In his co-presentation, Asada argues that “The chora is said to function like a sieve, vibrated by the various elements within it andvibrating them in turn. (“Does the chora, which rhythmically vibrates between Void and Being, not share properties with what is called
Ma in Japan?” (Isozaki and Asada, “A Fragmentary Portrait of Anyone,” 65.)
38 “Discussion A-1,” 90.

20

CHAPTER TWO: The Untranslatable; Fertile Silence and the Poetic
This chapter is concerned with theoretical and philosophical notions of the untranslatable. I begin
by discussing the first object (my grandmother’s poetic enunciation) of my poetic translation in
relation to Walter Benjamin’s short text entitled ‘The Translator’s Task’. I, then, continue discussing
the notions of the untranslatable as a particular place, as recognised in Benjamin’s theory oftranslation (pure language) and Holderlin’s philosophy of art (pure word, caesura). I, then, make alink between German Romantic Though and Japanese Thought, namely Zen articulation, guided by
Izutus Toshihiko’s philosophy of Zen and his idea of ba/field, understood as a particular place
where the object and the subject are interchangeable or transferrable. This leads me to reflect on
my grandmother’s poetic enunciation of Mt. Aso in relation to Luce Irigaray’s study on dementia
patients’ sentence structure, and her discussion of the ‘interval’ in psychoanalytical practice. Lastly I
examine the idea of the ‘poetic’, in discussing the last stage of Zen experience: articulation of nonarticulation, in which language is used poetically, in taking both verbal and visual forms ofexpression, including Zen dialogue, poetry, philosophy and visual languages such as painting. These
examinations, which connect Western thought and the Eastern thought, also identify the limit of
the former, which can be challenged and liberated by the latter. To conclude this chapter, I reflect
on my video work, Topology Between the Three, and articulate how notions of the untranslatable canhelp the language of art to articulate the untranslatable (the ineffable) poetically.

2.1 The Untranslatable: Unforgettable, Pure, Silent, Poetica.
In the early 1920s, my grandmother visited for the first time the volcanic Mt. Aso in Kyushu, thesouthern island of Japan. In 2012, when I visited her in hospital in western Tokyo, she was on thethreshold of entering into her dementia. While she was beginning to forget many things, theunforgettable—what truly matters to her—seemed to remain with her. It was also in the early 1920s
that Benjamin wrote ‘The Translator’s Task’ as an introductory text for his own translation ofCharles Baudelaire’s poem “Oarisian Landscapes” from The Flowers of Evil. This text, which is now
referred to as a classic, has provided the foundation for philosophical and theoretical discussions
on/around the notions of translation, developed by those who have informed my research,
including Jacques Derrida, Antoine Berman, Jacques Rancière, John Sallis, Michio Mitsugi, Masaki
Kishi and Tatsuya Nishiyama.
In the introductory section of The Translator’s Task, the idea of the unforgettable iselaborated as a way for Benjamin to acrobatically turn over the traditional definition of translation.
He writes,… we could still speak of an unforgettable life or moment, even if all human beings had
forgotten it. If the essence of such lives or moments required that they not be forgotten,
this predicate would not be false, it would merely be a demand to which human beings had

21failed to respond, and at the same time, no doubt, a reference to a place where this demand
would find a response, that is, a reference to a thought in the mind of God.1
Though his God would differ from the gods and spirits of ancient Japan, the kind of ‘place’
discussed here could be comparable to the Japanese term hoka (a brief ma space-time) or utsu,
where the ghosts and spirits transfer. I imagine that in my grandmother’s thought there was a place
opening temporarily, where she responded to ‘an unforgettable life or moment’ that she translated(enunciated) poetically. For Benjamin, the above elaboration supports his argument that “(T)hetranslatability of linguistic constructions would accordingly have to be taken into considerationeven if they were untranslatable by human beings”. He suggests, “mustn’t they actually beuntranslatable to a certain degree, if a rigorous concept of translation is applied?”2 And from thisstand point, it is proposed that the task of the translator is “(T)o set free in his own language thepure language spellbound in the foreign language”3.
This idea of ‘pure language’ is central to his theory of translation. As described in theprevious chapter, it “no longer signifies or expresses anything but rather, [is] the expressionless andcreative word that is the intended object of every language…”4, and it can be attained through aliteral translation, a word-to-word translation. This image leads me to reflect on the first work that I
produced for this PhD project, entitled Understanding of misunderstanding.
b.
The work, Understanding of misunderstanding, is my firstattempt to translate something untranslatable about
my grandmother’s poetic enunciation. It is an
installation artwork, exhibited at an exhibition spaceinside a cafe called Slope, in Tokyo, 2013. The work
consists of two kinds of images: one kind, those thatwere made or collected in different locations as I
sensed some strong presence around them, and theother, those that show actual places that my
grandmother has associations to [figure, 1, 2]. I laidthem out in such a way that these two kinds ofimages resonated with each other, but did notcorrespond exactly, nor were they identical. So, animage was placed next to another according to thelines, colors or shapes which related in both obvious
and obscure ways. Hence it was, in a sense, done in asimilar manner to a literal translation, which Benjaminand Derrida would describe as: a word to word, aFig. 1-2. Utako Shindo, Understanding of misunderstanding,(detail), Slope, Tokyo, 2013.

word for word, or a trait for trait5.
1 “The Translator’s Task, Walter Benjamin”, 152.
2 Ibid., 153.
3 Ibid., 163.
4 Ibid., 162-163.
5 J. Derrida, The truth in painting, 2.

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The connection between images, which, at the same time, shows the disconnection, also
made the trial and error visible. This trial and error can be found in my drawings and photographs;
in other words, my tracing and interpreting places on those pieces of paper. And there are alldifferent things, as well as images. On reflection, I was perhaps trying to construct a place fromthese differences, as I anticipated another ‘understanding of misunderstanding’ for someone whosees the work.
(I will continue discussing other aspects of this work later in this chapter.)c.
Let us now turn back to discussing the idea of ‘pure language’: about how it is understood to stemfrom two streams of thought: Jewish-Christian theological thought, and the German Romanticmode of thought.
About the former, Jacques Derrida elaborates in great detail in his interpretive text ofBenjamin’s The Translator’s Task, entitled Des Tours de Babel. In response to how Benjamin maintains
that the ideal of all translations is “(T)he interlinear version of the Holy Scriptures”6, Derrida
recognises “religious code” as “essential”. This point is further articulated by the claim that “(T)hesacred text marks the limit”, which is “the pure event if inaccessible model, of puretransferability”7. This understanding leads him to argue that the limit which the sacred text marks is“the ideal starting from which one could think, evaluate, measure the essential”. I suggest that this“pure event” or “pure transferability” indicates the existence of ‘pure language’, discussed in
Benjamin’s text. This rather religious stream of thought, can be connected to another stream inwhich this series of acts (“think, evaluate, measure the essential”) is characterised as “poetic,translation”8.
The latter stream articulates that the term ‘pure language’ originated in the notion of‘Zäsur (Cäsur)’, meaning “the pure word, the counter rhythmical interruption”. It comes from theidea of the 17th century German poet and translator, Friedrich Hölderlin’s philosophy of art,
which is elaborated in his translator’s note for Sophocles’ tragedy, Oedipus & Antigone, (for which hetranslated Greek into German):… in the rhythmical succession of scenes in which the transport is made manifest, it
becomes necessary to have what in prosody is known as a caesura; the pure word, thecounter-rhythmical interruption, is needed, so as to confront the pull of the succession ofscenes at its height and in such a fashion that instead of facets of a manifestation there
comes manifestation itself.9
With regards to his idea of the pure word, expressed above, the contemporary Japanese translator
and scholar, Michio Mitsuki, articulates that, “a language with no meaning and no content can be‘creative word’” 10, indicating the link between Hölderlin’s idea of ‘pure word’ and Benjamin’s idea
6 J. Derrida, “De tours de babel - The Tower of Babel”, in Difference in Translation’, ed. Joseph F. Graham, (Ithaca and London: Cornel

University Press, 1985), 201.
7 Ibid.
8 Ibid., 202.

9 Hölderlins Sophocles – Oedipus &Antigone, 63.
10 Trans. the author, Mitsugi, “Walter Benjamin’s Theory of translation”, 189.

23

of ‘pure language’. The link is also suggested by Mitsugi’s claim that “‘pure language’ makes all the
languages anticipate the existence of ‘greater language’”. In addition, I discuss that Cäsur (the pureword), which is both a temporal and spatial term as it indicates silence (gap) between sounds(words) in a poem, resonates with Benjamin’s observation of ‘pure language’, which he considers to
be true and greater: “…there is nevertheless a language of truth, in which the ultimate secrets
towards which all thinking strives are stored up, at peace and even silent…”11
In this way, these two streams of thought are related by the idea of the ‘poetic’, ‘creative’and ‘poetry’. This connection between the philosophy of translation and art (poetry) is importantfor me, as an artist researcher.
d.
Michio Mitsugi's discussion 12 on the idea of ‘Zäsur (Cäsur)’, which I introduced in the previous
section, is originally expressed in Japanese, in his article Walter Benjamin’s Theory of translation. His
Japanese interpretation has shown me another possible connection that I can make between theGerman Romantic mode of thought and Japanese thought, namely Zen articulation, as ideas ofsilence and the poetic are equally essential to both.
When Mitsugi paraphrases Hölderlin’s term Cäsur, he calls it “ma positioned after a unit ofrhyme” 13. I understand that this expression is based on the common knowledge that ma “refers tothe blank part, such as the distance between two points or the pause between two sounds”14. The
following remark also suggests the shared significance of ma and Cäsur as that which grounds
everyday living and its language. Mitsugi writes,
The language we use in the everyday, is based on such a base, which is realised as neither
sound or meaning, in other words, a fertile silence that connotes various sounds ormeanings. However, we only notice it when we understand that Cäsur has such a functionthat Hölderlin points out.15
As pointed out in the above remark, these characteristics of Cäsur and ma—silently
generative and creative ; poetic and pertaining to everyday language—entirely resonate with the ideaof silence that is considered to be “pregnant with words”. This idea is discussed by the Japanesescholar, Izutsu Toshihiko16, in his philosophical investigation of Zen 17 experience.
According to Izutsu, Zen experience is primarily “an experience of the articulation of bothhuman awareness and metaphysical reality” 18, and this articulation progresses in three stages:
11 “The Translator’s Task, Walter Benjamin”, 159.
12 Mitsugi discusses Benjamin’s text in his book, Shisou to shiteno Honyaku (Translated as a Theory - from Goethe, Benjamin and Bloch), as

well as in his article ‘Walter Benjamin’s Theory of Translation’.

13 Trans. the author, Mitsugi, “Walter Benjamin’s Theory of translation”, 189.
14 Isozaki and Asada, “A Fragmentary Portrait of Anyone,” 61.
15 Trans. the author, Mitsugi, “Walter Benjamin’s Theory of translation”, 189
16 Izutsu’s scholarly investigation, which traverses Western, Islamic, Chinese, Indian and Japanese traditions, is extraordinary. He is,indeed, the addressee of Derrida’s Letter to a Japanese Friend. The letter begins by saying, “Dear Professor Izutsu, At our last meeting I
promised you some schematic and preliminary reflections on the word "deconstruction". What we discussed were prolegomena to apossible translation of this word into Japanese, one which would at least try to avoid, if possible, a negative determination of its
significations or connotations.” (J. Derrida, “Letter to a Japanese Friend,” in Derrida and Différance, eds. David Wood and Robert
Bernasconi, [Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1985] 1.)
17 As stated in the previous chapter, I point out that ma is, indeed, a key concept of Zen tradition.
18 Trans. the author, Izutsu, “Zen ni okeru Gengoteki Imi no Mondai [The problem of meaning in Zen language],” 360.

24

“(1) articulation ⬈ (2) non-articulation ⬊ (3) articulation” 19.
Zen silence signifies the non-articulated stage of Zen articulation, and “the metaphysical depth of
the Nothing”20 . Yet, it is pointed out that the transition from (1: articulation) to (2: nonarticulation) does not mean “that one goes to vague another world, transcends the horizon far
away”, but stands for “the emergence of ba/field” 21. This idea of ba/field is unique to Izutsu, who
expresses that “there emerge languages”22from “the depth of ba/field”, which is thereby pregnant
with words. This process from the non-articulated stage (2) to the articulated stage (3), also
articulates that Zen uses language “poetically’.
In this way, the link between Zen thought and German Romantic thought can be madethrough their key ideas of silence and the poetic.

2.2 The untranslatable_ a Place, Ba/field, Intervala.
Before proceeding to examine these links and connections in order to define the untranslatable in
my research context, it is important to point out that Izutsu’s philosophical investigation into Zen
was born out of his “effort to create a new philosophy in the world-wide context”23.
Izutsu, born in Tokyo in 1914 (contemporaneously with my grandmother), is recognised as“the best Japanese contemporary philosopher, an international authority on Islamic thought and an
exceptional philologist conversant in more than thirty languages”24. This recognition suggests that
he dealt with the problem of translating and bringing eastern thought into the globalised academic
context. His effort to generate new philosophies is also indicated when he discusses the “worldwide
context” as based on such a Eastern philosophical ‘field’ that is consisted “if we make ourconsciousness internalise various traditions of Eastern thought …”25.
This ‘transition of eastern thought’ aligns with Izutsu's own life as an academic and aperson. He reflects this in the Afterword of his book, Ishiki to Honshitsu: The consciousness and realityof existence. In his youth, he was “fascinated by Western literature and philosophy” like many othermodern Japanese scholars, yet he could not forget the seductive ‘east’”. This made him “oscillate
between the west and the east” from the 50s through to the 80s, until he came to realise that “‘hiseasts’ inside of him” and “does not have a clear shape”. His extensive knowledge makes him
modestly express that “(I)t is too easy to say ‘Eastern philosophy’, yet it is so vast and does not haveeven a rough shape like how one can manage to demarcate Western philosophy.” In this regard, hecontinues to write,

19 Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism, 125.
20 Ibid., 131.
21 Trans. theauthor, Izutsu, “Zen ni okeru Gengoteki Imi no Mondai [The problem of meaning in Zen language],” 370.

22 Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism, xi.
23 Trans. the author, T. Izutsu, “Kouki [The Afterword]” in Ishiki to Honshitsu: The consciousness and reality of existence, (Tokyo: Iwanami,1991), 411.

24 Shigemi Inaga, “Philosophy, Ethics and Aesthetics in the Far-Eastern Cultural Sphere/ Receptions of the Western Ideas and Reactions

to the Western Cultural Hegemony,” in Questioning Oriental Aesthetics and Thinking: Conflicting Visions of “Asia” under the Colonial
Empires 38 (2011), 43
25 Trans. the author, Izutsu, “Kouki [The Afterword]”, 412.

25

I needed to strategically and artificially unite multiple philosophical streams in the east sothat it can be the creative starting point for philosophical thinking… Then once I can
extract the fundamental pattern of Eastern philosophy, I take it on inside of me, actively
and independently. Based on this I built ‘my’ perspective in an Eastern philosophical way…
This step does not mean mere academic research which would investigate various
philosophical traditions in the East through text. It is, of course, important, but I thinkthat it is time for us to go one step forward: to make an effort to create a new philosophy
in the world-wide context…26
Since my research is also based on my art practice, as well as my academic investigation by crossing
various traditions, it is highly inspiring how Izutsu transfers ‘his’ east through his lived experienceand practice (he learnt to practice Zen dialogue through his father, in his childhood), to form a new
philosophy in the global context. It is also informative how he articulates the way Western
philosophy comes into this process, as follows:…Some may feel suspicious of this book, which says ‘Eastern philosophy’ but uses
concepts that are characteristic of Western philosophy and also interrupted by Western
philosophical problems. However, this is the manner in which Eastern philosophy needs toappear. The contemporary world is, whether you like or not, growing towards a
cosmopolitan society, whose culture is governed by the Western cultural paradigm basedon science and technology. It is nonsense and almost impossible to discuss the East in
isolation from the West. As long as one intends to think things from a perspective which isopen to the world, to the contemporary world of human beings, Western philosophy
cannot help but intervene in ‘Eastern’ philosophy.27
His above claim, originally expressed in Japanese, has attracted negative criticism among the nonWestern readers, who question whether he is “a prisoner of the Western logic of philosophy” 28.
This question is, indeed, what I always ask myself when I notice myself serving the need to betranslatable in a globalised academic discourse. However, I discuss that his philosophical effort is
not only aimed at defining and explaining the East to Western readers but also at creating a new
philosophy. In fact, I observe two ways of intervening in his philosophical investigation: Eastern
philosophy intervening in Western philosophy, and Western philosophy intervening in Eastern
philosophy.
26 Trans. the author, Izutsu, “Kouki [The Afterword],” 411.
27 Though this is a rather long footnote, I include the following section as this kind of voice informs non-Japanese readers about

contemporary Japanese knowledge.
…What’s more, especially for Japanese, who have dashed for the westernization single-mindedly since the Meiji regime, ourconsciousness - at least its surface- is so westernized that it is almost impossible to move backwards. We are so accustomed to think things
in a western way without even being aware of doing so… Yet on the other hand, the Japanese put the world into order in the Japanese
language, according to the language’s unique way of articulation and meaning. Hence, it is also impossible for the Japanese, whorecognise the world as his/her ‘reality’ which is structured by the shapes and symbols of Japanese meaning, to be deeply westernized.
Inside the contemporary Japanese, west and east, as a surface and deep layers of consciousness, are already mixed and merged in a delicate
balance… Historically the Japanese were always constructing their culture in this pattern. There is a word wa kon kan sai (to utilize
Chinese (kan) scholarship without losing Japanese spirit). Kan may be west in this context, but the Japanese shall value again ‘the eastern
thinking’ by having this mentality of western-eastern axes. This shall allow ‘eastern’ philosophy to be meaningful and suggestive for thecontemporary world. .. Hence there is no need to ‘compare’ east and west to find the ‘link’ for a contemporary Japanese person. As longas she/he who lives in our time investigates eastern philosophical issues from the perspective of the contemporary field, east and west shallmeet in the ontological and empirical field and create a kind of philosophy of its own.” (Trans. the author, Izutsu, “the Afterword”, 414.)
28 Inaga, “Philosophy, Ethics and Aesthetics in the Far-Eastern Cultural Sphere,” 43.

26

My observation is derived from how Izutsu elaborates on the possibility of philosophising
Zen, in his book, Towards the philosophy of Zen Buddhism. He clearly states that Zen experience isgrounded in “a logic other than the traditional Western logic”, and that “Zen does not like to be
associated with philosophy”. Yet, he strategically and artificially shifts this rather negative
explanation to the positive, by stating that “… it is more positively anti-philosophical29” and“purport (s) to elucidate the nature of the ‘articulation’ of reality by discussing it specifically as asemantic and metaphysical-ontological problem”30 .
Therefore, I am inclined to listen to positive criticism, which expresses that Izutsu's
philosophical work is an endeavour “to point out the way to liberate it [western metaphysic] fromits ontological limit of knowledge”31. And this limit is determined by the idea of the ‘ineffable’, inother words, the untranslatable. The ‘ineffable’ will be discussed later in this chapter.
b.
Let us now consider how ‘ba/field’ emerges in the ‘non-articulation’ stage of Zen experience, andhow ‘poetic use of language’ is employed by Zen to ‘articulate the non-articulated’ in this stage. I
do so through reflecting on my grandmother’s enunciation of Mt. Aso, and by relating this to the
French philosopher and linguist, Luce Irigaray’s study on dementia patients’ sentence structure, andher discussion on the idea of the ‘interval’ in psychoanalytical practice.
In the chapter entitled ‘The problem of the Linguistic Meaning’, in Towards the Philosophy ofZen Buddhism, the ‘non-articulated stage’, where ba/field discloses itself, is exemplified in Izutsu’s
statement that what was ‘Mountain is Mountain’ becomes ‘Mountain is not Mountain’32 . This
example signifies an aspect of Zen as positively anti-philosophical, as Izutsu writes,
Buddhists think that such ontology: mountain is solidly fixed by mountain-ness, andmountain is no other than mountain or cannot be anything else, makes people blind
philosophically and pre-philosophically to what is mountain ‘as such’. 33
This view of “what is mountain ‘as such’” interests me in thinking how I experienced Mt. Asowhen I listened to my grandmother speaking about it. I recall that we both shared something
untranslatable about Mt. Aso while what Mt. Aso means to her cannot be the same as what itmeans to me. If it was ‘Mt. Aso as such’ that we shared, I question, “Would that have been
prompted by ba/field emerging through a gap between my listening and her speech?”
From the metaphysical point of view, Ba/field is described as that which itself is “neither
subject nor object”, as it is a kind of place that is in between “the subject and the object, I andthing as the possible extreme limits” 34. From the cognitive point of view, it is experienced as a place“where the subject and the object are interchangeable or indefinable (transferable)”, and where “atan extreme point, no such things as the object and the subject are recognised” 35.
29 Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism, x.
30 Ibid., 122.
31 Inaga, “Philosophy, Ethics and Aesthetics in the Far-Eastern Cultural Sphere,” 43.
32 Trans. the author, Izutsu, “Zen ni okeru Gengoteki Imi no Mondai [The problem of meaning in Zen language]”, 370.
33 Ibid., 361.
34 Ibid., 370.
35 Ibid.

27

I want to make a link between this highly unique place of ba/field in Zen experience,
where the relationship between the subject and the object is transferable, and the ideas of ‘interval’and transference discussed in Luce Irigaray’s philosophy.
c.
In Irigaray's early research on the verbal production of senile dementia patients, the relationshipbetween the subject and the object is considered to be interchangeable. In her essay, entitled Sentence
Production among Schizophrenics and Senile Dementia Patients, she analyses clinical studies on dementia
patients, and discusses how “there is minimal distance from linguistic knowledge in the sentences
produced by the senile dementia patient”. In this particular situation, the sentences are considered
to be “only material for idiolectical messages already transmitted in the past”. It is caused by thefact that “(T)he adherence to experience, to the content of the utterance, determines thefunctioning of discourse.”36 According to Irigaray, in the verbal production of dementia patients,
the strategy to master and play language as an “object, a set of rules to manipulate” is lost. It isreasoned that “the model of subjectivity” is lacking due to “a dysfunctional relationship between
the speaking subject and the addressee, or the world”37.
In the case of my grandmother, it is also not difficult to imagine that she is very much
attached to Mt. Aso, which frequently appeared in her stories that she told me in my childhood.
Her memory of her visit to the mountain must have been rewritten every time she recalled it overthe decades. The object, Mt. Aso, is deeply engraved in her, to the degree to which it is now part ofher subjectivity. Hence, it is possible that, since her crossing into the threshold of dementia, she
was “spoken by language” when she saw and spoke about Mt. Aso as she viewed it through thehospital window.
Yet, my impression of her speech is that it is not all regressive. Though I notice her
confusion with her mastery of language, it is progressive in a sense that her speech can open aparticular place (or ba/field) that can liberate Mt. Aso as such from being trapped in the name of
Mt. Aso. Hence, I am inclined to think that the “relationship between the speaking subject and theaddressee, or the world” was functional as her poetic enunciation successfully prompted something
untranslatable yet truthful about Mt. Aso. That is to say, Mt. Aso as such emerged in the space
between her speech and my listening.
In this emergence, hence, there was another subject and object at each limit: mygrandmother and myself. While her lips were opening, mine were kept closed or sounding a sign oflistening, as it felt important to keep the silence so as to keep ‘Mt. Aso as such’ present.
In another early essay, entitled ‘The limits of transference’, Irigaray examines the similar
space between two bodies: a patient and a psychoanalyst; in other words, a speaker and a listener.
With regards to the listener (analyst), she writes that “the basis on which he or she listens and gives
space-time, the basis on which he or she gives himself or herself in the space–time in which he or
she listens.” 38 This basis is the ‘interval’, articulated as “a release from quantitative estimates, toallow the opening on to an encounter of a different, peaceful quality.” It is a key concept in her
psychoanalytical philosophy as it “constitutes the horizon of the possible unfolding of an analysis
36 L. Irigaray, “Sentence Production among Schizophrenics and Senile Dementia Patients” in To speak is Never Neutral, tran. Gail Schwab,(London: Continuum, 2002), 94.
37 Ibid., 93.

38 Irigaray, “The limits of transference,” 112.

28

as an opening or an enigma” and “contrives a space or site of liberty between two bodies, twoflesh”39 .
This observation of an opening or an enigma and a space or site of liberty between twobodies helped me to understand why it felt important for me to keep the space between mygrandmother and myself silent. The opening between her and myself indeed felt enigmatic andliberating, as it presented me such a beautiful place, Mt. Aso as such.
Hence, I also relate to how Irigaray considers the interval “a gift moving from inside tooutside, offering itself or putting itself forward as the site in which the analytic scene takes place” 40.
Here I am made to translate it, the place of Mt.Aso as such, poetically through this research. And I
shall apply her expression, “the analytic scene takes place”, to describe my perception in thehospital: ‘a poetic scene took place’, which I recall as follows; with the backdrop of the eternally
blue sky and the endless Tokyo urban-scape, ‘Mt Aso as such’ enigmatically appeared between her
speech and my listening, into which my being was liberated and transferred from my body.
d.
Th connection between the ideas of ba/field and interval is plausible in the light of the influenceof Eastern philosophy upon Irigaray’s later philosophical works. In her essay, ‘To paint theinvisible’, which critically responds to Merleau-Ponty’s discussion of perception in art, she writes,
We co-belong to this world and we exchange, indeed sometimes reverse, the roles between
us. That a tree looks at us is not at all strange… The same applies for believing that I could
become a thing amongst the others, that I could transform the things into spectacles andmyself into an other or an other into me through a specular power only. This implies thatthe imaginary has already been substituted for the real, and to some extent death for life.41
This saying, which certainly reflects Irigary’s earlier psychoanalytical research on ‘seeing’ in the art
context, is reminiscent of the perception that Izutsu expresses as the Zen experience in the nonarticulated stage or ba/field (place): “(H)uman, seeing Mountain. Mountain, seeing human42”.
The above perceptions expressed by Irigaray and Izutsu, both resonate with how I
experienced Mt. Aso as such. It transferred and transformed into another mountain in Tokyo in mygrandmother’s perception, and into my artwork.
On reflection, my artwork entitled Understanding of misunderstanding anticipated such atransference and transformation of ‘Mt. Aso’, into other places or objects through viewers looking
at visual languages that I constructed.
The small pieces of objects are placed on the acrylic sheet, which sits on the wooden frameand covers the images on paper, mentioned earlier in this chapter. The objects reflect themselves on
the sheet and also cast shadows on a blank paper which is placed in the middle of other images.
This installation of objects is similar to the ‘Mt Aso’, my grandmother saw through the window,

39 Ibid., 115.
40 Ibid., 116.
41 Luce Irigaray, “To paint the invisible”, Continental Philosophy Review 37 (2004), 401.
42 Trans. the author, Izutsu, “Zen ni okeru Gengoteki Imi no Mondai [The problem of the Linguistic Meaning in Zen]”, 373.

29

hence, it is aligned with the photographic image
underneath that shows the window view as well as
the back of my grandmother [figure 3].
These objects [figure 4] also have ‘generic’mountain shapes, more or less universal. And forthe cultural region that uses Chinese characters,
the shape of the mountain would indicate thecharacter of the mountain_ 山. Like this letter, thesize of the object conveys a particular presence inmy eyes. The smaller it is the more it is like a letter,the less sculptural, more a thing in itself is—asmall mountain. Strangely enough, the installationof objects presents an essence of ‘mountain’ orwhat Izutsu would call ‘mountain as such’, freefrom an actual, physical or factual place.
Further, I observe that this sense of themountain’s ‘presence’ is articulated most accurately
in the shadows and reflections [figure 5], though it
might sound contradictory as those illusory visual
phenomena are usually associated with ‘absence’.
The space between these objects, their shadowsand reflections, functions as a join that canmediate different images of mountains and places
captured within and provoked beyond thisinstallation artwork. It can be also considered to
be bal/field, an interval, or an enigmatic opening,which invites viewers to enter and transform ‘Mt.
Aso as such’ through their listening to the silenceFig. 3-5. Utako Shindo, Understanding of misunderstanding,(installation view), Slope, Tokyo, 2013.

and seeing the shadows and reflections.

2.3 The Untranslatable, Articulated through a ‘Poetic’ Use of Languagea.
This last section considers the idea of the ‘poetic’, in discussing the last stage of Zen experience:
articulation of non-articulation, in which language is used poetically. According to Izutsu, Zen
language takes both verbal and visual forms of expression, including Zen dialogue, poetry,philosophy and visual languages such as painting.
As stated earlier in this chapter, the idea of the ‘poetic’ is essential for my research as it
connects the philosophy of translation and art, as well as Western philosophical thought andEastern thought, (Zen articulation). However, Zen articulation differs from Western thought which
is limited by the idea of the ineffable that is associated with the transcendental. It is understood30

that “Zen, throughout its long history, has certainly articulated an experience which one often
lightly disposes of by referring to it as something ‘ineffable’” 43.
This claim struck me, as I struggle to discuss the possibility of articulating theuntranslatable through the language of art, in the global academic context that is predominantly
based on the Western philosophical tradition. When I say ‘embodying the untranslatable through a
poetic translation’, this is based on my perception and experience of art, which is not entirely
Western. However, my project is criticised as being contrary to the Western logic of theuntranslatable as ineffable. In this regard, Izutsu’s philosophical effort is informative andencouraging for my research to cultivate ways to articulate the untranslatable through a poetic workin my thesis writing and art-making.
b.
I discuss that a seemingly illogical and contradictory way of perceiving and expressing the world is,indeed, the very characteristic of Eastern thought, as well as of artistic languages. The great
example for this can be found in Izutsu's saying: ‘articulation of non-articulation’, which is theultimate goal for one to experience the world. And I suggest that this claim might have inspired
Jacques Derrida to write to Izutsu in Letter to a Japanese Friend (1983).
I observe that the letter shows the shared interest between these philosophers, for whom
the ineffable (the untranslatable) is something that can be attained through a poetic work oflanguage. At the opening of this letter, Derrida asks Izutsu for “a possible translation of this word
(deconstruction) into Japanese, one which would at least try to avoid, if possible, a negative
determination of its significations or connotations”. It can be read as a request to articulate what is
considered non-articulative. And the letter is ended by drawing attention to both a risk and achance, which are involved in both translation and poetry. He writes,
I do not believe that translation is a secondary and derived event in relation to an original
language or text. And as "deconstruction" is a word, as I have just said, that is essentiallyreplaceable in a chain of substitution, then that can also be done from one language toanother. The chance, first of all the chance of (the) "deconstruction", would be that
another word (the same word and an other) can be found in Japanese to say the same thing(the same and an other), to speak of deconstruction, and to lead elsewhere to its being
written and transcribed, in a word which will also be more beautiful. When I speak of thiswriting of the other which will be more beautiful, I clearly understand translation as
involving the same risk and chance as the poem. How to translate "poem"? A "poem"?... 44
This passage indicates the link between the process of ‘deconstruction’ and translation, and thestage of ‘non-articulation’, which all prompt ‘transference’ (replacement) from one word toanother. I understand that such a translation, thought to “lead elsewhere itself when written andtranscribed” is a form of embodiment, in which language operates materially as well as poetically.
Hence, “the other word which will be more beautiful” embodies the ineffable (the untranslatable),

43 Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen, 123.
44 J. Derrida, “Letter to a Japanese Friend,” in Derrida and Différance, eds. David Wood and Robert Bernasconi, (Evanston: Northwestern

University Press, 1985), 5

31

through the language of elsewhere (=foreign (else, hoka) language) such as a Japanese person in thecontext of this letter. And it is precisely demonstrated when Izutsu describes Zen articulation of
non-articulation.
c.
Let us now turn to Izutsu’s philosophical investigation, which demonstrates how ‘poetic use oflanguage’ enables Zen language to articulate non-articulation, in other words, “an experience which
one often lightly disposes of by referring to it as something ‘ineffable’”45. According to Izutsu, it isdone “by virtue of the ‘fusing’ function of poetic language”, by which “articulation turns
immediately into non-articulation”46.
This ‘fusing’ function is prominent in Zen poetry, in which a single word can function tocontain “all other words by dint of a semantic network of suggestive associations”. In discussing
this, Izutsu refers to a famous koan, meaning Zen dialogue, between the Chinese Master and amonk.
Once, a monk asked Master Fuketsu: Speech spoils the transcendence (of Reality), whilesilence spoils the manifestation. How could one combine speech and silence without
spoiling Reality? The Master replied: I always remember the spring scenery I once saw inKonan; partridges were chirping there among fragrant flowers in full bloom.47
Izutsu suggests that the monk’s question stands in the domain of reasoning, in which “language issemantically an instrument of articulation” hence not able to indicate “the ultimate reality in its
suchness” 48. This becomes an obstacle, as without using language “the non-articulated will bepresented as sheer ‘nothing’ in the negative sense of the word”49. In contrast, Izutsu considers that
the Master’s response “directly presents reality as articulated and non-articulated by utilising a very
special function of human language”50. His answer, seemingly not corresponding to the question,
makes this point. It presents “the articulating function exercised by poetic language”, which is “of acompletely different nature from the articulating function exercised by prosaic language.” MasterFuketsu's answer, which is indeed a beautiful piece of poetry, “conjures up the beautiful scenery of
the spring”, in other words, “an eternal or timeless, metaphysical scenery”. How so? It is clarified
when Izutsu elaborates on the fusing function of poetic language in the Master’s answer (orpoetry), as follows:
The interpretation of all things through the ‘flower’ and ‘bird’ is the emergence of thespring. And the emergence of the spring is nothing other than the very emergence ofreality in its suchness, the articulation itself into this particular form, yet eternallyremaining in the state of non-articulation.51
45 Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen, 123.
46 Ibid., 132.
47 Ibid., 130.
48 Ibid., 130.
49 Ibid., 131.
50 Trans. the author, Izutsu, “Zen ni okeru Gengoteki Imi no Mondai [The problem of the Linguistic Meaning in Zen]”, 368.
51 Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism, 132.

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In the Master’s poetry, it is, remarkably, in the single word ‘spring’, that the non-articulated is
articulated. That is to say that the untranslatable is embodied.
This poetic function is alive in the everyday life of contemporary Japan. In this regard, I
refer to the observation made by the French film maker, Chris Marker, in his essay-film, Sans Soleil[Sunless] from 1984. In the film, the narrator introduces a story in the newspaper about a man who,
having lost his lover, kills himself in May. The reason is that “he could not stand hearing the word
‘spring’”52. The narrator expresses Markers’ observation that “Japanese poetry never modifies.
There is a way of saying boat, rock, moist, frog, crow, hail, heron, chrysanthemum that includes
them all”. This is also considered “a discrete melancholy—resembling Sei Shonagon [the 11c
female poet and writer in Japan]—that the Japanese express in a single untranslatable word”53.
To me, spring, which is written, 春 /はる, and pronounced, haru in Japanese, comes all at
once overwhelmingly. In turn, it emphasises the silence that waited the moment. The silence isfertile; a plenitude of being, and is filled with metaphors: ‘a semantic network of suggestive
associations’, amongst which I shall include ‘death’. As Izutsu puts it, “it is to be noticed thatspeech and silence are combined with each other, and through this combination the intrinsic
limitations of each have been overcome”54.
Regarding Waka,, it is the origin of haiku poetry, which Izutsu refers to as a discrete formof Zen poetry. In this form, silence and speech are contained within 17 syllables arranged in theunits of 5/7/7 and the spaces in between.
d.
I express that listening to my grandmother’s speech was like hearing a haiku poem. “There Mt. Aso,
so beautiful isn't it?” is indeed as short and rich as haiku, suggesting all her memories associatedwith the place; memories that encompass her 100 years of lived life. I simply wonder, how many
springs have come and gone, and how many times has she farewelled and welcomed a life?
As my second attempt to translate my
grandmother’s poetic enunciation, I discuss,lastly, the video work entitled Topology between
the Three, which was made between 2014 and2016 [figure 6-8].
The work consists of the video
footage of the mountainous landscape (withatmospheric sound), and subtitles

recordingthe conversation between three people(without the speakers’ voices). The footage
was shot during my first visit to Mt. Aso, andthe conversation around Mt. Aso was recorded
during another visit to my grandmother,

Fig. 6. Utako Shindo, Topology Between the Three, (video still), 2014-2016.
www.utakoshindo.info/exhibition/topology-between-the-three/accompanied by my mother.
52 “Sans Soleil / Sunless, Chris Marker”, Markertext, accessed 5 May 2014, http://www.markertext.com/sans_soleil.htm.
53 Ibid.
54 Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism, 132.

33

On reflection, to actually visit the site
on my own, and to hear more of her personaland social perspectives on the mountain, withthe aid of my mother, helped me to get closer
to the sense of ‘Mt.Aso as such’. What felt
most strong through these events was thesense of an opening, an enigma, which had
first been expressed as what is untranslatable
about Mt. Aso.
My grandmother’s speech provides akind of footnote, which contributed to this,my second attempt to translate her original
enunciation. The way her speech and my andmy mother’s speech sometime do not cross,resonates with Zen dialogue. As a result, thesilence or the gap is deepened, in which I am
immersed in a universal feeling of love andlonging, and joy and grief. Thereby, the work is
intended to articulate the sense of an opening,
an enigma, which can provoke a feeling of
one’s life (and death) between the work andFig. 7-8. Shindo, Topology Between the Three, (video still), 2014-2016.

the audience.
The footage and the subtitles are edited in a way which obscures the whereabouts: whomthese voices and the eyes behind the camera belong to, and where these images of landscapes are
sourced from. The sound of voices are taken out, to encourage audiences to read the subtitles intheir mind with their own voices. The speed of footage is slowed down, in which the atmosphere
shifts and drifts in and out of the frame, indicating how time passes around my grandmother.
These are the strategies to open and extend such an interval that can prompt the transference
between the work and audiences; between what is said and heard, and what is shown and seen, andwhat is felt and expressed. And now seeing this work once again as a spectator, I am as aware ofthe ‘mountain seeing myself ’, as I am of ‘I seeing mountain, as it is’.
f.
As discussed earlier, Zen language, does not only express itself in a verbal form but in divergent
forms amongst which Izutsu includes visual language55. In referring to haiku poetry, black andwhite paintings are also considered to be an example of a poetic use of language as they encompass
presence and absence (or speech and silence), hence, “a semantic network of suggestive
associations”. This form, indeed, expresses more than just ‘black and white’; Izutsu describes it as“glistening black”, “water[ed] down to vaporous gray”, “a haziness of faint gray”, and “a blank,
white space”56. I suggest a link between what he sees in black and white paintings and what I
observe in shadows: their nuances and subtle shades.
55 Izutsu, “Preface” in Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism, xii
56 Ibid., 222.

34

This link shall be further elaborated in the following chapter, which asks, “How can apoetic use of language be employed in an installation art context?” In this quest, shadows are
considered media that can embody subtlety and nuance visually and spatially. The investigation into
the notion of shadows will also facilitate my research into what can be considered philosophicaland artistic knowledge of the untranslatable.

35

CHAPTER THREE: Nuanced Shadows
In questioning, “how can a poetic use of language be employed in an installation art context?”, thischapter investigates ideas of the shadow across disciplines including philosophy of perception, andhistories and theories of art and architecture in both Western and Eastern contexts. I discuss how
shadows can be used poetically as a form of language; in other words, as a medium for an artwork
to embody the untranslatable. In so doing, I reflect on the second object of my poetic translation inthis research: the acrylic cube and its shadows and reflections. These investigations have guided myart-making to employ a poetic use of language visually, spatially and verbally in an installation art
exhibition context.

3.1 The Shadow’s Appearance in Philosophy and Arta.
At the beginning of my research, it was rather intuitive that I made a link between ‘shadows’ andthe ‘untranslatable’. When I was under pressure to be translatable, I projected my self-image,onto
shadows whose appearances constantly shift and transfer across different surfaces. These shadows
were more fascinating to me than the kinds of artworks that I could translate into prosaic
languages. The latter works, indeed, did not allow much nuance and subtly in their appearances.
The acrylic cube (as a remnant) [figure 1] presents particular visual phenomena, which aresilently expressive. Acrylic is a familiar material, which I often use in my art-making. Yet, the two,almost identical, acrylic cubes, which I saw in thedisplay material shop, somehow caught my eyes. It
was on my way from the hospital where my
grandmother stayed between 2013 and 2014. They
capture a flash of light as shadows and reflections,which are ambiguous and elusive. The trace of a cut
made by a blade adds richer shades. They became akind of mobile utsu (or void) for me to carry around,and to reflect and project different qualities of lightand air in the places where I go.

Fig. 1. Shadow and reflection of the acrylic cube. Photo: theauthor.

b.
Some shadows appear more ambiguous than others. The degree of this perceptual ambiguity
depends on the materials and scenes where shadows are cast. Shadows appear and disappear
according to the conditions and source of light, and the objects over which the light passes.
Before it disappears, one may capture the presence of a shadow by tracing its contour. In
this instance, various shades of gray become reduced and flattened according to the perimeter ofwhat one could decipher or what one would believe. Indeed, the myth of art, told by the ancient36Roman writer, Pliny, in his book, Natural History, depicts the scene[figure 2]1 where the daughter of Butades, the ancient Greek
modeler, traced a contour of the cast shadow of her lover 2. This isunderstood to be how painting originated. Here, the origin of
painting is representational. Once outlined on the wall, the identity of
the lover is fixed, in a way that it no longer allows for ambiguity.
While its representational or factual meaning can be conveyed, theambiguity or nuance, which an artwork or a word carries, remains
untranslatable into another form. I discuss how this untranslatability
is remarkable in depicting shadows.
On the idea of appearance, philosophical and empiricalFig. 2. Eduard Daege, The invention of
Painting, oil on canvas, National
Galerie, Berlin, 1832.

studies of cognitive perception have provided useful reference points
for this research. In fact, some studies use the appearance of ambiguous shadows and artworks to
re-examine the traditional perceptual model that divides sensation and cognition 3. These studies,
which cross the fields of cognitive science and philosophy of mind, have helped me to explore how
shadows can prompt perception of something untranslatable, which hovers between the sensible
and the intelligible.
It is understood that our vision can perfectly perceive variations in light on material
surfaces, such as various shades on a wall. However, as soon as we attempt to describe what we seein verbal and written languages, we inevitably make mistakes. For instance, one may say “that wall iswhite”, while their eyes are actually perceiving 200 different tones of grayness or lightness that arecovering the wall4. This mistake resembles some occasions on which one cannot adequately
describe what one sees as/in artwork. An artwork that embodies the untranslatable is, therefore,
nonrepresentational. It is, rather, of a kind that one may call enigmatic or mystical. It is not a dreamor illusion. It comes as an experience. It overwhelmingly fascinates and makes one look at the world
differently; such as when one is in love.
Shadows and art share characteristics of immateriality and dependency. Their appearance
in one's perception is highly dependent on a scene that consists of the atmosphere of thesurroundings, the mood of the viewer, and on the objects and materials that ground what is seen as
shadow or art. This also means that shadow and appearance of art, on their own, are immaterial.
This observation sheds light on a gap in our common understanding of perception. We
cannot physically touch a shadow or its appearance of art, not even instantly, hence they are notsensible. However, these characteristic do not prove that shadow and art do not exist (“like how
immaterialist might have said in the 17th century”5). They are there and can be experienced, as wewould intellectually and visually recognise them as taking part of (dependent on) other materials.
What’s more, their existence can have a significant effect on those who are touched by them. In thissense, distinctions between the sensible (sensation) and the intelligible (cognition) become blurred.

1 This image shows one of many paintings which depict this event. The father, Butades, then made a relief based on her drawing, thenoriginated sculpture.

2 Stoichita, A Short History of the Shadow, 7.
3 I understand that this model is identical to ‘sensible’ and ‘intelligible’ binary model.
4 John O’Dea, in conversation with the author, Tokyo, June 22, 2014
5 O’Dea, conversation.

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This leads me to consider that the perception of the untranslatable hovers ‘in-between’
these perceptual states. I refer to these ‘in-between’ states as the ‘interval’ or ba/field. In thisunderstanding, shadows can play a role as a medium that can be poetically used for an artwork toembody the untranslatable. It is because shadows, which uniquely require material intervention,
make the untranslatable visible. Shadows can also prompt opening of a scene as they depend on
the surroundings and human perception, which in turn enable shadows to appear. This relates to myprevious discussion of the untranslatable in Chapter Two: it is an opening, a place, a poetic scenethat invites us to enter, in both an art context and in the everyday. In this scene, which is spatial anddurational, our perception shifts between different appearances. It is this shift between what
appears and disappears that makes us perceive something elusive and ambiguous (oruntranslatable).
c.
This line between ‘sensible’ and ‘intelligible’ is drawn by the classical perceptual model inmetaphysics, which is derived from Plato’s claim in The Republic. In this regard, when the North
American philosopher, John Sallis, discusses the notions of eikasia and dianoia, representing
perception of the ‘sensible’ and the ‘intelligible’, respectively, he inspiringly demonstrates the link
between translation and perception. He does so by exploring the idea of ‘the force of imagination’in translation.
In his book, On Translation, Sallis attempts to shed light on the imagination that traverses
these faculties, by elaborating on “the classical determination of translation” 6. The first mention of‘translation’ in Western Philosophy can be found in Plato’s dialogue with Critias7, in which Sallis
recognises the notion of dianoia as essential for translation. Dianoia, which is normally translated as‘thought’ or ‘intention’, should, according to Sallis, “remain the ambiguity in the form of duality”;“thinking or that which is intended by it; the intending or that which is intended by”8. It is said that,in order to retrieve dianoia, Egyptians tested “the force of the names” which were written by
Atlantis. They did so in the following way: firstly “as a way of effecting the transfer, they wrote
down the names” and secondly they carried over “the foreign names” “into their (the Egyptians)
voice”9. This shows that what mattered in translation was not meaning but ‘the force of the name’,
which was tested through enunciation. This resembles how a poet would make an effort to soundtheir verse beautifully. It also reminds me of how strong my grandmother’s enunciation of Mt.Aso
felt, when she translatied what she read in the scenery in front of her.
Tatsuya Nishiyama, the Japanese scholar and translator for Sallis’ On Translation,
demonstrates a fascinating link between dianoia and eikasia. In his translator’s note, eikasia is
described as “perception of shadowy image, perception through shadow and/or image” 10, and thisunderstanding confirms the link, when Nishiyama writes,

6 Sallis, On Translation, 51.
7 Critias is the fragmentary sequel to the Timaeus.
8 Sallis, On Translation, 51.
9 Ibid., 55.
10 Trans. the author, Nishiyama, “Yakusha Kaisetsu: Honyaku Kono Sakusou suru Mono [Translator’s note: Translation, thisentanglement],” 308.

38

In many of his other works, Sallis repeatedly points out that Plato considers dianoia to be
the other side of the same—though not identical—for the work of image (eikasia)… 11
According to Nishiyama’s articulation above, ‘the force’ is understood to mean the capacity to see
through, to think through. This is called ‘double seeing’ by Sallis.
I observe that this ‘double seeing’, which both dianoia and eikasia are about, demonstrates
the connection between the idea of translation and the idea of perception. I understand that thecapacity (force) of both translation and perception depends on the degree of ambiguity(untranslatability). By ambiguity (untranslatability), I mean the metaphorical richness that provokes
one’s imagination. As discussed in the previous chapter, in poetry (and in a poetic use of language),the metaphorical richness can be measured in the layers of associations (or in the network ofsuggested associations). In art, the metaphorical richness can be experienced in shades of color/
tones of sound, or as shadow/silence.
d.
Let us consider perception of ambiguous shadows discussed across histories of art and philosophy
in both Western and Eastern contexts.

In the book, A short history of the shadow, written by the art historian, Victor Stoichita,shadows and reflections are depicted as overlapping. According to Stoichita, in the Narcissus myth,
which describes “different degrees of reflection”, the shadow is
considered to be a kind of degree that is “the least clear” (closest to
nothing)12. He then points out that this “narcissistic paradigm ofWestern mimesis [is] replaced by the oriental eulogy on thetransience of the shadow.13 ” In this picture, what Stoichita calls,“the shadow of the gaze” is observed as being captured in Monet's
photographic self-portrait, which the artist took himself [figure 3].
The photograph frames a section of the water’s surface partly
covered by water-lilies, like his painting. Yet, the surface does not

Fig.3. Claude Monet Self Portrait on the
Surface of the Lily Pond, Giverny,photograph, 1905.

only reflect Monet, like a mirror, but also grounds his shadow.
At the point of history when this paradigm shift occurred, there was a Japanese influence,
which was prominent among the European artists. With regards to the ‘mysterious Orient’,
Stoichita makes reference to the essay entitled ‘In praise of shadows’, written by the novelist,
Junichiro Tanizaki, published in 1933. This essay is informative not only as it depicts the Japanese
aesthetic, but it also criticises the Western modernisation, which had been going for nearly a half
century and had influenced Japanese culture and perception.
For Tanizaki, shadows and reflections are recognised as ‘variations of shades’ that play a
key role in a unique aspect of the Japanese aesthetic discussed in the context of everyday
architecture. An ink wash painting is used in a figurative sense to describe a traditional Japaneseroom: “the paper-paneled shoji being the expanse where the ink is thinnest, and the alcove where it

11 Ibid.
12 Stoichita, A Short History of the Shadow, 109.
13 Ibid., 110.

39

is darkest.” 14 This observation leads him to remark that, “The ‘mysterious Orient’ of which
Westerners speak probably refers to the uncanny silence of these dark places.”15
This ‘uncanny silence’ in ‘dark places’ is comparable to the idea of ‘fertile silence’,considered to be a particular place (ba/field) in Zen experience. For Tanizaki, it is found in a room,or ma, as it is a particular space-time that frames (underpins), aesthetically and philosophically, theeveryday in Japan. From the silence of this room (ma), a particular perception emerges, which takes
divergent forms. These include a black and white painting (which Izutsu refers to); in other words,
an ink brush painting. Tanizaki describes it in terms of shadows spatially and visually). Shadow is,hence, considered to be both spatial and visual. It is a form of poetic language that emerges fromsilence, and, conversely, articulates silence. This understanding supports my argument that shadowscan be considered a medium for installation art to embody the untranslatable, and, conversely, thatthe untranslatable can be characterised by fertile silence and nuanced shadows.
Similarly, what can be called the ‘shadowy imaginal’ and considered subtle and nuanced, iselaborated by Izutsu in a philosophical study that covers the greater Eastern contexts including
Indian, Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese mystical Buddhism, and Islamic thought. The Persian mystic
and philosopher, Suhrawardi’s philosophical concept of ‘ashbah mujarrandah’ is interpreted by him
and expressed in Japanese as ‘Nisugata 似姿’ or ‘Omokage 面影’. It indicates an image that reminds oneof something and someone else that is similar but different. This “‘similar image” is understood tohave “drifted away from mass (material substance)” 16 and “transferred from the dimension ofmaterial world to another”. This ‘shadowy imaginal’ or ‘similar image’ is, thereby, described ashaving a ‘metaphorical existence that floats in the air”. Yet, it does not mean that it does not exist in
the Real. Izutsu argues that for some of the Eastern mystical, shamanistic, or philosophical people,
like Suhrawardi, such a ‘shadowy existence’ appears to be deeply real rather than a mere image in
one’s mind. Hence, it is the Real which “exists in a particular ‘post-mass’ dimension”17. And thisdimensions is characterised by being “nuanced, ambiguous and subtle”, as opposed to a ‘mass’
dimension that is “large, thick, heavy and rough” 18.
This ‘shadowy imaginal’, which exists in a particular dimension that is comparable to theinterval, ba/field and darkness (silence), challenges the traditional model of perception. By going
beyond the sensible and intelligible dimensions, and by being intangible, it provokes one toexperience an appearance that is metaphorical and imaginal yet ‘touching’ us as reality (or truth).
Further, it is interesting that, so far, ideas of the shadow across histories of art and philosophy
seem to always be associated with an image of someone else, a lover, or one’s own reflection. It is
as though it is telling us something universal about human perception that ‘looks for’ love in
nuanced shadows. This might be summed up in Tanizaki’s observation in another text: “shadows
are the nuance of love”. I discuss this in the last chapter.
e.
Let us now consider shadows in detail, in the context of Japanese rooms, as discussed by Tanizaki.

14 Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, trans. Thomas Harper and Edward Seidensticker, (London: Letter’s Books, Inc., 1977), 34.
15 Ibid.
16 Trans. the author, Izutsu, Ishiki to Honshitsu: The consciousness and reality of existence, 203.
17 Ibid., 204.
18 Ibid., 204–205.

40

In the “Japanese comprehension of the secrets of shadows” and “sensitive use of shadow
and light”19 , it is understood that “everythingaround the house is there to guide shadows towards
beauty’s ends.”20And art objects or decorations are
not exceptional [figure 4, 5]21 . This perspective,
which differs from the traditional Western paradigm
discussed by Stoichita, art served the representationof the subject/object, is articulated as follows:…the scrolls and the flowers serve not as
ornament but rather to give depth to theshadows. We value a scroll above all for theway it blends with the walls of thealcove… 22
According to Tanizaki’s original text written in

Fig. 4-5. Still from the film, Maboroshi [Maboroshi no hikari] byHirokazu Koreeda, 1995.

Japanese, “the way it blends” is a translation of anoun, yuka utsuri (床うつり) 23 which literally means the floor reflection (projection). Hence, it can besaid that the excellence of an artwork is evaluated by the degree of the nuance and ambiguity thatthe artwork carries, which will be then perceived as both shadows and reflections.
Tanizaki proposes that painting is “nothing more than another delicate surface upon which
the faint, frail light can play.” In this context, another surface includes floors as well as walls, which
are made of sand with neutral colors and the degree of shades are subtly controlled. This is inorder to ‘guide shadows towards beauty’s ends’. Tanizaki writes,
The hue may differ from room to room, but the degree of difference will be ever so slight;
not so much a difference in color as in shade, a difference that will seem to exist only in themood of the viewer. And from the delicate differences in the hue of the walls, the shadowsin each room take on a tinge peculiarly their own.24
In pre-modern Japanese architecture, the light is taken indirectly from the outside25, as reflections
and shadows that mediate artworks and surroundings. In this context, the viewer is required to19 Thomas Harper and Edward Seidensticker, trans. Junichiro Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, 33.
20 Ibid., 31.
21 The still images are extracted by the author from Maboroshi [Maboroshi no Hikari], directed by Hirokazu Koreeda (Tokyo: Bandai,

2003), DVD. In the book, Atomic Light (Shadow Optics) by Akira Mizuta Lippit, (pp.133-143. Minneapolis: the University of
Minnesota Press, 2005), Maboroshi is discussed as a contemporary example which embodies the aesthetic of shadow/reflections that
Tanizaki discusses.
22 Ibid., 32.
23 J. Tanizaki, “Innei Raisan [In Praise of Shadows],” 33.
24 Ibid., 32.

25 Stoichita also looks at the outside, when he discusses the roles of “truncated shadows” whose sources are unknown in impressionist

paintings but “correspond(s) to a very precise moment in the day.” In both contexts discussed by Tanizaki and Stoichita, shadows andreflections similarly expand one’s awareness to what is beyond one’s visual periphery. Yet, there are difference between truncatedshadows in paintings and the actual shadows and reflections. Stoichita calls the former, a “messenger” of the reality outside of the frame,
which was captured in the eyes of the painter, whereas the actual shadows/reflections in a Japanese room belong to the viewer’s eyes.
41anticipate and perceive this level of subtlety in order to complete its beauty: the nuanced difference
between rooms. It is a task performed through her/his effort to experience and engage with thewhole setting, not only an artwork.
The appearance of artworks relies on the viewer’s gaze, not only on the artists in thisparticular perceptual and aesthetic system (if I am allowed to call it that). Yet, I suggest that it
stands not only for a unique aspect of the Japanese aesthetic, but for a way of perception that istrue to how the subject (the viewer) and the object (reflections and shadows of the light) together
enable a nuanced understanding of the world, and the emergence of the world itself. In the next
section, this will be discussed in detail.

3.2 Multistable Perception (‘perceptual ambiguity comes in degrees’)
Investigating the kind of gaze that can perceive the subtlety and nuance in shades, in the light of
empirical and philosophical studies of perception, has implications for one’s ability to perceive, orin Sallis’ term imagine, something untranslatable by means of an art practice. This ability isimportant in respect of works (translated work, poetry, artwork) whose ambiguity(untranslatability), in other words, force is strong.
a.
In these quests: “how does one perceive subtle degrees of similarities and differences?” and “howdoes her/his perception shift between them?”, Gestalt theory helps us to understand a mechanismof one’s vision that distinguishes a form (gestalt) from the rest, which would otherwise blend. The
studies on ‘Gestalt-shift’ (“the phenomenon of multistable perception”26) in particular, demonstrate
our perceptions of ambiguous ‘appearance’. The Australian scholar, John O’Dea, discusses this inrelation to the perception of art in the Western context, in his article, ‘Art and Ambiguity: A
Gestalt-Shift Approach to Elusive Appearances’. His analysis seems to respond to Tanizaki’s
onservation that the beauty created by the slight differences in ‘neutral’ colors of walls is, otherwise,
unnoticeable:…elusiveness of “appearance”; whatever they are, they are not normally noticed, and then
only with “special effort”. The real virtue of the Gestalt-shift approach to “appearance” isthat it can explain the precise nature of this effort, and the reason for the elusiveness.27
A most familiar and classic example is given by O’Dea,
which causes Gestalt-shift, in other words, double image: theduck-rabbit image, used by the American phycologist Joseph
Jastrow [figure 6]. As some readers may have also ‘tried’ thisperceptual shift before, it is understood that one’s having “anawareness of potential ambiguity is normally a pre-requisite” for the
Fig. 6. Joseph Jastrow, the duck/rabbit, 1899.

26 O’Dea, “Art and Ambiguity,” 11.
27 Ibid.

42

switch, which is “amenable to prompting”, to occur 28. And such an awareness is attainable through an
instruction, for instance, the name of this image, the ‘duck-rabbit’ image. This, in fact, isreminiscent of a title of an artwork, which often frames the interpretations of the artwork.
Another study, by Leopold, D. A., & Logothetis, N. K.,
uses an image of jungle foliage image [figure 7] as an example toshed light on “the connection between multistable perception andordinary, as it were monostable, perception” 29. In the image, what
are seen as leaves and shade need to ‘appear’ differently as a
camouflaged tiger. In this context of survival, this perception is
directed at detecting danger, by the work of ‘higher processes’that are understood to “persistently intervene in sensory
processing in a continuing search for better hypotheses about thestimulus”. The important finding, expressed by O’Dea, is that“[T]he sensory system does not rest content with first

Fig. 7. Jungle foliage image.

appearances, which is important in a challenging visualenvironment”30
In order to relate these findings to my research context, let me imagine how a rabbit-duck
image in a Japanese room could look. The picture would oscillate between being an image andbeing a material object, since a pictorial and non-pictorial situation, in other words, art and theeveryday, come together in mediation of shadows and reflections and by architectural framing. Thissituation, in which our perception would be expected to follow one ambiguity to another: fromrabbit/duck shifts to object/surface shifts, may be challenging for someone who is not familiar
with this way of experiencing, or this way of conceptualising art. It would be as challenging as
being in jungle foliage, yet, one should be content with the beauty, instead of detecting the danger.
It would be in the abstract patterns of shadows that one is expected to find as a supreme beauty.
They blend a dangerous picture of tiger into their beauty.
b.
Today, it is certainly not only the Eastern aesthetic
that serves for this type of perception. The artworkby the North-American artist, Agnes Martin, is also
thought to appear differently as image/object/surface/architecture [figure 8]. Martin, who is known
for her abstract expressionist paintings, often marks
geometric lines and grids on a canvas. Their surfaces
are also characteristically covered with thinly painted
colors. The North-American art critic, Rosalind
Krauss, describes “what it is actually like to see theFig. 8. Agnes Martin, Paintings from 2001, installed with Donald
Judo Benches selected by Martin. The Harwood Museum of Art.

[Martin’s] paintings” 31. In her catalogue essay, entitled
The /Cloud/, a reference to Brunelleschi’s perspective experiment [figure 9], she claims,
28 Ibid.
29 Ibid., 12.
30 Ibid.
31 R. Krauss, “THE /CLOUD/” in Agnes Martin, ed. Barbara Haskell (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1992), 158.

43

if the /architecture/ came to symbolize the reach of theartist’s knowledge, the /cloud/ operated as the lack inthe center of that knowledge, the outside that joins theinside in order to constitute it as an inside.32
Shadows and reflections suggest an absence in our normal
Fig. 9. Reconstruction of Brunelleschi’s firstexperiment.

conception, like the way clouds are considered here a symbol oflack in our knowledge (what is unintelligible). As discussed earlier,they are employed to bring outside inside in the architecture ofJapan. I also recall the mountain objects (which look also like clouds) in my installation work,
Understanding of Misunderstanding, creating their own shadows and reflections inside of the frame,
while remaining outside.
Martin similarly employs light and shadow to provoke a perceptual ambiguity between an
image and a material, and from/to an object and an architecture. Krauss calls for our attention to
the art writer, Kasha Linville’s closer examination of one’s experience of Martin’s work, whichcomes as “sequences of illusions of textures”33. At first, in “theclose-to reading”, there are “details of its materiality in all theirsparse precision”34 , in which “her line is sharp” while “its own
shadow softens it”35. It is because Martin often applies her
paint to draw lines on the high places of the grains of the
woven canvas. From the middle-distance [figure 10], “theambiguities of illusion take over from the earlier materiality ofa surface”36, and “the paintings go atmospheric” 37. Lastly, fromfar back, “opaqueness” is produced, as a “more objective
vantage on the work brackets the atmospheric interval of the
middle-distance view, closing it from behind”. Hence, whatFig.10. Agnes Martin, Leaf, (middle view),
acrylic and graphite on canvas, Modern Art
Museum of Fort Worth1965.

appears at last is “[W]all-like and impenetrable” 38.
These three distances “transform the experience from an intuition into a system”. I would
like to make a link between this system and the particular perception (articulation) process which
guides us to employ a poetic use of language, letting forms emerge from fertile silence, as in the
distance between the sensible and the intelligible.
c.
With regard to this transformation (transference) in one’s perceptual experience in the art context,
O’Dea, discussing multistable perception, claims that “perceptual ambiguity comes in degrees” 39.

32 Ibid., 161.
33 Kasha Linville, “Agnes Martin: An Appreciation,” in Artforum 9 (June 1971), 72.
34 Krauss, “THE /CLOUD/,” 158.
35 Linville, “Agnes Martin: An Appreciation,” 72.
36 Ibid.
37 Krauss, “THE /CLOUD/,” 158.
38 Linville, (1971): 72
39 O’Dea, “Art and Ambiguity,” 13.

44

According to O’Dea, it is mostly the case that genuine ambiguity is realised when the two options
are “equally likely”. However, “higher cognitive processes” are also able to direct a Gestalt shift “toan unlikely (or dispreferred, by the visual system) interpretation of the visual stimulus” 40. In the latter
case, it is observed that “higher cognitive areas can bring about a transient shift in the precept to
one of these alternative (normally illusory) interpretations.” I suggest that this “alternative(normally illusory) interpretation” can be counted as what an artist would intend to provoke,
namely, a unique ‘perspective’ on the world.
Here, I am inspired to contextualise my understanding of an art practice in the context ofmultistable perception. For alternative interpretations to happen, an artist is given a task to create asituation where a viewer can ‘practise’ to gain “the ability to notice ‘appearance’” which is,according to O’Dea, “different or dis-preferred”. To do so, an artist shall/would normallymanipulate what are considered “various contextual clues”, which include “the familiarity of thestimulus, spatial attention, instruction, semantic association, visual imagery, information from othersense modalities”41.
Let me now discuss how these“various contextual clues” are manipulated in
my installation work, entitled Distancing for
opening, presented at the art & architecture
bookstore, Perimeters, in Melbourne in 2014
[figure 11]. Being outside of the gallery context
could be challenging as it requires more carefulutilisation of these clues as well as motivations
for those who walk into another context: theFig. 11. Utako Shindo, Distancing for Opening, (installation view),
Perimeter Books, Melbourne, 2014.

bookstore, in this case. Yet, it can also prompt
one to practise noticing a different appearance
within their familiar everyday contexts.
In the middle of the store, a sheet ofprinted work on timber stands is installed,bordered by two sheets of acrylic which arebent into 90 degrees [figure 12]. This case-likestructure is unlike the normal display case foran art object: it does not disclose and there isno obviously noticeable object inside. It,

Fig. 12. Shindo, Distancing for Opening, (middle view), 2014.

instead, holds a sheet of paper that presents
visual information that is ambiguous andindecipherable [figure 13]. Is it printed image,or shadow/reflection? The hint of opening
and the sense of the unknown call for
engagement. This active engagement, in fact,
mirrors what is common in a bookstore
Fig. 13. Shindo, Distancing for Opening, (detail), 2014.
40 Ibid., 14
41 Ibid.,15

45

context: one initiates her/his opening and reading of printed matter.42d.
My attempt to learn and manipulate systems of visual perception is aimed at proposing strategies
that can facilitate one’s perceiving ambiguous shadows, which, in my context, characterises theuntranslatable. For this to happen, a viewer should be encouraged to dwell in-between possibilities:
at one moment tilt one side, and at the next moment to another, as if a viewer feels that s/he had
anticipated what they now see. Through this subtle yet active perception, the experience of art
could become more intimate. It also leads one to question the apparent, familiar knowledge. The‘appearance’ of art and the viewer’s context and environment are unified, blended. Hence,
knowledge needs to be re-discovered through his/her experiencing the artwork, as if his/her
perception expresses the knowledge.
In his book, entitled, Chikaku to Seikatsu Sekai (Perception and Life-Worlds), Junichi Murata, an
expert in philosophy of mind and philosophy of technique, writes an inspiring view. For Murata, akind of ‘form’, discussed through the lens of Gestalt theory, means a form of ‘expression’, as it
plays the role of generating a ‘meaning’43. This ‘expression’ that generates ‘meaning’ is considered
to be ‘technique’, to which ‘art’ (technē) is included for the ancient Greeks. His view leads me toconsider ‘artistic technique’ belonging to both sides: one who makes and one who sees. Hence,‘expression’ is not a kind of faculty given limitedly to the maker (artist). It is a form of techniquethat is practised not only in the art context but in the everyday.
Murata gives a detailed account when he writes,
Even a small degree of attention shift demands one's visual field to process Gestalt shift.
Moreover, it cannot help but let the shift of meaning occur, even though the shift may be
subtle. And through this, various experiences of ‘friction (creak)’ and ‘gap (slippage)’
happen. This is why one day, suddenly, we are surprised to find ourselves in different
conditions from where we were before, while we repeat mundane perception and actions.44
In my understanding, Murata’s above observation, which articulates how one notices and expresses
a new meaning, suggests an enquiry into repetition, as in practice. In his context, this practice isdone unconsciously, and this is why it is so surprising when it happens that the world appears
differently from what one had a control over its appearance as well as its expression/meaning. In
my art research context, I also observe that a similar practice is exercised when I, as a viewer, am
repeatedly exposed to a kind of artwork that embodies nuance and subtly. This puts me in aparticular interval (creak or slippage) or ba/field, in which I oscillate and negotiate between
42 With an intention to frame the contexts in which the artwork is installed, I wrote a text, whose extract is as follows:…The space between art and life can be porous. ‘Perimeter Books’ houses unaccountable spaces to be opened by readers and viewers. The books
housed along the walls and on the tables await our life to slip between their pages. Pieces of timber are stretching horizontally and vertically tohold surfaces. Shadows and reflections traverse across sheets of acrylic, paper. These obscure media touch our eyes, at their very height, from the
distance.
The text is provided, not to explain what the work is about, but to serve the artwork as another poetic form of language. It is similar to
how a poetic use of language can take divergent forms, and how the particular beauty of a Japanese house is poetically articulated in theform of an essay, which then allows reader to approach the experience of subtle differences in color, textures and shades. Martin, too, talks
about how her painting and poems are related. “This poem, like the painting, is not really about nature. It is not what is seen. It is what is
known forever in the mind.”(Martin, )43 Trans. the author, Junichi Murata, Chikaku to Seikatsu Sekai [Perception and Life-Worlds], (Tokyo: Tokyo University Press, 1995), 101.
44 Ibid., 102.

46

suggested networks of associations (possibilities) with shapes, forms, colors, textures, tones and soforth. That is to say, an artist exhibiting (presenting) her/his artwork contributes to the world, notby imposing any fixed alternative perspectives of the world, but by generating a place (situation)
where such a practice can be exercised unconsciously, such that an audience is guided towards
experiencing the world in more rich and poetic ways, in accordance with where s/he is at, at aparticular point in life.

3.3 Shadows mediate knowledgea.
The Italian philosopher, Roberto Casati, known for his book Shadow Club 45, which demonstrates
the significant role of shadows in astronomy, science, art and literature, both discusses and practises
the perception of ambiguous visual phenomena—shadows, in his context—through repeatedly
experiencing and reflecting on it in his writing. His study also challenges the Platonic model ofhuman cognition, as discussed earlier in this chapter, which rates shadow, illusion, poetry and art
below light, truth and knowledge (philosophy).
Casati argues that “despite their being so precarious, and despite their being so mysterious,
shadows are a valuable aid to knowledge”46. For visual artists, Casati’s claim that “vision can’t dowithout shadow: the information carried by shadow is a fundamental aid to seeing”47. However, it isalso the case, as I touched on earlier by looking at the shades of a ‘white’ wall, that “[u]singshadows in perception doesn’t require one to have a concept of shadows, but such a concept isneeded for thinking about shadows”. This is why Casati practises paying attention to and describing
shadows in words. While he calls this challenge, “the stumbling block”, as what “one dears to the
Romantics_ ineffability”, his playful and persistent effort enables him to list his poetic attempts 48,
which then leads him to expresses that “I have learnt light can become shadow and shadow light”49.
Let me point out that his observation of “shadow light” greatly resonates with theJapanese architect, Isozaki’s interpretations of darkness, elaborated by Tanizaki in In praise of
shadows. In his essay, Yami no Kukan (Space of Darkness: spiritual structure of illusion), young Isozaki
observes ‘light flashes’ in what Tanizaki designates as ‘darkness’ in the Japanese traditionalarchitecture. Isozaki clarifies that “shadows are not born when light is projected but rather [are]everything left over when light cuts through darkness”. In this understanding of darkness, light is
not “absolute” but “ephemeral” and “must pass”50 . Through these interpretations, Isozaki’s

45 In the book, Casati starts each chapter in the imaginal conversation between Plato and his own shadow, who questions Plato’s model ofcognition. Casati sheds light on shadows’’ key roles in the areas of astronomy, science, art and literature (from Galileo Galilei, Kepler,
Leonardo Da Vinci to the contemporary neuroscience research).
46 Casali, Shadows, 10.
47 Ibid., 7.
48 These lists include: I have seen seagulls fly backwards, hands stiffening to grasp an edge and then freely relaxing around the corner thattrapped them, drainpipes and gutters transformed into veils covering whole faces of building… (Roberto Casati, “Shadow Tales of Knowledge
and Power” in Shadow Play, 2005, 47)
49 Roberto Casati, “Shadow Tales of Knowledge and Power”, in Shadow Play, ed. Kunsthallen Brands Klaedefabrik (Denmark:Kunsthallen Brands Klaedefabrik, 2005), 47.

50 Isozaki, “Yami no Kukan [Space of Darkness: spiritual structure of illusion],” 153.

47

‘architectural philosophy’ is formed, maintaining that “space is essentially darkness” and“[A]bsolute blackness is the background essential to the manifestation of all phenomena.”51 .
There are, indeed, strong connections between Isozaki’s philosophy of darkness (shadow
light) and Izutsu’s philosophy of ba/field (fertile silence). Izutsu maintains that “the phenomenal
world is constantly and uninterruptedly emerging out of, and sinking instantaneously back into” ba/field (place), and that “each of the phenomena thus makes itself manifest for an instant, the nonarticulated discloses itself like a flash 52”. I would also like to add Casati’s philosophy as that whichechoes Isozaki’s and Izutsu's. Casati argues that “[t]he concept of shadow is a spatial concept;
shadows are (dark) areas. But space comes into it subtly53”. This claim is underpinned by hisobservation of how shading can recover three dimensional information on ‘flat’ surfaces, as well asgive texture. For instance, what appears to be ‘concave’ and ‘convex’ can be recognised as
mountains and valleys in the moon, at the moment of perfect lunar eclipse. It is a moment as short
as a flash of light, when the moon is entirely in the shadow of the sun. As he claims that “in thecase of shadows, astronomy has provided the most fertile ground for discovery”54, from this fertile
ground, or ba/field, characterised by darkness, a true knowledge is subtly revealed in space and as aconcept.
B.

The works by the Japanese artist, Takemi
Azumaya, appear to me to embody shadows as‘darkness’, ‘flashes of light’, ‘fertile’, ‘spatial’ and‘subtle’. The work, Mizu no Shouzou I, is from theseries called eclipse [figure 14]. This is the life workof Azumaya since the early 80s. He rarely
verbalises or writes about his works, but when hedoes, his words both sound and look beautiful. It
is no wonder that he also worked as a judge of
haiku poetry for years. The force of these words,

Fig. 14. Takemi Azumaya, Mizu no Shouzou I_eclipse, lithograph, 2002.

expressed and written in Japanese, is so strong that
I am provoked to see something untranslatable through them. I hope my translation conveys aglimpse of that:
Ice is the motif of my work, but it is the state that anticipates its solid body changing into aliquid, the energy that keeps transforming in the silence, or the thing that is like a life form.
If its real condition is brought about by the light, its contour begins to be conspicuous,
supported by the shadow standing out. If the inherent subject is lost, the shadow also
hides away.55

51 Ibid.
52 Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism, 131.
53 Casali, Shadows, 205.
54 Casati, “Shadow Tales of Knowledge and Power,” 47.
55 Trans. the author, Takemi Azumaya, “Sekihanga wo manabu [Learning to make lithograph]”(1999), Takemi Azumaya Exhibition:

Eclipse, (Tokyo: Tokyo University of Arts, 2015), 77.

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Both his print and text are wonderful examples of the capacity of artists to perceive and reflect on,(in other words, translate), the subtlety and nuance of one’s being in the world. Azumaya does thisthrough his accurate, hence, poetic, understanding of ‘shadow-light’. Both his print and text arearticulate and poetic ‘shadow light’.
目読 _Mokudoku

is my installation

artwork exhibited in the gallery space, HAGIART56, whose space extends to their cafe area,
hence to the space-time of the everyday [figure15]. I recall this work being work-in-progressin the context of my research, as it was madeduring 2014 and early 2015 while I had achance to have several meetings with Mr.
Azumaya57 in Tokyo. He kindly agreed toshare his perception: how he sees shadow,

Fig. 15. Utako Shindo, 目読_Mokudoku, (installation view), HAGI ART,Tokyo, 2015.

light, reflection and color, how he understands
the materiality of paper, how he values one’s
expressing her/himself through art and theeveryday living, and how he sees living anddying. Dialogues with him also helped me to
explore my fascination with the acrylic cube(the second object of my poetic translation inthis research): its solidness, emptiness, texture
and transparency, which transforms the spacearound it.

Fig. 16. Shindo, 目読_Mokudoku, (middle view), 2015.

What you see on a sheet of paper isjoined squares, given presence by nuanced
colors and subtle differences in textures[figure16]. They are “the accumulation oftranslation repeated_繰り返される翻訳の集積”58,
which is my poetic translation of the acrylic
cube. The title, Mokudoku (目読) is a coined
word, which is loosely defined as “to read
what your eyes will see in silence＿目に見えるもFig. 17. Shindo, 目読_Mokudoku, (detail), 2015.

56 HAGI ART is located near Tokyo University of the Arts, where Mr. Azumaya was teaching till 2014. The building was formerly anapartment for the art and architecture students, who renovated it into a small art complex (open plan with cafe & bar, and gallery). The
open atmosphere and the accessible location suited this particular work, which was designed to engage with wider audiences. The
exhibition enabled me to gather various feedback from both the general public and the art community around the university and beyond.
I also organised a ‘reading night’ to read key texts for my research and discuss the ideas of perception and translation with the participants
who have art and academic backgrounds (photography, architecture, dance, installation, painting and geography).
57 Mr. Takemi Azumaya, a former Professor and head of the Printmaking discipline at Tokyo University of the Arts, visited VCA (Schoolof Art) in 2006. I acknowledge that his visit was coordinated by Neil Malone, the former head of the Printmaking department. This gaveme, as an honours student at the School of Art, an opportunity to meet with him and learn about his practice. Regardless of his highprofile in Japan, he has always been generous about sharing his expertise as well as contacts with his colleagues in Australia, since his visit
to Australia.
58 My own words from the exhibition invitation. printed by Hagi Art Studio, 2015.

49

のを黙して読む”59, inviting a visitor to both the gallery and the cafe to engage with the work as if

opening, looking at and reading a book that is ambiguous.
The repetitive marks of short lines, symbolic of a letter, records and narrates how I
learned to work with the materiality of the acrylic cube, the paper (yupo trace, made out of plastic
and resin) and the color pencils, through the processes of embossing, tracing, drawing andtransferring [figure 17]. As a result of these processes, the work grounded an image of ‘shadow
light’ on its translucent yet textured surface with concave and convex forms. Another of mymentors from Australia, Neil Malone60, who is also a master of printmaking as well as painting,described it thus, “we are actually looking at light in what you think is shadow in your work”.

c.
Agnes Martin’s artworks61 similarly present an enigmatic
power, which Azumaya’s works possess. Their works
provoke me to perceive the nuance and subtlety of theworld that make my experience richer and more poetic.
But Martin’s work, in contrast to Azumaya’s, embodies
lightness rather than darkness, from/into which an image
is engendered/sinks. Her later works especially have sucha lightness, in terms of both color and weight, that it
cannot be fully grasped by the eyes of the viewer. For
example, in her work entitled Little Children Loving Love[figure 18], colour and weight appear variant according to
the constant play of ‘light shadow’, which enhances theFig. 18. Agnes Martin, Little Children Loving Love,
acrylic and graphite on canvas, private collection, 2001.

sense of silence 62 that her works carry. (I will further
discuss this work later in this section.)
Among the many critical writings on her artworks, of which Krause’s THE/CLOUD/(1999) is considered influential, I am particularly inspired by the recent essay (2015) written by the
British art theorist, Anna Lovatt, entitled ‘In pursuit of neutral: Agnes Martin’s shimmering line’.
Her argument resonates with other philosophical discussions in this chapter, which challenge binarymodels in Western metaphysics. According to Lovatt, there has been a shared observation
expressed by some critics that “[M]artin’s artwork confounds familiar oppositions—representation
versus abstraction, objectivity versus subjectivity, materiality versus spirituality, to name a few”63 . In
the discussion on this “kind of structural play” which operates all through Martin’s practice, theconcept of ‘shimmering’ is employed by Lovatt, as follows:

59 Ibid.
60 He expressed this during the Skype meeting for the Progress Review Meeting with supervisors and other committee members, inFebruary, 2015. Malone’s comment here, actually brought, for the first time, the perspective of ‘shadow light’, into my research, which I
followed up through textual research, as discussed in this chapter.
61 Her artworks do not often travel to Australia nor Japan, so I have only seen her work once in the real. Yet, there are many publicationsof high in quality that enable me to appreciate both her works and writings, as well as essays by the curators, critics, historians andgallerists, talking about her art practice and life

62 The influence of Eastern philosophy (Taoism and Zen) on Martin can be found in her interest in silence (similar to the way John Cage

expresses silence in his work). This is discussed in many texts, of which I include the recent book by Nancy Princenthal entitled Agnes
Martin_Her Life and Art.
63 A. Lovatt, “In pursuit of neutral: Agnes Martin’s shimmering line,” in Agnes Martin, eds. Frances Morris and Tiffany Bell (London:

Tate publishing, 2015), 104.

50

The shimmer refuses to submit to this demand (of oppositions)… it slips between andglides beyond our habitual patterns of thought, longing for the absence of every sign.64
Her perspective on ‘shimmering’ is derived from the French philosopher, Roland Barthes’
exploration of the notion of the ‘neutral’. In his book, The Neutral, Barthes elaborates on the ideasof the ‘shimmer’ and the ‘monochrome’, when he writes, “the monochrome (the neutral)
substitutes for the idea of opposition that of the slight difference… of the effort towards
difference, in other words, of nuance”65.
I suggest that Barthes’ elaboration resonates with the rich grayness spoken by Zen visuallanguage with monochromatic “reticence”66, as articulated by Izutsu. This resonance can be traced
to the influence of the Chinese ancient philosopher, Lao Tzu (老子) on Barthes’ writing in The
Neutral, as Lao Tzu’s philosophy influenced other strands of Eastern thought, including Zen
articulation. Furthermore, I maintain that the understanding of the monochrome (the neutral) as“the effort towards difference” does echo my own understanding of the untranslatable; that is, as
an attention to subtlety and nuances.
The above elaboration on the shimmer (the neutral) guides me to recognise ‘shadow light’as ‘light shadow’. In this inversion, it is no longer essential to have a space which is literally darkness(as it is observed in the old Japanese architecture). In the Australian context, where lightness is thespace for my artwork to emerge (as an installation artwork), the shimmer (the neutral) of Martin’s
work shows how to work with lightness as ‘light shadow’.
This set of my works [figure 19, 20] shows my attempt to work with the ‘light shadow’,
through manipulating the subtlety in materials and colors that compliment each other. It also comeswith a title, with which I intend to form ashort poem, based on the Japanese word
(私雨̲わたくしあめ, read as watakushi ame) 67,
by poetically translating it into English as ‘I
rain’, with three images of letters: Chinese,
hiragana68 and alphabet; 私雨̲わたくしあめ_I
rain. The work was hung in the project
space, in the annex of the main gallery,located in Melbourne, at the end ofsummer. Before I exhibited the work, Mr.
Azumaya precisely articulated that “onecannot see textures and colors without

Fig.19. Utako Shindo, I rain_Watakushi ame, (installation view), Sutton Projects,
Melbourne, 2016.

64 Ibid.
65 Roland Barthes, The Neutral, - Lecture Course at the College de France (1977-1978), trans. Rosalind E. Krauss and Denis Hollier, (N.Y.:

Columbia University Press, 2005), 51.

66 Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen Buddhism, 223.
67 私雨 (watakushiame) means the rain which falls in a limited area, particularly in mountains, and it can also be translated literary as

personal/private rain. The word is not used in everyday language any longer, but it sometimes appears in haiku, and wake (Japanese
poetry).
68 Hiragana is one of the kinds of Japanese letters, which also consist of kanji and katakana.

51

having shadows” 69. Indeed, if there is only theover-exposed gallery light or the sunlight
directing the work, it lets what makes the work
disappear. Hence it was installed in a dim
corner, which I created by building a wall.
What would be lost, otherwise, is nuanced
light-shadow. It is the untranslatable, whichcannot exist only on one side of shades(languages). It has to constantly transfer (shift,
drift) from/into light and shadow, in otherwords, it has to shimmer.

Fig.20. Utako Shindo, I rain_私雨, (installation view), Sutton Projects,
Melbourne, 2016.

d.
As a way to sum up the discussion on poetic use of language in an installation art context, which is
spatial and visual, let me consider two works that unite visual and verbal languages poeticallythrough embodying nuanced shadow-light/light-shadow.
Here I come back to discussing Little Children Loving Love, whose title exemplifies the kindof poetic writing that accompanies Martin’s art practice. I consider this title a short poem, likehaiku, being comprised of sounds and silence. It is known that Martin only paints when inspired. I
imagine that with this painting, she could not help but tell us about it. The work is distinct yet its
meaning is not firmly fixed by the title. Indeed, none of her other titled works lose theiruntranslatability. Her poetic wording, instead, functions to guide us closer to her work, intimately,
through our own ways. The short text below expresses her thought on perception.
We perceive - we see
We see with our eyes andwe see with our minds
We want to see the truth
about life and all of beauty 70
This image [figure 21] is my photograph of the reproduced
image of Little Children Loving Love in the book, Agnes Martin:
Paintings, Writings, Remembrances. It records a moment of myintimate perception of beauty which touched me truthfully,
one autumn afternoon in Tokyo, sitting beside a window in aroom where I spent my childhood. In this perceptual
experience of shimmering light-shadow coming through thewindow and touching an image of Martin’s artwork, my own
life and its surroundings was not excluded from the artwork(though it was a reproduction). I was also, perhaps, following

Fig.21. Photograph of the reproduction ofMartin’s “Little Children Loving Love”, asappeared in Glimcher, Agnes Martin: Paintings,
Writings, Remembrances.

69 Takemi Azumaya, in conversation with the author, Tokyo, November 2015, Tokyo
70 A. Martin, “We perceive. We see…” in Agnes Martin: Paintings, Writings, Remembrances, ed. Arne Glimcher (London: Phaidon, 2012),

144.

52

the manner expected of a viewer in a Japanese room, in Tanizaki’s sense.
In my view, the colors of the shadow and this line of words: Little Children Loving Love,
which I perceive with a feeling of awe and respect, resonate with how Marcel Proust described
Vermeer’s yellow patch, “like a child upon the yellow butterfly” in his novel, In Search of the Lost
Time. It appears in the following passage:…and finally the precious substance of the tiny patch of yellow wall. His giddinessincreased; he fixed his eyes, like a child upon a yellow butterfly which it is trying to catch,upon the precious little patch of wall. "That is how I ought to have written," he said. "Mylast books are too dry, I ought to have gone over them with several coats of paint, mademy language exquisite in itself, like this little patch of yellow wall.”71
I read this line as suggesting how the untranslatable is to be perceived and expressed by means(language) of art. The scene is located in the museum, where the main character Bergotte, who wants
to become a writer, faces his death. He is inspired to say what he sees in Vermeer’s painting, View ofDelft [figure 22], in front of him. This almost unnoticeable but beautiful yellow patch embodies
various degrees of shades, showing shimmering shadow-light. To me, in both the painting and thework of literature, it is this yellow patch that holds
these ‘forms’ together. This yellow patch is themedium that joins perception and expression: thegaze of the painter and of the writer; and they arealso the viewers. The sensible and the intelligible
are joined lovingly by this ambiguous medium. And
this event occurs when the total silence of deathawaits (as if he falls into sleep). This is perhaps oneof the most poetic scenes in the history of an
entire art form, where the untranslatable isembodied and held within different languages ofart, by mediation of nuanced shadows.

Fig. 22. Johaness Vermeer, View of delft, oil on canvas, Mauritshuis
1660-1661.

71 Proust, The Captive: In Search of the Lost Time, under "the captive".

53

CHAPTER FOUR: TransferenceThis chapter focuses on the processes of ‘transference’ that takes divergent forms in an art context.
This process corresponds to the understanding, discussed previously, that nuanced shadowstransfer into/from fertile silence. I discuss how these processes can be considered a form of poetictranslation by which an artwork embodies the untranslatable, while etymologically investigating thenotions of the transfer across various traditions, which commonly indicates emergence of an image
and survival of ‘life’. In so doing, I intend to respond to the last object of my research: Derrida’s
remark at the Anyone conference, which identifies translation as transfer and movements. The ideaof survival also connects my discussion back to theories of translation by Benjamin and Berman.
These examinations provide appropriate vocabularies that lead me to reflect on my artworks,
including the final installation art work in an exhibition context. Through this, I articulate how myinstallation art practice embodies the untranslatable as a poetic place and how it responds toDerrida’s question, ‘What is a place for translation?’ I then further discuss other works that
motivate and inspire ‘transference’ in my final work, including an ancient statue of mirokuboatsu
hankashiyui in Chugu-ji temple in Nara, which literally embodies the god who transfers from anotherdimension to this world, and Rilke’s ‘Letter to a young poet’, as these works bring us the knowledgeof love, the sense of longing for love, and life.

4.1 ‘Imago’ (life and image) Transfersa.
This section considers the notion of transference in exploring the derivations of the term utstu,
which I introduced in Chapter One. In so doing, I intend to respond to the last element of myresearch. That is, Derrida’s proposition that,
The place for translation is untranslatable. And if we define ma as a place for translation,it’s a place for translation, not only translation in the semantic, linguistic sense, buttranslation as transfer from, for movements, transference of objects from others, and soforth.1
I begin by explaining why I explore the derivations of utsu as a way to unfold this remark.
As I indicated in Chapter One, the oldest form of the concept of ma is considered to be the notionof utsu, which is ‘void’ or empty space-time. Similarly, the concept of chora, referring to “whatrhythmically vibrates between Void and Being”2, originates in the movement of rhuthmos 3 which isconsidered to be attributed to ‘void’ rather than ‘atom’. As indicated in Derrida’s remark, there is ananalogy between ma and chora. This makes the notion of utsu relate to the notion of void (rhuthmoi),

1 “Discussion A-1”, 90.
2 In his co-presentation with Isozaki, Asada discuses that “The chora is said to function like a sieve, vibrated by the various elements

within it and vibrating them in turn. “Does the chora, which rhythmically vibrates between Void and Being, not share properties withwhat is called Ma in Japan?”. (Asada and Isozaki, “A Fragmentary Portrait of Anyone,” 65.)
3 Burchill, “In-Between “Spacing” and the “Chora” in Derrida: A Pre-originary Medium?”, 46.

54

hence chora. Therefore, the exploration of the notion of utsu can contribute to furthering ourunderstandings of ma and chora. From this perspective, I speculate that utsu grounds or originates aplace for ‘translation’, which Derrida recognises “as transfer from, for movements, transference ofobjects from others”. In fact, from this ancient notion of ‘utsu うつ’, the word ‘utsurou うつろう’ isderived, which indicates the state of transferring movement; and the verb ‘utsuru うつる’, too, which
precisely means ‘transfer’.
Let us now further explore ‘utsurou’ and ‘utsuru’. According to Seigo Matsuoka, ‘utsurou うつろう’, first expressed, in the ancient time of Japan, something drifting and shifting from/away innature and atmosphere (or, as spirits or gods). It eventually described such conditions in humanemotions and feelings4. In referencing Matsuoka’s articulation, the Japanese art theorist and curator,
Atushi Shinfuji demonstrates the plasticity of the verb ‘utsuru うつる’, in discussing various possible
movements that show images. They are transfer(移る), reflect(映る), project(影る), trace(写る) andemerge(現る)5 . Each of them is expressed in a different Chinese character, but they are all read(pronounced) as ‘utsuru うつる’ in Japanese.
Shinfuji compounds his art historical understanding of what makes an image, in the formof his curated exhibition, 6 entitled かたちはうつる (Katachi ha utsuru)_Form Transfers7. His insight ishighly informative for my research, as it sheds light on intersections between various histories ofart and philosophy that identify ‘the movement of transfer’ as what prompts transformation andmetamorphosis, in turn creating images.
Let us first look back to the ancient time in Japan, where there was a sacred bell, worn by
the shaman, called Sanagi. It contained a hollow (which is another description of utsu) to mediate
the transfer of ‘what is to come’ (spirits; gods). The word Sanagi also means, even today, ‘pupa’,
which is also a kind of hollow from which an imago is born. In his book entitled Japan as methods,
Seigo Matsuoka discusses this transformative relation between words and images, by making a link
between ancient Japan and ancient Greece and Rome. The Greek word psyche meant both ‘soul’ and‘pupa’ in the ancient time. It was Latinised to anima, which indicates the spiritual, emerging in ahollow8. And from this anima, the Latin word imago, which means both image and butterfly (adultinsect), originates.
The link between the words anima and imago is clearly indicated in the conclusive volume(XV) 9 of Metamorphoses written by the Roman poet, Ovid, in which the Greek Pythagoras states that“(T)he soul is always the same, but migrates into different forms…Everything flows, and is formed

4 Trans. the author, Matsuoka, Nihon to iu Yarikata - omokage to utsuroi no bunka [Japan as methods: Culture of reminiscent-shadow andtransferring], 91-93.

5 Shinfuji, “Katachi ha Utsuru [Form Transfer],” 10.
6 The exhibition was held in 2009 at the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. It attempted to gathered and newly compile works

from the museum's extensive collection of prints from the 15th century to the 20th century.

7 It should be mentioned that the Japanese title for the exhibition is only written in Hiragana characters, while the formal Japanesewriting is usually written in a combination of kanji (Chinese characters) and hiragarna (Japanese characters). When it is a deliberatechoice to not have Chinese characters, it suggests that the writer intends to imply the multiple possibilities for readings (meanings). As
discussed, uturu indicates variant forms of ‘transfer’ processes.
8 Trans. the author, Matsuoka, Nihon to iu Yarikata, 94 - 95.
9 Pythagoras speaks of the emergence of imago (image) in his teaching ‘Metempsychosis’ and ‘Eternal Flux’ in Ovidius' MetamorphosesBook XV.

55

as a fleeting image”10. According to Shindo, the French Philosopher and art historian, Georges
Didi-Huberman suggests that Pythagoras’s remark on the notion of image (imago) influenced the19th century Austrian art historian, Aby Warburg’s notion of Nachleben. As Didi-Huberman11
argues, the translation of Nachleben is difficult, but Shinfuji translates the notion into Japanese as ‘残
存 -zan-zon ’, meaning both ‘remain’ and ‘survival’.

What all these intersections show us is an image (and word) originating from/in a hollow (utsu), andcontinuing to transform while it metamorphoses a place, where it temporarily inhabits. Throughfinding a temporal place, the soul, spirit or life continues to remain, hence, survive. To me, such life
also seems to keep escaping from being entirely grasped and formed, or translated. When DidiHuberman reveals 12 that Warburg had the pathological symptom of speaking to butterflies(imagos)13, it strikes me as though his symptom is symbolic of the human struggle forcomprehending (‘comprehend’ meaning ‘to grasp’) what is not fully comprehensible; what is, hence,
untranslatable.
b.
How, then, in case of an artwork, can it be born through the processes of transference, in turn
manifesting this transferring of life, for which to remain and survive? In this quest, Shinfuji's
articulation is highly relevant to my understanding of art-making. As discussed previously, theprocesses of ‘transfer’, expressed in Japanese as utsuru, indicate reflect, project, trace, transfer aswell as emerge. And these are processes that I follow in creating my artwork, in visual and spatial
contexts. These processes usually belong to different disciplines: photography, video art, drawing,
and printing. To name these processes using one word: ‘utsuru’ blurs these disciplinary bounders.
My art-making always consists of a process of ‘transfer’, making an image appear by mediation of
nuanced shadows and the audience’s perceptions.
The words ‘reflection’ and ‘projection’ haveappeared in the last chapter, in which I discussed
nuanced shadows, as in shadow-light/ light-shadow,which are in one way or another, recognised asreflections and projections of light and shadows. In
the process of making imagery, these phenomena arecaptured by a still camera and video camera. In the
installation art context, projections and reflections
can be ‘created’ on material surfaces: paper, wall, andFig. 1. Shindo, Distancing for Opening, (installation view), 2014.

acrylic, by using the natural light coming throughwindow [figure 1], the gallery light or the light from the video projector.
10 Ovidius, Metamorphoses Book XV, trans. Anthony S. Kline, (2000), under “Metamorphoses Book XV (A.S. Kilne’s Version)”, accessed

October 12, 2014, http://ovid.lib.virginia.edu/trans/Metamorph15.htm#488378548.

11 Didi-Huberman, “The Surviving Image: Aby Warburg and Tylorian Anthropology,” 68.
12 Didi-Huberman, “Forward_Knowledge: Movement (The Man Who Spoke to Butterflies),” 14.
13 It is interesting how Didi-Huberman considers the ‘transfer’ as what reveals “unheard voices” or “unconscious vision”, when he discusses

Warburg’s pathological symptoms: “spoke to butterflies” (and “paranoid fantasies”). He argues that “it is perhaps in this sense that helistened to them” and reasons that “one cannot know the symptom—the pathos of Antiquity, the unconscious gesture of the nymph(Greek mythological spirits or fairies who live in nature)—without comprehending it (To comprehend, “to take with”, or “experimentswith otherness”. (Didi-Huberman, “Forward_Knowledge: Movement (The Man Who Spoke to Butterflies),” 14.)

56

The processes of ‘trace’ and ‘transfer’ areapplied to making drawing and printmaking. The line
drawn by graphite traces the shifting movements of
shadows [figure 2]. Drawing a line on a sheet ofpaper simultaneously leaves its trace as anembossment on another sheet of paper underneath.
By applying pressure, the layers of oil pastel orcolored pencil are transferred from the surface ofthe plate to the surface of a sheet of paper. In theFig. 2. Utako Shindo, Shadow Drawing_autumn,
graphite on paper, 2013.

process of digital printing, digital data is transferred
onto a sheet of paper.
As a result of these processes, images‘emerge’, but their appearances differ according to
the perception of individuals. Hence, in the space
between the artwork and the audience there isanother process of ‘transference’, which I discussed
in Chapter Two: Mountain looking at us, “I” seeing
mountain) [figure 3].

Fig. 3. Utako Shindo, Pense ́en ir de alguna manera,(installation view), Museo Taller Erasto Cortés, Puebla, 2013.

c.
Let me elaborate further on one of the works, entitled, 波の間に間に [Nami no Ma ni Ma ni], which ismade out of various transference processes. The work, as my another attempt to poetically translate
the acrylic cube (as a remnant), also responds to the idea of the ‘remainder’, which is considered‘untranslatable’ in Derrida’s Passe-Partout (discussed in Chapter One). Now we can also make a link
between this idea and the notion of Nachleben, ‘remain’. Cézanne's “strange utterance” in his letterto Emile Bernard: “I owe you the truth in painting and I will tell it to you”, makes Derrida consider
that “the truth in painting” is the “trait”, meaning, in French, “a characteristic mark”, which“remains the untranslatable”14 . His articulation of untranslatable, “(B)ut untranslatable, it remains
in its economic performance, in the ellipsis of its trait, the word by word, the word for word, or thetrait for trait in which it contracts”15, resonates with how I had always experienced the impossibilityof chasing and tracing shifting shadows with my line
drawing. Yet it is this inability that made me want tocontinue.
I was inspired by Derrida’s comments on working
towards articulating such remainders through the manner ofrepetitive - ‘trait for trait’ - poetic translation. By using sheetsof tracing paper and oil pastels, I transfer the layers of color,
applied on a sheet of thick paper placed on the acrylic cube,

Fig. 4. Works in Progress. Photo: the author.

14 Derrida, “Passe-partout,” 4.
15 Derrida, “Passe-partout,” 4-5.

The entire section goes: “Untranslatable: this locution is not absolutely so. In another language, given enough space, time, and endurance,
it might be possible for long discourse to propose laborious approaches to it. But untranslatable, it remains in its economic performance,in the ellipsis of its trait, the word by word, the word for word, or the trait for trait in which it contracts: as many words, signs, letters, thesame quantity or the same expense for the same semantic content, with the same revenue of surplus value. That is what interests me, this“interest” when I say: “I am interested in the idiom of truth in painting”.”
57

to other sheets of thinner paper [figure 4]. I use the pressurethat I put by drawing a short line (trait) from the reverse sideof thin tracing paper with a blank ink pen. It is a form of
printing, not per an aspect, but per a line. When the bundleof short lines covers the entire surface of colored area, Ichange papers to peel off another layer [figure 5]. I continuetransferring the color until there are no more layers that canbe transferred [figure 6]. At the end of the process, theoriginal colored thick paper is left embossed and almost
colorless [figure 7]. The ‘remainder’, a very thin layer ofcolor pastel and oil, which cannot be transferred, appears to
be ungraspable yet beautiful. It looks almost like the ‘skin’ ofsomething, or the ‘shadow’ of something, which is left aftersome kind of transformation. It is as thoughFig. 5-6. Works in Progress.

this transference process helps a life transfer
into another body (sheet of paper) in turn. In
a sense, the work embodies the untranslatable,
not because it captures and visualises but
because it suggest that each process of poetictranslation of the acrylic cube differs [figure8]. After all these processes, it could notentirely trace or transfer, could not complete aword-to-word or trait by trait literal translation,either.

Fig. 7. Utako Shindo, 波の間に間に̲Nami no Ma ni Ma ni, (detail),
Sutton Projects, Melbourne, 2016.

Yet as a result of applying various‘transfer’ processes, there is an emergence ofsome kind of transformation, like a skin or
shadow of something, as though a ‘remainder’of life. This life is not only sacred (that ofgods or spirits), but pertains to any ‘thing’ thatlives, including the human body and our senseof being.
The title is after a Japanese phrase:nami no ma ni ma ni ( 波の間に間に ), which isFig. 8. Shindo, 波の間に間に̲Nami no Ma ni Ma ni, (installation view), 2016.

translated as 'at the mercy of waves’, literary meaning 'in-between the breaking of waves’. Let me
remind us of the link between Hölderlin’s notion of Zäsur (Cäsur) (caesura) and
Mitsugi's Japanese interpretation of the notion of ma. The analogy is also evident in the way thatthe movement that pulls and breaks like waves is metaphorically associated with these notions ofZäsur (Cäsur) and ma. The former is described as “the counter-rhythmical interruption...so as toconfront the pull of the succession of scenes at its height and in such a fashion that instead of
facets of a manifestation there comes manifestation itself ”16. And the latter is used in the following
Japanese phrase which, as discussed in Chapter One, is a line from a famous ancient waka: “Momiji
16 Hölderlin’s Sophocles, 63.

58

no nishiki Kami no Ma ni Ma ni”, meaning ‘a brocade of crimson leaves, here along with the gods’. By
taking into account the fact that Hölderlin’s above quotation was born out of his translation of the
Greek tragedy, Oedipus, and the gods (plural) in Japan include the spirits of deceased people, inbetween the successive waves the remainder of someone emerges.
This work, to me, is, in one sense, a traitof who I was during 2014 and 2015, not only
tracing my own bodily interaction with the acrylic
cube [figure 9] through making the work, but myobservations when commuting between myresidence in Tokyo and my studio in Saitama.
Every day, I was surrounded by changing
atmosphere in the sky during the day, and in thereflections on the pond at night. The deep
darkness of the night, or the shadow-light of theFig.9. Shindo, 波の間に間に̲Nami no Ma ni Ma ni, (detail), 2016.

sun, is not entirely black or white. The observationis reflected in the color palette of the work: navy, purple and a hint of white, which is also
influenced by the Eclipse series by Mr. Azumaya, who spoke to me of the color and waves of theocean in Hokkaido, the north island of Japan, where he grew up. Among these remainders of
someone, I admit that the work carries a strong sense of my grandmother, which was totallyunintended. It is evident in the way it appears, like ‘skin’ which is very thin and pale, particularly an
old person’s skin, through which you can see veins, purple-blue. It also made me aware of my own
being as a part of the continuation of life, succeeded from my grandmother through my mother. It
is simple and obvious, hence, forgettable, yet a truth that comes through these ‘transfer’ processes.

4.2 Prolonging Life through a Poetic Translationa.
Let me point out that the idea of ‘survival’ is also essential to Walter Benjamin’s theory oftranslation, discussed in his text, The Translator’s Task. For Benjamin, translation, which tends
towards attaining to “pure language”, is a difficult and even impossible task. Yet, such translation is
described as “prolonging the life of the original” Benjamin insists that “it is translation that is
ignited by the eternal continuing life of the work and the endless revival of language” 17. In Antoine
Berman’s “creative interpretation”18 of Benjamin’s theory, the ability of translation to prolong thelife of the original is explained as the transformation of the original, and the language into which
the original is translated is also metamorphosed. It is understood that this ability is expressed
through ‘a poetic translation’.
I observe that my research, which intends to embody the untranslatable through a poetictranslation, has prompted such transformation and metamorphosis. It can be found in therelationship between three works (Understanding of misunderstanding [figure 10], Topology between the
17 “The Translator’s Task, Walter Benjamin,” 157.
18 Trans. the author, Kishi, “Antoine Berman ‘Honyaku no Jidai: Benjamin “Honyakusha no Shimei” Chukai' wo Yomu [‘Reading

Antoine Berman’s ‘L’âge de la traduction: “La tâche du traducteur" de Walter Benjamin, un commentaire’],” 42.

59Three [figure 11], and Gesture of Shadows [figure 12]) which I
presented earlier. These works are my attempts to poeticallytranslate and embody the untranslatable in my grandmother’senunciation. And now it can be said that it was the life of themountain, named Aso, which I felt to be untranslatable.
Across these works, what ‘Mt. Aso’ means to me keeps
transferring and moving between objects (clay sculptures andworks on paper), footages (video) and shadows (images). It

Fig.10. Shindo, Understanding of misunderstanding,(installation detail), 2013.

can be seen as the life of Mt. Aso, embodied in mygrandmother’s enunciation, surviving through continuoustransformations. And I express that ‘I’, who is the subject of
this art of translation, have also metamorphosed. At the
beginning of this research, my body felt empty, being
exhausted by the kind of translation which only consumes
the subject of the translator and artist. But the sense of
emptiness was eventually filled with fertile silence, from

Fig.11. Shindo, Topology between the Three,(video still), 2014-2016.

which nuanced shadows emerged. To my eyes, they appear in
the last video work as images of a silhouette of a hand, acontour of mountain, and a monochrome butterfly.
b.

Fig.12. Shindo, Gesture of Shadow, (video still), 2016.

Having described the appearances of these images, I declarethat I do not expect them to match with others’ perceptions of these works. In fact, the appearanceof my artwork also shifts every time I return to it. It is as though the life embodied in the work
escapes from us in order to survive, to remain untranslatable. Regarding this survival, DidiHuberman adds an inspiring perspective to Aby Warburg’s thought that it “sets art history inmotion”19. It is stated that as well as “incarnating the survival”, there is also “a ‘living’ reciprocity
between the act of knowing and the object of knowledge”20, in other words, “the relationshipbetween the ‘spectator’ and ‘movement’”. This perspective leads him to state that “the scholar (anart historian) must set himself in motion, displace his body and his point of view, proceed to a sortof transfer” 21. I argue that his statement about an art historian can apply to anyone who perceives
and reflects on artworks. For instance, they can be the audience as well as the artist, encouraged tobe ‘in motion’, for their bodies and views to be ‘displaced’ (to be ‘outside’).
In the relationship between knowing and knowledge, and spectator and movement, we canalso refer to the French Philosopher, Jacques Rancière’s argument in his book The Emancipated
Spectator that the spectator, in the contemporary art context, possesses a capacity to translate thework poetically. The text is based on his speech given to artists at the Fifth International Summer
Academy of Frankfurt in 2004, and first appeared as an article in Art Forum in 2007. His argument
is based on a critique of the traditional relationship between the learner and the schoolmaster. He
articulates a work (an artwork or a text book) as ‘the third’ containing ‘irreducible distance’. I
19 Didi-Huberman, “Forward_Knowledge: Movement (The Man Who Spoke to Butterflies),” 16.
20 Ibid., 18.
21 Ibid.

60

understand that his use of the world ‘distance’ owes to Benjamin (and Derrida)’s articulation of
distance between the translator and pure language, and the 19th century educator, Joseph Jacotot’s
critique on “the pedagogical relationship” within which “a gulf ” 22 between schoolmasters andstudents is never overcome. Yet for Rancière’ such distance is not considered to be unattainable ordivisional, but “simply the path from what she already knows to what she does not yet know but
which she can learn just as she has learnt the rest…” 23. Based on his understanding that ‘learning’ isto practise “the art of translating”, as though composing a poem, he claims, “The spectators also
acts, like the pupil or scholar. She observes, selects, compares, interprets… She composes her own
poem with the elements of the poem before her… They are thus both distant spectators and active
interpreters of the spectacle offered to them.”24
In terms of the act of ‘seeing’, and the spectator’s role in an exhibition context, I was given
inspirational perspectives from the participants25 of the reading night event that I organised during
my exhibition, 目読_Mokudoku, in HAGI ART and Cafe [figure 13]. In reading the sections fromthese essays: Benjamin’s ‘The Task of Translator’and Rancière's ‘The Emancipated Spectator’ inboth Japanese and English versions, one of theparticipants, a dancer, expressed that the act of
seeing is not only visual, but bodily, especially in an
installation art context, as your body keeps moving
to see the work. Another participant, aphotographer, suggested considering a mode ofseeing through a ‘detached gaze’ (which is hertranslation of the Japanese expression: bonyari miru,

Fig.13. Reading Night, (an public event as part of 目読_Mokudoku),
HAGI ART and Cafe, Tokyo, 2015.

literally meaning to see with vague consciousness).
Both articulations led me to notice the possibility of a poetic translation through a particular modeof seeing that can be guided by a body that moves, and a gaze that drifts. Through this movementand drifting, in other words, ‘transference’, a poetic place (spatiality) opens in between the artworkand the viewer, which allows one to experience an artwork as s/he engages with the work whose
appearance, meaning and expression do not only belong to the artist’s sense.
Here I shall discuss an experimental film in which
my last exhibition in Melbourne is seen through theeyes of others [figure 14-17]. The eyes are those of
my friends26 who are also filmmakers. Even though
I do not deny the documentation aspect of this film,
I would call it a new work. It was born out of theirtranslation of something about the work thatFig.14. Utako Shindo with Dimple Rajyaguru and Ben Andrews,
The Untranslatable, a Poetic Place, (film still), 2016.
http://www.utakoshindo.info/exhibition/where-it-is/

22 Rancière, The Emancipated Spectator, trans. Gregory Elliott, 10.
23 Ibid., 11.
24 Ibid., 13.
25 I thank all the participants who happened to all be artists and/or academics: Celine Marks, Elodie Hiryczuk, Kaoru Murakami, Aya

Murakami, Mitsuhiro Yamagiwa, Anna Sakurai and Arthurr Huang for joining the night and sharing their knowledge and experience as
artists and spectators.
26 I thank to the cinematographer, Dimple Rajyaguru and the film director, Ben Andrews.

61attracted their eyes, but not the work itself as I
know it. When the footage was shot by thesepeople, my body and perspective, as an artist, wereliterally displaced. It turned out that their footage, as
their poetic translations, presented to me, in a far
more accurate way, the essence, hence, the life of
the work. It seems to me that it was captured in how
their eyes (through the camera lens) moved between
various images, which appear and disappear from/
into (within) the installation artwork. The way the
footage becomes unfocused interestingly resonateswith a kind of gaze that is detached. These images
in motion are so beautiful and enigmatic that I
simply responded to the beauty and the enigma
when I processed and joined this footage together. I
feel that this film attains to the same qualities (or thelife itself) that I was first attracted to in mygrandmothers’ poetic enunciation: the subtlety innuances and the slowness of movements. Indeed, atthe time of filming, I observed that thecinematographers’ bodies also moved only very
slowly; so did they breathe.

Fig.15-17. Shindo with Rajyaguru and Andrews,
The Untranslatable, a Poetic Place, (film still), 2016.

c.
Regarding the title of the film, ‘The untranslatable, a poetic place,’ it sums up my answer to Derrida’squestion, ‘What is the place for translation?”. To unfold this summary, I come back to my researchquestion,“How can an art practice embody the untranslatable?” The answer to my researchquestion, for now, is: the untranslatable is a poetic place, where nuanced shadow transfers from/
into fertile silence. This place can be articulated with an installation artwork comprised oftransference, through projection, reflection, trace and emergence, between image and material,sound and texture, atmosphere and architecture, and subject and object.
I discuss that such an installation artwork can join together that which has been divided
into disciplines: drawing, printing, photography, sound, moving image, and architecture. They cometogether by the mediation of ‘nuanced shadow’. What I mean by ‘nuanced shadow’ is ‘light shadow’(‘shadow light’), which drifts and shimmers reticently and monochromatically, appearing as plane ofcolor or flash of light that is transformed into an image through one’s perception. The concept of‘nuanced shadow’ can transfer one’s perceptual attention from bold to subtle, from substance toimmateriality, or from the metaphysical to metaphorical. It can, in turn, metamorphose the ‘I’ of
the subject. (For the final installation artwork, I employed all these understandings, to embody theuntranslatable.)
The embodiment of the untranslatable is meaningful, not only because it can contribute to‘prolonging the life of the original’, but also because it can prompt one’s experience of perceiving
and reflecting on the world in a richer and more poetic manner. I consider that this experience62

occurs in a poetic place that is itself the untranslatable, which remains and survives beyond thelimitation of one’s life. Hence, through employing my understandings of ‘fertile silence’, ‘nuanced
shadow’ and ‘transference’, I intended the last installation artwork to become a place that embodies
the untranslatable, and prompts an audience’s poetic translation.
d.
These images [figure 18-19] of my final
installation artwork at Sutton Projects,
entitled, ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_
どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_忘れられる
かな_can I forget, convey visually what I

have just discussed above. Though I also
consider these documentation images as
another poetic translation of my work—
hence different from the original—I
admit that these images carry and share
my sensitivity towards the subtle shifts invariant shades and textures in an image
and in space. They are taken by Christian
Capurro, who has documented myinstallation works over the last 10 years.
Capurro is a master artist whose
language of art I highly admire as it
draws our attention from what is
obvious to the unnoticeable in theeveryday. I consider these images to be
representative the whole.

Fig.18-19. Photo by Christian Capurro, from Utako Shindo, ここがどこなのか_ where
it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got
here_忘れられるかな_can I forget, (middle view), Sutton Projects, Melbourne, 2016.

Hence, I shall only discuss a few
of them; what contributed to make thework appear in the gallery space, in theway these documentations/poetictranslations (the film and the photos)
present. There are two walls in thisinstallation artwork, which are newly andtemporarily built [figure 20-22]. One isbuilt near the entrance, and the other isbuilt in front of the existing wall wherethe visual images on paper and the video
works are shown. The first wall
functions to make space through which

Fig.20(above), 21-22 (next page). Photo by Capurro, from Shindo, ここがどこなの
か_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how

I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget, (installation view), 2016.

audiences can transition from one
63experience to another. The second wall
intends to become a base (ba/field)
from/into which various images appear
and disappear. In this wall, there is ahole, through which the video works areprojected onto the backside of thelayered sheets of paper. The spacebehind the wall metaphorically expresses‘darkness’ where the ephemeral lightmust pass. The other side (front) of thewall is covered with more light, whose
degrees are reticently dimmed by the
papers that hang in front of the window,
so that the flash of light from thedarkness can be witnessed. To build
these walls, I borrowed the hands of myfriends27 , as well as my husband,
Manabu Kanai, who acted as the Greek
Demiourgos (Demiurge), the architect andthe creator, giving order to the chaos of chora. As an artist working with an existing space, thistailoring of the architecture of the gallery for the exhibition, which was undertaken as quietly andprecisely as we could, has proved important to carefully re-create the sense of space-time necessary
to the intention of the artwork. This necessity might be recognised as the experience andknowledge that the artwork carries.

4.3 Longing, Love, a Form of Prayera.
My research question— “How can an artwork embody the untranslatable?” —consequently leads
me to ask another question: “What kind of experience and knowledge do I want to provide
through presenting my artwork?”. It was a particularly important question in preparing for the final
exhibition. As a way to approach and answer this question, I found it helpful to recall my own
encounters with artworks—during my candidature—that imparted knowledge to me and made astrong impression on me. Here, I shall touch on a few works— allboth artistic and architectural— which were informative andinspiring to me in the attempt to clarify the kind of experienceand knowledge to be conveyed through the final installation workthat embodies the untranslatable.
I remember seeing the light coming through one of many
window slits of the Berlin Jewish Museum, designed by Daniel
Ribeskind [figure 23]. I saw it from the bottom of the stairs, which

Fig.23. Daniel Libeskind, the Berlin Jewish
Museum, Berlin, 2001. Photo by the author.

27 Many thanks to the artist, Dimple Rajyaguru and the artist, Jeremy Bakker.

64stretch straight to the top floor as if reaching to the sky. The light
was leaving a residue, symbolically, along the wall of the stairs[figure 24]. On the same trip to Europe, I also visited the
Judenplatz Holocaust Memorial in Vienna, known as the Nameless
Library, designed by Rachel Whiteread. I recall how I sat andwalked around for a long time to look at and listen to the silence.
The afternoon light was slowly moving across as if giving warmth
to the stone spines of nameless books.
I open a small catalogue for Casa Luis Barragán, which I
visited in Mexico City. The photographs in the catalogue remind
me of the miraculous, peaceful and inspiring environment insideof his house and studio [figure 25-26]. I remember how it wasfilled with the play of shadow light on the differently textured andFig.24. Libeskind, the Berlin Jewish
Museum, 2001. Photo by the author.

colored surfaces: that of paintings, sculptures, furniture, floor
mats, walls, tree trunks and so on. I recall something untranslatablein the stillness of these objects, which provoked a feeling of awe;even more so, a sense of longing.
A similar kind of emotion hit me strongly when I visited
the statue of Miroku-Bosatsu hanka-shiyui in Chugu-ji temple in Nara
City. The wooden statue with lacquered finish appeared to be sosoft that its contour blended into the dark depth of the temple. At
the same time, it gently absorbed and reflected the light coming
through the front entrance, left open [figure 27]. The wind also
quietly blew in and touched the curved drapes of the robe. It
seemed that its eternal beauty was most graceful and loving.
Regardless of historical, cultural and locational differencesin the contexts of these works, together they have drawn myattention towards shifting lights, nuanced shadows, and a sense of
sphere that breathes in between the object and myself. My

Fig.25-26. Luis Barragán, Casa Luis
Barragán, Mexico City, 1948.

fascination with these atmospheric qualities is, indeed, perpetual,
as though they symbolically indicate something about my longing.
I feel (or seek) some form of life, or the soul, in these atmosphericqualities, which invites me to visit and re-visit (throughremembering), both patiently and lovingly. This observation led
me to consider that ‘a sense of longing’ and ‘the longing for love’is the kind of emotional experience and knowledge that the final
work shall transfer.

Fig.27. Chuguji-Temple, main building,Nara.1969 (originally 7th Century). Photoby the author.

b.
The final exhibition [figure 28, 29] is entitled ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does
not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget. The title was given to thework at an early stage, in order to anchor the direction of its making. It functioned as a reminder of65

a kind of experience and knowledge that I
would like to convey with this work. That is
the sense of the longing for love (a kind of
motherhood, an immanent love). For this, Iborrowed the first line of a 70s Japanesesong, which is written by the internationallyregarded Japanese musician, Haruomi
Hosono28, entitled 恋は桃色_Love is Pink.
The first line goes like this: “ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does notmatter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_
忘れられるかな_can I forget”. The entire song

conveys one’s feeling of love (romance)
which drifts metaphorically in a shifting
atmosphere. The expression of the words
felt as gentle as the shifts in atmosphere,
which my video works capture. The lyrics
and rhythm together carry the sense of theworld which is felt so differently and is so

Fig.28-29. Photo by Capurro, from Shindo, ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_
どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_
忘れられるかな_can I forget, (installation view), 2016.

beautiful that one who is in love forgets andaccepts everything. The first line also appealed to me as a poetic prayer, which prays with longing
for the love that is grace, mercy and affection, which the Miroku-Bosatsu hanka-shiyui statue in Chuguji temple in Nara, embodies. The nuanced shadows that the statue carries around in the dim interiorof the temple were reminiscent of Tanizaki’s recognition of shadows as a nuance of love.
c.
Let me further elaborate on my visit to the Miroku-Bosatsu
hanka-shiyui statue in Chugu-ji temple, a nunnery that is
located in Ikaruga, on the periphery of Nara, an ancient
capital of Yamato (Japan)29. The temple is surrounded by
the quiet neighbourhood beyond an uncultivated, open
field with the backdrop of mountains [figure 30]. It is thismilieu (fuhdo)30 of Nara that nurtured the culture of waka

Fig. 30. Ikaruga, Nara. Photo by the author. 2015.

28 Hosono is recognised internationally, and known for his pioneering ‘ジャパニーズ ロック Japanese rock’ during the 70s and 80s, interms of how Japanese words can come together with the rhythm of rock and roll.
29 Yamato is the older name for Japan. The geographical areas of ‘Yamato’ and ‘Japan’ differ. The former was much smaller and was acountry, not a nation.

Here, I avoid using the word, ‘landscape’. I discuss that the idea of ‘landscape’ presents the Western view of the relationship between
humans and nature, which differs from how Japanese engaged with nature before modernisation, (modernisation means Westernizationin Japan). In fact, the Japanese word for landscape, which is ’Fukei’, was coined newly when the concept of ‘landscape’ was introduced in
the first period of modernisation. The concept of Fuhdo, was created by the modern philosopher, Tetsuro Watsuji, as a critical response to
the idea of Fukei, expressing the Japanese way of engaging with nature. Fukui literally means ‘air vista’. Fudo literally means ‘air land’.
Hence, humans are part of the atmosphere and the ground, whereas, in the West, humans are separated, through vision, from nature.
Fudo is normally translated as ‘Climate and Culture' in English, but it is interpreted by the French geologist and philosopher, Augustin
Berque, as the French notion of milieu, which originally means ‘in-between’, ‘medium’ or ‘ma’ space-time. The original meaning also
differs from the normal English translation of milieu, which is ‘environment’. For these reasons, I find that milieu (fudo) is the more
appropriate term for describing the human-nature connection through nature, which shaped the ancient Nara.
30

66

(the classical Japanese verse) for many years, before its basewas moved to Kyoto.
The figure of the Miroku-Bosatsu (Maitreya, thefuture Buddha, whose being exceeds sexual difference) ‘sitswith one foot on another thigh’ (hanka) and ‘thinks andsees to it’ (shiyui) by almost fully closing its eyes; its finger
lightly touching its cheek31 [figure 31]. Its graceful face is
known for wearing the ‘Archaic smile’, which is thesignature of ancient Greek sculptures. Nara was the lastdestination of the Silk Road, through which Buddhism wasintroduced via Korea. Thus, there was, not only conceptual,
but physical connections between ancient Japan and
Greece. 32
My visit was accompanied by the book entitled
Yamato-ji Junrei - A Pilgrimage to Yamato Temples, written by

Fig. 31. The Miroku-Bosatsu statue,Chugu-ji Temple,
Nara, 7th Century.

the modern Japanese art critic, Shinichiro Kamei. Kamei’s
background is Catholic and he is an art critic of Western Modern Art, which makes his voice
unique and means that he never blindly praises his culture. Yet, he expresses his difficulty in treatingthese statues as objects for critique. His reason is not that they are located outside of museum
contexts, but simply that they are originally made for a different purpose: for prayer.
Though the statue of Shiyui with its dreaming-like expression is compared to Rodin’s The
Thinker, which shows the modern man in both the fierceness and vulnerability of his thought,
Kamei points out the fact that Miroku-bosatsu is actually in pain as it “throws its own body away” inorder to be “transformed [to emerge]” into this world for salvation33 . One could hardly believe
such suffering from just looking at the statue. As Kamei writes, “the statue looks as though it issitting on the spring hill, remembering the lover in far distant India”34. Hence, this sense of ‘love’or ‘affect’ carried by the Miroku-Bosatsu statue has a more profound effect when one realises that“its elegance is in the balmy soul, which is actually suffering.”35
History tells us that the Nara period was filled with fights between the local powers. The
grief of the Nara people is also expressed quietly but in many verses of waka. I imagine the pain
caused when Miroku-Bosatsu transfers between the external and the internal worlds, ‘forming’
prayers for the Nara people. By knowing that Kamei, who was touched by the statue, was also
living through the period of World War Two at that time, I wonder if his writing might also havebeen a form of prayer 36.

31 After filming the video work Gesture of Shadows, I notice that the way the shadow moves, weightlessly, resonates with the light gestureand touch that Mirokubosatsu expresses through its hand.

32 According to Kamei, this shows that the ancient culture of Yamato was more open and “broad-minded” than the traditional Japaneseculture that informs non-Japanese people’s typical image of Japan.

33 Trans the author, Kamei, Yamato-ji Junrei [A Pilgrimage to Yamato Temples], 84.
34 Ibid.
35 Ibid., 85.
36 If I am allowed to make a comparison between a religious statue and a human, let me express that my memory of the statue, which

carries shades of love and longing, brings my image of my grandmother, wearing her gentle face. Since her dementia has progressed muchfurther, it reveals what has been deeply embedded: the unforgettable memory of ‘separation’ that happened nearly a century ago. Until
recently, no one had seen her expressing grief, instead of a balmy smile, on her face. I understand that this separation was not entirely
tossed about by fate, but by the conflicts and fights between humans, regions and nations over profits, fame and pride.
67

This visit also made me ‘think and see to’, the grief of people who have lost their loved
ones or their own lives in those conflicts and fights still continuing today between humans, regions
and nations over profits, fame and pride. What strikes me is the meaninglessness of dividing theworld into prosaic expressions such as ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘good’ and ‘evil’, ‘right’ and ‘wrong’, or even‘light’ and ‘dark’. But these seem to be the views more and more shared in the world today. I feelpowerless, and at the same time I also want to remain foreign from them. But it is a difficult task.
d.
When I feel challenged, I often come back to reading Letters to a Young Poet, which the Austrian poet,
Rainer Maria Rilke, addressed to a young man. I listen to him, perhaps, through the images of mymother and my supervisor, Elizabeth Presa, who both read Rilke, and who both have shown me
how to live one’s life lovingly (with a subtle sense of humor!), though it still remains a difficult task
for me. Rilke writes,… dear sir, to be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and to try to love thequestions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able
to live them. And the point is, to live every day. Live the questions now.37
In the letter, he encourages a young man to, “remember that all beauty in animals and plants(“patiently and willingly uniting and increasing and growing” 38) is a quiet enduring form of love andlonging” 39 This love and longing is for “a great motherhood” which Rilke recognises as a “common
longing” 40. To Rilke, motherhood is not only found in “the mother’s beauty” or “a great
remembering of the old woman”, but also in the physicality and spirituality of “man” (thatcontributes to the birth of life), which I take to include woman, and one who is neither mother nor
grandmother, like myself. He claims that the idea of ‘motherhood’ undermines the opposition of“man and maid”, such that these “come together as human beings”41.
Interestingly enough, this idea of ‘motherhood’ relates to the idea of chora, in its proper
sense before it is given form. In the article entitled ‘In-Between “Spacing” and the “Chora” in
Derrida: A Pre-originary Medium?’, the Australian philosopher, Louise Burchill argues that the stateof being pre-chora, is like “being motherhood”42 , or “groundless ground”43 that “engenders

37 Rike, Letters to a Young Poet, 35.
38 Ibid., 36.
39 Ibid., 37
40 Ibid., 38.
41 Ibid., 39.
42 Louise Burchill, “Deconstruction and the matricial space of ‘woman’,” (a paper presentation) in the conference 1966 And All That, The

School of Media Studies and Cultural Communications, The University of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, June, 9, 2016.

43 In her text,’In-Between “Spacing” and the “Chora” in Derrida: A Pre-originary Medium?’, Burchill discusses how the French

philosopher, Michel Haar critiques Derrida’s interpretation of Plato’s Chora according to his concept of différance. In Haar’s critique, theidea of “groundless ground” is elaborated as a “conducting underlay” or “conducting medium”, haunting “a pure Apollonism”, to which,Haar contends, Derrida’s conception owes. It is fascinating how Burchill solves the problem here (the unresolved rival relationshipbetween the spatio-sexual tropes and the typographical (artisanal) metaphors) when she concludes that, “differentiation in general”
depends upon a certain “spatial milieu’—what Haar would name a “groundless ground” —revealed as such to be an “in-between” more“originary” than the play of differences it in-forms.” (Burchill, “In-Between “Spacing” and the “Chora” in Derrida: A Pre-originary
Medium?”47.)68

movements”44. In my context, these movements are transferences, which give birth to life: a life,that is to say, which gives an image to the untranslatable.
e.
This chapter has demonstrated how my research findings are expressed through my making andexploring an installation artwork, in which I intend to embody the untranslatable as a poetic place.
On reflection, I consider that it is an attempt to prompt subtle and singular transformations andmetamorphoses that can be experienced as “quiet, enduring form[s] of love and longing” or prayer.
This attempt becomes possible through various processes of transference, as forms of poetictranslation of love and longing, expressed in artworks, writings and people, which enables us toremain alive; to live.

44 Burchill articulates that “for Democritus’ acceptation of “rhuthmos” designates, in fact, the “form in the instant that it is assumed bywhat is moving, mobile and fluid, the form of that which does not have organic consistency”. (Ibid.)

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CHAPTER FIVE: Embodiment
In this last chapter, I discuss why I use the word ‘embody’ in my research, when I maintain that theuntranslatable can be embodied as a poetic place, articulated with an installation art, through poetictranslation. While the main argument continuously refers to a poetic translation, in which, asBerman describes it, the subject metamorphoses and the object transforms, this chapter adds a
more personal, hence intimate, investigation into my own body, which I have only lightly touchedon previously, in discussing the video works, Gesture of Shadows and Topologies between the three: where
I observed that ‘I’ as the subject of this art of translation, metamorphosed.
This further investigation is designed to respond to the questions received after giving my
PhD completion seminar in August 2016 in Melbourne. When asked: “Why do you use the word
‘embody’ to state that an artwork can ‘embody’ the untranslatable?” And, “How does your own
body experience the process of poetic translation?” These questions forced me to pay closer
attention to my own body, and my state of being in-between disciplines, languages and locations. I
admit that it feels vulnerable writing about my being and my body in this context. But the otherbodies that are important to my research, and that I have already discussed—the statue of
Mirokubosatsu, and the body of my grandmother—are also in a sense vulnerable. Thereby, I begin
by readdressing their beings. This leads me to reconsider the notions of hokahi and hokahi-bito, onto
which I reflect my body, which often feels vulnerable as an artist and a translator. I, then, discuss
how the body of hokahi-bito, which contains utsu structure (empty, hollow, ma) as a fundamentalarchitecture, fascinates me in connection with the meaning of my name, Utako, written 詩子 in
Chinese character (depicting word-temple=poetry (詩) and child (子))1. This highly self-reflective
writing period coincided with my moving house and undertaking a short term artist-in-residency
program. Hence, the second part of this chapter, which includes my journal writings, reflects how
these events allowed me to face up to my existence as an artist, a translator, and a woman.

5.1 Vulnerable Body, an Emptied Containera.
As discussed in the previous chapter, the statue of Mirokubosatsu embodies what has transferredfrom the external world into this world. As Kamei describes: “(i)t throws its own body away” inorder to be “transformed [to emerge]” into this world for salvation2 . What could be a painfulprocess is unnoticeable, just by looking at the statue. It instead holds an elegant smile on its face, towhich its finger is gently attached. In a seeming contradiction, its being is weightless as though it isdispersing all the grief in the world, in the way that the spring wind cleanses the world, cutting
across the hills and mountains, through a field of grasses, from somewhere far away.
The statue’s weightlessness within an absolute presence resonates with how I feel about mygrandmother in recent years, during which her dementia began and progressed, as did this research

1 While the latter character often accompanies a girl’s name, the former character represents an architecture of poetry.
2 Trans. the author, Kamei, Yamato-ji Junrei [A pilgrimage to Yamato Temples],70

project3. I have been sensing her living in between being life and death, dying and awakening. Hereyes and hands move slowly as she speaks, following the light coming through the window. Boththe statue of Mirokubosatsu and the body of my grandmother embrace the eternal silence fromwhich we have risen and will fall back. I do not need to literally touch their bodies in order to feel
my soul trembles with their transferring. Their bodies stay here, in front of me, wearing ‘shadow
light’ and gentle wind blowing from the mountains. As with Mirokubosatsu, who throws away its
body, my grandmother has been gradually leaving ‘the sense of who she is’ behind, due to her
dementia. This transferring could be painful but is itself invisible. Instead, it makes theunforgettable memory visible to others’ eyes, which shows the beautiful mountain and gives(provokes) a sense of longing for love. Similarly those who come and see the statue are guided towitness the elegance of shadow-light, and to pray for peace, and are in turn guided to remain alive.
This is how I understand that Mirokubosatsu realises salvation, through embodying the quiet,
invisible, endurable forms of love, or prayer.
b.
The very experience of being a translator is also invisible. The ‘invisibility’ of the act of translation,
as discussed in Chapter One, is observed by the translator Tatsuya Nishiyama4 in the context ofglobal translatability. Likewise, in my discussion of poetic translation, the event of transferring isinvisible. It is when there is a struggle in transferring what is untranslatable that something becomesvisible, as a new life, which is formed and engendered as a poetic work.
Here I attempt to describe the invisible events that occur in my body and my being when I
experience a poetic translation, between semantic languages (English and Japanese)(i), between life(the world) and the language of art (ii). This attempt also demonstrates how I perceive fertilesilence inside my body, from which nuanced shadows emerge as images, sounds or trembles (iii), tobecome a poetic work (art work) (iv).
(i)
Based on my experience of traversing the distance between Japanese and English, in translating
between them, I have become conscious of an impact upon my art practice as well as my body. For
instance, these two languages employ different syntaxes in their sentence constructions. A Japanese
sentence has the following order: the subject (or sometimes no subject) - object - verb. Contrarily,
Chinese and English follow the same order of subject - verb - object. This reverse or jump
exhausts my brain. It doubles the time that I require to process translation. This larger gap extends
the silence; broadens ma space time; deepens caesura. The harder it is, the greater it opens a spatial
and temporal dimension—silence—from which a poetic work may emerge. My body is left with afeeling of extreme exhaustion. It is a kind of momentary death or cessation of being ‘I’. As an
artist, this body being emptied can become a chance to embodying the soul of something else thatis untranslatable.
This ‘else’ is hoka (外 or 他), the Japanese ancient concept, meaning outside, external or else.
As explained in Chapter One, it is a brief ma or cesura, through which the spirit, the sacred or the
3 Interestingly, Mt. Aso became active during this period, in which it has been mostly smoking and occasionally erupted to make thesource of the earth’s life visible, and to tremble us. Strangely enough, the largest eruption was coincided with my final exhibition period.
4 Trans. the author, Nishiyama, “Yakusha Kaisetsu: Honyaku Kono Sakusou suru Mono [Translator’s note: Translation, thisentanglement],” 310.

71

unknown information arises and falls. These externals were believed to temporarily come into an
object, called Hokahi (a wooden container whose inside is hollow; in other words, utsu: an original
concept of ma), or to transfer into people, called hokahi-bito (bard, orphans, the nomadic), who
remained socially peripheral or ‘external’. Within this condition, both hokahi or hokahibito are able toembody the ‘external’, which prompted the birth of art. Since hoka now also means ‘foreign’ incontemporary Japan, I consider the body of the translator to be hokahi and the subject of thetranslator to be hokahi-bito. Their embodiment of the ‘foreign’ (the external) can be expressed as theembodiment of the untranslatable, as what evokes the emergence of art.
(ii)
The notions of hokahi and hokahi-bito express what makes an artwork. It is the external, the soul, thespirit, or the untranslatable that which transfers into a body and transforms from fertile silence tonuanced shadow. I argue that, for this to happen, a translator and an artist can play the role ofhokahi-bito, if their bodies are ready to be emptied, in order to invite the external: to embody theuntranslatable. When the soul is guided to another body (material), it is the beginning of the birthof a poetic work, an artwork.
Perhaps it can be said that to be a true translator/artist, in other words hokahi-bito, one has
to stay at the margin of any society. In order to remain foreign to both languages from/into whichs/he translates, it is not possible for one to rest in one place permanently. To some extent, this isreflected in the way a translator takes certain distances from linguistic systems that are attached tovalue systems. The same can be said about an artist who does not comfort her/himself in one
expression, one value, one discipline, but instead keeps moving from what has become alreadyfamiliar to her/him.
Hokahibito are those who drift and migrate, temporarily or seasonally. It resembles the cycleof an insect, which metamorphoses from egg to a butterfly via pupa. The purpose is similarly toform the beautiful work, the wings that fly like an angel. For a long time, the soul stays inside thehollow, listening to the silence, patiently awaiting the moment to fly out. Though the life of abutterfly is short, like a flash that rises from the darkness, the beauty remains traveling the world totouch our heart even if the objet dies. In a similar way, if the language, the country, or the cultureof the original work might die, the life of the work remains alive through translation. Over time itwill be reborn. Agnes Martin writes, “When the beautiful rose dies beauty does not die, nor is it
impaired. Beauty is unattached.”5 Likewise, hokahi-bito shall give birth to a poetic work through its
own metamorphosis, in migrating and experiencing a momentary death in time.
It is not always easy to live as hokahi-bito. Often, I have tried to pressure myself to settle
down. However, something has stopped me doing so. My last move, which happened after giving
the completion seminar, made me finally conscious that this way of living actually helps me to holdan empty space in my body and being into which something else can enter. During my PhD project,
I have moved between eight districts (city/town/village), three languages, eight studios and fiveresidences. It is not entirely clear why this happens; it depends in part on the place where myresearch or creative activity takes place, on my financial situation, on whom I live with; but there isanother unknown flow that takes me away from staying in one place. In reflection, during this
5 A. Martin, “When I think of art I think of beauty…,” in Paintings, Writings, Remembrances, ed. Arne Glimcer, (London: Phaidon,

2011), 168.

72

period, I have learnt to stay light and mobile, in both a perceptual and physical sense. Within a day,hokahi-bito lightly moves between ‘double seeing’, in Sallis’ sense. Within a year, s/he migrates
between homes, like a seasonal bird, an itinerant theatrical troupe6 or a minstrel. So s/he is not
homeless, entirely. There are people and places that welcome her, providing her with temporal
habitation and engagement with the place. Hence, leaving the place, thing, people, is painful andalmost breaks my heart every time. But at the same time, it enables me to pay attention to thenuance of love, (which Tanizaki describes as shadows) to form an enduring form of prayer.
(iii)
My being dwells in the body that I was given from my parents who named it Utako. As discussed
previously, the concept of ‘poetry’ became important to my research project since it connects thephilosophy of translation (Benjamin), philosophy of art (Hölderlin), and philosophy of Zen(Izutsu). In my understanding, all of these employ a poetic use of language to embody theuntranslatable, and open a poetic place between the work and readers/audiences/artists. Here I
would like to add another reason why the word ‘poetry’ became significant in my research. It
connects my own being and body to my PhD research. The meaning of the name, Utako, given tome, is poetry (child) in Japanese. The word, ‘poetry’ in Chinese character, is written 詩. It iscomprised of two parts, ‘word (言)’ (left part) and ‘temple (寺)’ (right part). Poetry is an architecturalplace, as in a temple of the word. This connection was discovered in the final year of my PhD andcame as a total surprise. I had not known how my own name could contribute to my research
project. Yet at least this realisation allowed me to pay attention to a human body, as well as poetry,
as a site for embodying the untranslatable.
According to the American composer and performer, who is now based in Melbourne,David Shea, the architecture of a temple is not that of a building but is designed as a place in which
the sound produced by chanting creates an overtone7. Hence, it is understood that the temple is anempty hollow, where the sounds fulfill and produce certain vibrations that prompt resonances
externally. I add to what fulfills the empty space, the nuance shadow, shadow light. I witnessed it in
the temple where the statue of Mirokubosatsu dwells. In Japanese, the word that describes how thespirit (god) descend to human being temporarily, is yougou, depicted in Chinese character as 影 向(Shadow Coming). In this way, in Japanese and Chinese contexts, the architecture (void) and theimage (shadow), as well as the sound (vibration), have always been symbolically understood assomething sacred or unknown that comes to us.
(iii & iv)
I experienced this 影 向 (Shadow Coming) at its closest and clearest in the last destination 8 of mytemporal migration during my candidature: the Bogong Alpine Regions along the border between
Victoria and N.S.W. in Australia, and after coming back to Melbourne.

6 Yasujiro Ozu's film, Floating Weeds (Ukigusa 1959) depicts well the life of modern hokahi-bito, in my understanding.
7 Shea, “Architecture and Sound” (a lecture)
8 Initially, this two weeks residency experience in the Victorian Alpine region, Bogong, was planned as a post-doctoral project, for me toundertake after submitting my thesis. But because of this delay in my responding to the request and questions that were given at thecompleting seminar, I am now including the experience in this thesis.

73Unexpectedly I experienced being emptied, as though embodying something untranslatablethrough being entirely immersed into Country (staring with capital C in accordance with howcontemporary aboriginal people call it). It presented itself as nuanced shadow, rising and fallingfrom and into fertile silence. My body, named Utako, a temple of a word, became a container toresonate with what came externally. It was experienced through my chasing the phantom of
Bogong (a brown moth), with a video camera and a sound recorder, in the reflection of water, inthe shapes of rocks and mountains, in the oscillating leaves, and so on.
The fragments of footage and sounds recordings resonate with the untranslatable,
expressed and observed during my candidature, in my grandmother’s enunciation and recalling Mt.
Aso, in the interval between female bodies described by Irigaray Where?, in monochromatic
reticence which Izutsu observes in nature, in the sensual beauty of dawn and dusk that Mitsuki
depicted, in the spring which Chris Marker calls untranslatable, and in the subtle and patient formof prayer sung in Rilke’s poetry.
While the film work will be completed after the submission of my thesis, I still would liketo include some of my journal writings from and continuing after the Bogong Residency, as they
possess the freshness (or the flesh of the body) of Bogong, while the feelings of being awakened
and alive were still there in my body. They also touch on the indigenous knowledge, which isincomparably distinct, originating in this unique Country. It callings for our close attention and ourcare in co-living respectfully with the natural world. These writing are in transition, flying out fromthis PhD project, like the way a butterfly or a moth is guided by the cycle of the seasons, tosomewhere and sometime.

5.2 My Body as a Site for the Embodimenta.
(excerpt from my journal on 18.10.2016)
My second attempt to climb Mt. Bogong was accompanied by the
woman9 who is believed to be guarded by the mountain spirits. She isextremely capable and equipped, and at the same time she stays
alongside nature humbly and closely. In the mountain, the way she saton the log appeared to be like a hermit who lives with the spirit [figure1].
It is known that the mountain was originally called‘Warkawoolowler’, meaning the mountain where people collected the
Bogong moth in Waywurru and Dhudhuroa languages. The current
name is after the word ‘Bugung’, meaning the brown moth in

Fig. 1. Photo: the author.

Dhudhuroa language. In continuation of this context, we followed thetrack that would have traced how the Aboriginal people had travelled to feast on the Bogong moths on the peak. Or it has
always been the path drawn by the wind since the beginning. The evening before our walk was indeed memorably windy.
We walked along the track right up to the rocky area just before the peak, where the cloud and the snow let me ceasefrom looking for the sites: one is supposed to be a key site to an Aboriginal people (e.g., some say that there are hand prints on
the granite) and another is reported to be a moth aestivation site. Instead, we were presented with something different, but
perhaps similarly awe-inspiring: the seas of mountains, which made me imagine the crowd of the Bogong moth flying towards
us from far, far away. They were present for less than a half hour as the cloud cover quickly came to the point where we were.

9 I thank Madelynne Cornish, the co-director of Bogong Center For Sound Culture in Victoria, Australia.

74

Yet I was left with such a strong impression that thetransference of the atmosphere leads to the transformation of
the place [figure 2].
Something else also happened in this sacred
mountain, called Bogong, which in the local Jaimathang
language is believed to also mean ‘big-fella’. The site of anevent was inside of me, as I felt drawn back to my childhoodby being fascinated with ephemeral and intangible things that
kept moving around me. In trying to capture them with myextended ears (Zoom 4Hn and Rode NTG1) and eyes (Canon

Fig. 2. Video still: the author.

D5 Mark2), my being was becoming absorbed into the shifting
nature. Simultaneously, my body was slowly emptied for something else (external) to enter into it. It came through theunaccountable shadow-light plays, and through the indecipherable silence between the sounds of leaves and creeks. Hence, I
was not entirely surprised when I noticed myself bleeding like the way in which the white gum tree drips its juices. Though it
was early for my usual cycle, a clue might be found in the full moon night three days ago after my first visit to Mt. Bogong
where I had experienced an intense ascending and descending. Or, this unexpected blood can be seen as an experiential
metaphor for the ‘first’ period, entering into the womanhood from a childhood. In any case, I was reminded of the fact that mybody embraces a hollow which is regularly filled and emptied, being ready for a new form to emerge. I wondered if a link can bemade between this cycle and the life cycle of an insect: how a larva (the active immature form of an insect, which also means
ghost in Latin) becomes a pupa (inactive immature form of an insect), then metamorphoses to become an adult insect (or mothin this context).
At this point of residency, I have not seen any Bogong moths in the real (and it is likely I will not see them as thetiming is a little earlier than their migration season). Yet I have seen the signs of their coming in shadows of trees and incontours of mountains. I have witnessed the boundless sea of the mountains that showed an image of the crowd of moths
nearing me. They have been captured by audio-visual materials with which I can now start working, and joining images andsounds together. I hope that something will emerge from them, like an imago flying out quietly. I also expect that in the processof making artwork, my body would embody a life again while it will be metamorphosed into… something that perhaps I
cannot know at this point.

b.
(excerpt from my journal on 18.10.2016, 25.10.2016)
After our climb, the hermit lady said: “you were making an interesting sound” (while I was filming and recording). In our
second walk together on a different track, she said: “I was listening to you” but she could not hear ‘it’ again. She described it inthese words: “Something was awakened inside of you on Mt. Bogong”.
Indeed, my body felt that it was being led by something else after climbing Mt. Bogong. The body was alert tosomething all day and night. It wandered to encounterappearances of something which evoked in me an imagining of
how a Bogong moth would sound, look or feel. For instance,
under the midday sunlight, I was looking at an old fallen leafthat I had picked up on Mt. Bogong: how it created shadows,
doubled by the reflective light, on a sheet of paper [figure 3].
They shivered with a wind, like wings of a moth, as fragile as its
short life. In another instance, which was in the early morningwhen the sun was just about to rise from the mountain ridge, I
saw a clustering of fungus on a tree trunk by the lake Guy,coming out from a hole in the trunk, like the way a crowd ofFig. 3. Video still: the author.

moths would fly out from a cave where they hibernate during
the summer. As I looked up at the moths flying out along the trunk, morning birds were singing like bells, ringing at regularintervals. My body, while filming and recording, moved in accordance with the rhythm of the bell ringing, the shadow-lightshifting and the serene air oscillating. I recall these encounters as highly sensual. Something about them appealed to me as
symbolically female. It could be because the fallen leaf looked like intricate lace, and the hole of the trunk resembled a vagina.

75Or, it was to do with my body being sexed female, which I experience more strongly during my periodical cycle. In any case, it
was filled with a sense of life; with nuanced shadows of spring coming out from the fertile silence of winter.
This morning, ‘my’ body felt emptier than yesterday, almost like an ecdysis. My soul floated and drifted, a bit like aworried fire, looking for somewhere to land. Since all the footages and sound recordings are still digitally stored inside of thehard disk, my soul, instead, temporarily dwelled in the pieces of granite, leaves, barks and stones that I have collected since I
started the residency. They are the simplest fragments of natural life that not only remind us of the beauty and the wonder ofthe world, but which actually embody and hold them. I thought that feeling emptied can never be easy but is worthwhile if it
gives rise to life’s metamorphosis and art’s transformation, for embodying a world that is beautiful and wonderful. And I
pondered whether what animates the world distinguishes us and nature, especially in the context of this land, whose original
people possess quite different and distinct words10 , images and sounds.

c.
(excerpt from my journal on 21.10.2016)
Last morning a moth began to enter into the realm of death in front of me, near the cabin window where I stay.
It happened right after I started to film her. What she showed me was a fragile, subtle death that left me with afeeling of ecstasy. The way it trembled and turned over felt too intimate and vulnerable to witness with naked eyes. (And,interestingly, the recording was blurry, as the focus of the lens had not been adjusted.) Its feeler kept shivering on and off. In
between the silence, I could hear the sound of the shiver and also feel the air shaken by the shiver. I was so close to her that it
felt that I was breathing together with the moth. This might have prompted me to inhale the life of her, which made my body
start to tremble with an ecstatic sensation. In that process, the sensual feelings that had struck me on the mountain and at thelake came back to me, like waves of mountain oceans or a crowd ofmoths. The body that I touched was filled with awe-inspiring images
and sounds. The absolute beauty descended, as though the soul of
Bogong country transferred into the body, which perhaps belonged
to the moth, not to me, in that instance.
After filming her about half hour, I placed her/him on thedrawing paper with leaves that I had collected at Mt. Bogong last
Monday. It was still moving very slowly, every several minutes or so.
Today, when I came back to see her (I decide now that I call it ‘she’)around noon, she was in a different pose under the leaves. Her bodyand legs were slightly twisted in an awkward way, cast in the momentof death, which escaped me. So I realised that she had left this side of
the realm [figure 4].
Earlier this morning, I was looking at the butterfly,
originally from Chile, woven by the Indigenous people, which I havecarried around with me for the last several years [figure 5]. It was
sitting on a sheet of paper—printed Japanese text written by the artist
for whom I translated the talk; it was particularly memorable as it was
like poetry read spontaneously. And behind this paper, there was thebook, an anthology of Rainer Maria Rilke’s poetry. I was reminded of
the Ninth Elegy of the Duine Elegies in which he writes about

Fig. 4-5. Photo: the author.

transformation, which is translated into Japanese as ‘転身’, closer to

10 Before I took the trip to Bogong, I had conversations with my aboriginal colleague (Tiriki Onus) and my friend (Rueben Brown) amusicologist specialized in Aboriginal aural cultures, about the untranslatability between Aboriginal languages and English. By having
hundreds of Aboriginal languages in the old days, people learnt each other’s languages and never had a common language tocommunicate, because the language meant their identity, which is staged and connected to the country. On the contrary, today,
contemporary Aboriginal people use English in order to discuss the reconciliation and the reclaiming of their cultures (plural). In thiscrucial instance for maintaining their identities, the meaning of their cultures can never be fully brought to presence as the key concepts
translated into English are, to a great degree, reduced, in conveying their original meaning and their significance in Aboriginal cultures:such as ‘Dreamtime’ and ‘songline’. This untranslatability, which is remarkable in their challenges, made me fascinated with theirlanguages: how they engender from this distinctive nature, or Country, which is also a ‘new’ land, where today other people from ‘else’
where, including myself, seek and cultivate their identity and belonging. This time of the residency, I am with people who are all‘Australians’ yet their ancestral backgrounds are diverse. These people, as well as myself, have another language on top of these. That is thelanguage of art. I wonder how it be enacted this situation where all sorts of linguistic and geographical gaps and disruptions exist: could
art engender from them and embody the untranslatable? In my case, it is a kind of language that is poetic, which is untranslatable in asense that it prompts transformation and metamorphoses in between the space of subject and object.
76‘transference’. The butterfly, onto which I project myself, somehow looked different and alive, then. As though, in her process ofdying, the moth’s soul was also transferring to it, while it did so into my body.
Now I do feel that I can fly a little bit better, more freely as a human, as an artist, from here to there. This is a kind ofembodied poetry, the language of art that I experienced this time, which should be expressed in the works I will compose basedon the materials and the inspirations that I have encountered and offered through the residency.
(The last section of The Ninth Elegy from Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duine Elegies) 11
Earth, isn’t this what you want: to arise within us,
invisible? Isn’t it your dream?
to be wholly invisible someday? - O Earth: invisible!
What, if not transformation, is your urgent command?
Earth, my dearest, I will. Oh believe me, you no longer
need your springtimes to win me over - one of them,ah, even one, is already too much for my blood.
Unspeakably I have belonged to you, from the first.
You were always right, and your holiest inspiration is our intimate companion, Death.
Look, I am living. On what? Neither childhood nor future
grow any smaller ….. Superabundant being
wells up in my heart.

d.
(excerpt from the second Journals on 25.10.2016)
When I returned from Bogong to Melbourne, ‘I’ felt that I was still in the dream that began during my first visit to Mt. Bogong.
This might resonate with what my musicologist colleague, specialized in Indigenous languages, told me: Dreamtime is not thepast but is continuing today. If I can say that I am now becoming part of Dreamtime, my life shall also continue along side withspirits of those bodies that have fallen or become deceased. In fact, in the mountains I observed many things falling12:
snow fallingrock falling
water fallingandtree falling
Does any beauty fall onto me? 13
butterfly flew up towards the sky
a tree fell down, in between my presence, hence in my absence
falling,also happens when one falls in love

I brought one of them, the corpse of the moths, back with me to Melbourne.
On my way back, driving and following the hermit lady’s car, it came back: what she said about the sounds coming
out from my body. I tried to remember what it was like for me, being in Mt. Bogong. I was in awe at what I saw, heard, felt,
smelled and sensed in the incredible play of shadow light, and in the transformative atmosphere from winter to spring. In thisparticular moment of the year, spring, life and death come very close. Likewise, an act that joins opposing sexes (sexual union)
can bring the sensation of transferring between dying and being alive, so intensely and lightly at the same time. This sensation
resonates with the experience that I have had this time, which metamorphosed ‘I’, its body, while it embodied the soul, theuntranslatable. I recall how Benjamin talks about translation, joining different fragments together lovingly. I remembered that

11 Original and English Translation are from: “Duino Elegies” in The selected poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, edit. and trans. Stephen
Mitchell, (London: Pan Books, 1987),200-203. Japanese Translation is from: Duino no hika, trans. Tomio Tezuka, 3rd edition of revised
edition (Tokyo, Iwanami Publishing, 2014), 75-76.
12 Notes from my diary on the fist day of the residency(11, October, 2016.)

13 Giorgio Agamben’s essay on Cy Twonbly’s sculptural works, ‘Falling Beauty’ inspired me to write this. (Tran. Sarah Moore. In Cy

Twombly: Sculptures 1992-2005. [Munich: Bayerische Staatsgemaldsammlungen, 2006], 13-16.)77

on the mountain, I was breathing loud and sighing sometime with voices, in response to the untranslatable wonder and beautyof Country, and being immersed into it.
The day after I came back from Bogong, I attempted to record how the sound would come out from the body, and tofilm the process. It was also a gesture of mourning the moth and welcoming the soul, in my own way. In the foreground, I set
the corpse of the moth and the broken bottle that was found in the area; filled with soil and moss, it looked like a miniature of
Mt.Bogong. In the background, there was ‘my back to the world’ (coincidently this is the same as the title of Agnes Martin’s
work in which she engages with the world internally). In the footage, I observe that the dent of bones and muscles in my backgather shadows like a valley. The shoulder reflecting light resembles volcanic rocks exposed in the Victorian Alps. The body, thecorpse of the moth, and the miniature mountain relate to each other [figure 6]. Even the awkward pose of the corpse overlaps
with the body at its ecstatic moment. In that moment, it feltthat the part of the body that I touched felt like wings or lips,
between which there is an interval, as Irigaray would call it.
The breath sounded sometimes like the blowing wind andcrying birds that had surrounded me all the time while I wasin Bogong. After all, there was a silent tremble in the depth of
the body that I had never heard and felt before. It was perhaps
the sound of the untranslatable being embodied, in thisarchitecture of the body that is called ‘a temple of a word’. It
vibrated as the entire body became membrane, sounding lifeand death, which are the intimate companions of ‘I’, (as an

Fig. 6. Video still: the author.

artist, a translator, a hokahi-bito and a woman) .

5.3 Conclusion
It was my grandmother, a woman who gave life to my mother who gave birth to me, whose
enunciation of a beautiful volcanic mountain on Kyushu island was one of prompts for my PhD
project. Her skin is as fragile, sensitive and white as the moth from another beautiful volcanic
mountain in Victoria, which now stays with me. As the project got close to the end, the body,which I was given, has gone through a fully immersive experience of embodying the untranslatable.
This strong experience makes me reflect and express that I am called for translating thelife, the soul of the earth and universe, its beauty, its wonder all that is untranslatable, into nuanced
shadows by means of the language of art. It is mediated by this body of mine, named 詩子 [Utako],
and the material bodies where the artwork is manifested, and the body of the audiences. And this ispredominantly why I express this translation as ‘embodiment of the untranslatable’.
I do this though letting the untranslatable come into the body with which ‘I’ am gifted tolook after. This is the first transferring event that occurs in the embodiment of the untranslatable.
For this, somehow ‘I’ leave the body, made as a female; this might coincide with the cycle ofseason, of tide or of period. Then, with an aid of other devices, the body shall become a good lens,a keen microphone, a reactive membrane, so that it can capture how the untranslatable falls into the
body: the process of perception (=letting the soul into; receive). When it arises from the body, it is
the time when nuanced shadows (art) engenders: the process of reflection (=letting the soul out;
project). This is how I experience a poetic translation, as the artist, translator (or transferee) and a78

woman, who becomes the medium for the process. She14 embodies the untranslatable, which willbe then be passed onto another body; in my art context, this is the material body and the body of
the audience. These processes are manifested in various transferences between appearance andperception, subjects and object, form and expression, or image and imagination.

14 Since this section 4 (in Chapter 7) is dedicated to talk about ‘my’ body sexed female, I use ‘she’ here. However, the rest of my thesis

intends to discuss a poetic translation by an artist, translator, audience whose bodies can be either sex. My understanding of ‘fertilesilence’, which relate to the notion such as be ba/field. caesura, pre-chora, groundless ground, or motherhood was expressed in the othersections of this chapter. In which I elaborated on the notion of ‘motherhood’ as what connects man and woman in reference to Rilke’s
fourth letter to young poet. Hence I understand that ‘fertile silence’ is not only found in bodies which are female in nature.
79

CONCLUSIONAt the outset of this research project, two questions were posed: “What is the untranslatable in art
that touches me lovingly and truthfully?”, and “How can an artwork embody the untranslatable?”.
The thesis responded to these questions through a review of relevant philosophical, theoretical andartistic literature, and through an analysis of my and others’ artworks. By writing the thesis, I, as an
artist researcher, sought to form a set of terms that can help us in thinking about the untranslatablein art; in turn, providing deeper understandings of the work of art.
This project, situated in the globalised academic and art context (or the era of global translatability),
was prompted by my struggle, as well as fascination, with the untranslatability of art. The direct
prompts were observed in these three things: my grandmother’s poetic enunciation, shifting
shadows of an acrylic cube, and Jacques Derrida’s interpretation of chora and ma as a place fortranslation/transference,which is untranslatable1. They were assigned crucial roles as elements ofmy ‘poetic translation’, underpinning research processes that were experiential and reflective, andmaterial and semantic. These elements also generated the sub-questions that frame the chapters of
this thesis: “What does it mean to ‘translate’?”, “How can the untranslatable be articulated?”, “Howcan ‘shadow’ be considered an artistic medium?”, and “How can ‘transfer’ be considered an artistic
process?”—
Walter Benjamin’s idea of ‘pure language’ was first investigated, as it is considered untranslatable. In
his theory of translation, pure language is an intended object of translation, aimed at through amanner of literal translation (joining different pieces lovingly). I have discussed how this mannercoincided with the way my first installation work for this project, Understanding of Misunderstanding,attempted to connect different locations visually and metaphorically with lines, shadows and blankspace as a way to articulate the untranslatability of my grandmother’s poetic enunciation.
The origin of ‘pure language’, considered “expressionless and creative”2, was then found inFriedrich Hölderlin’s theory of poetry (art) as ‘pure word’: caesura in verse. This finding shifted thefocus of my discussion from translation to ‘a poetic use (function) of language’. Further
elaboration on Hölderlin’s theory of poetry, Toshihiko Izutsu’s philosophy of Zen and Luce
Irigaray’s philosophy of linguistic and psychoanalytic practice, have provided a useful set of terms
that articulate ‘in-between spatiality’ from which poetic languages engender ‘ba/place’ and ‘interval’,characterised as ‘fertile silence’, and that which is ‘calm and enigmatic’, ‘pregnant with words’ and‘transferable’.
These references, sourced broadly, have also liberated my research, which would otherwise havebeen constrained by the connotation of the untranslatable as ‘ineffable’ within Western1”Discussion A-1”, 90.
2 “The Ttranslator’s Task, Walter Benjamin,” 163.

81

metaphysics. In particular, Zen is inspiring as it aims at articulating the ineffable (the untranslatable)by the poetic; a semantic network of suggestive associations 3. This poetic function was further
examined through discussing how my video work, Topologies Between the Three, poetically translates
my grandmother’s enunciation by drawing our attention to a quiet opening between what is seenand shown, and what is said and heard.
A poetic language can also be visual, such as a variant of gray that is monochromatically reticent
and metaphorically rich, like shifting shadows. This realisation allow me to hypothesise thatambiguous shadow can be a poetic language that can articulate the ineffable; in other words, amedium that can embody the untranslatable. This thesis is underpinned by my observation that thecharacteristic of shadow as immaterial and dependent parallels that of the appearance of an
artwork.
As the research proceeded it became increasingly evident that the perceptual ambiguity of both
shadow and an artwork have often been studied together in various philosophies and theories. For
instance, in philosophies of translation, it is demonstrated that the force of poetic translation andthe degree of ambiguity in appearance (such as shadow or image) both rely on our capacity to thinkand see through (called ‘double seeing’ by John Sallis 4). In philosophies of perception, such
multimodal perception is also examined, as it blurs the conventional division between the sensible(sensation) and the intelligible (cognition). These studies, indeed, increased our understanding of
the centrality of elusive appearance (such as shadow or image) to the embodiment of theuntranslatable.
In particular, the theory of Gestalt Shift (multimodal perception) has provided a highly usefulperspective on the potential to cultivate one’s perceptual sensitivity towards subtlety and nuance,
achieved through ‘practice’. In addition to this, Junichiro Murata’s claim: perception can be a formof expression as it produces new meaning5, also shed light on the essential role of an audience
member to my hypothesis. I have tested this by exhibiting an installation work, Distancing for Opening,as a device for ‘practice’. Through manipulation of ‘contextual clues’ (spatial attention, textual
instruction, visual information, and so forth) the work presented shifting images to invite theviewer to express what s/he thinks and sees in perceiving these shifts.
These findings align with Casati’s philosophical claim that shadow is an aid to knowledge6 as well as
vision, which overturns the conventional (Platonic) view on shadow, poetry and painting as
secondary to light, philosophy and knowledge. In fact, we have discovered that shifting shadow(and ambiguous imagery) is given a primary role in literature from Eastern and Islamic philosophy,
Japanese aesthetics, contemporary and modern art, and architecture. Their conceptions of shadow(image) have provided another useful set of terms for my thesis: ‘shadowy imaginal’, ‘light passing

3 Izutsu, Toward a Philosophy of Zen, 130.
4 Trans. the author, Nishiyama, “Yakusha Kaisetsu: Honyaku Kono Sakusou suru Mono [Translator’s note: Translation, thisentanglement],” 310.

5 Trans. the author, Murata, Chikaku to Seikatsu Sekai (Perception and Life-Worlds), 101.
6 Casati, Shadows, 10.

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through darkness’, ‘a flash from the depth of silence’, ‘shades’, ‘nuance’, ‘subtlety’ ‘shimmer’ and‘drift’.
These terms guided my awareness towards the ‘neutral’ (against the oppositional) in keeping withthe way Agnes Martin’s works are articulated by Anna Lovatt. In consequence, my artworks havecome to possess more and more subtle and nuanced appearances; in short, ‘shadow light’ or ‘lightshadow’. This visual and spatial awareness is the medium deployed in my works, Mokudoku andWatakushiame. The surfaces of translucent thin paper were textured through embossing the acrylic
cube (as a remnant) and water-coloring, to bear this ‘shadow light/light shadow’ and to prompt ourawareness towards subtlety and nuance. All of this aimed at embodying the untranslatable.
This embodiment of the untranslatable, mediated by shifting shadow (image), is articulated as theprocess of the ‘transfer’. It is evident in the analogy between the Greek-Latin and the Japanesederivations, as articulated by Seigo Matsuoka and Atsushi Shinfuji: variant processes of the‘transfer’ (utsuru) project, reflect, trace or emerge as moving soul (anima), in turn forming an image/butterfly (imago) from life (psyche)/void (utsu, pupa)7. This process—the positive engendering fromthe negative space-time—is transformative and metamorphic, hence, poetic.
This articulation penetrates the linkages between theories of translation, art histories andphilosophies of the spectator. Translation prolongs the life of the original work throughtransforming the work and metamorphosing what/who translates it. The image survives/remains(stays in motion) in the spectator’s movement across art histories. New knowledge (to a spectator)
is engendered not in the work but in the distance between the spectator and the work. The sharedview among these perspectives is that the work of art (in a broad sense) makes us move between
what there was before and what there will be, in space and time, in terms of meaning, image andunderstanding. This is another process of the transfer that is poetic, for the embodiment of theuntranslatable. Evidently, audiences of my installation artwork, Mokudoku, similarly articulated their
movement in their experiences of the work.
These findings allowed me to respond to Derrida’s interpretation of chora and ma, as untranslatable,a place for translation/transference. I have asked, “Can such a place be considered poetic, as well as
untranslatable, if the untranslatable can be embodied through the ‘transfer’ process (which ispoetic), mediated by shifting shadow (poetic language)?”; and, conversely, “Can a place for poetictranslation embody the untranslatable?”. My final exhibition in this project became an attempt at
answering these questions.
In my analysis of the final exhibition, I first focused on discussing the execution of my installment(my built walls as well as visual works), which transformed the existing architecture andmetamorphosed the venue into rooms — ma — in-between space-time. I then examined how thiswas intended to transfer ‘shadow light (image)’ and move audiences from/into rooms. Did all thisresult in opening a poetic place (embodying the untranslatable)? It could, perhaps, be said that this7 Trans. the author, Matsuoka, Nihon to iu Yarikata - omokage to utsuroi no bunka, 91. & Shinfuji, “Katachi ha Utsuru [Form Transfer]”,

10.

83

was the case, provided that a new work was born in the space-time between the work andaudiences, similar to how my grandmother’s enunciation opened a poetic scene that generated aseries of my video works. Through the gazes of others, the film work, The Untranslatable, a Poetic
Place, quietly and slowly captured movements between rooms and images (shadow light) in the final
exhibition. It carried me with its reminiscence of something untranslatable about her enunciation.
As I worked, I recognised it as the life of Mt. Aso, which felt untranslatable.
What is this life (of Mt. Aso, of the original work, and so on) that transfers from/into artworks?
This wonder underpinned another aim of the final exhibition towards transferring (conveying) a‘sense (knowledge) of love for longing’. It was implied in the title, ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget, after aline of song which oscillates between atmospheric shifts and human emotions. First provoked by
my grandmother’s enunciation, this sense continued to be nurtured as ‘shadow light’, transferred
across architectural works that informed my works in this project. Intimate observation of the
Mirokubosatsu statue in Chuguji temple has greatly contributed to growing this sense in me, as thestatue embodies a nuance of love, in its calming gesture clad with ‘shadow light’, prompting ourlonging or prayer.
A similar knowledge (sense) was identified in Rainer Maria Rilke’s articulation that the life which
nature forms is an enduring form of love or prayer, or longing for motherhood. I have linked thispoetic association to the Greek concept of chora, which is considered untranslatable (the void) byDerrida, but articulated as motherhood (groundless ground) by other philosophers who insist on its
generative nature. This new knowledge formed another set of terms: life, love, longing for‘motherhood’, chora, and ‘groundless ground’— as another form of the untranslatable. It alsotransformed my conception of an artwork into that which is an enduring form of love and longing,or prayer, by which we are guided to remain alive; to live, in a more poetic manner, with attention to
subtlety and nuance.
The ‘I’ as the subject of this art of poetic translation has, indeed, metamorphosed, as witnessedand captured externally in my video work, Gesture of Shadows, as in a shadow transforming from amountain to a butterfly. Lastly, this embodied experience of ‘my being and body’, through whichlife transferred and formed images, was internally excavated. This research process first produced afeeling of vulnerability, and called close attention to the vulnerability of these bodies, which aresimilarly receptive of some external (hoka) life, information or god: the statue of mirokubosatsu, thebody of my grandmother, pupa (sanagi), hoka-hi (an empty container) and hokahi-bito (a marginalhuman). Without overstating it, they all give birth to art, as we have discussed and discovered
through the signification of these Greek and Japanese terms.
Some of these bodies formed a useful set of terms for my refection on my being in the body withwhich I am charged: being foreign and marginal (hoka) to the dominant language and culture as
Japanese and as an artist, and internalising hollowness/emptiness (utsu) as shown in the ideogram 詩(poetry = word 言+ temple 寺), implying a temporal fulfillment with verse (chant) or 影向 (shadow
84

coming). The latency of the female artist being hokahi and a poetic place; in other words, thepotential of embodying the untranslatable, was carefully examined in Bogong, an ideal milieu filledwith ‘shadow light’ and ‘fertile silence’. As inscribed in my journal, some external (hoka) life
temporarily inhabited her body, which temporarily empties out and momentary trembles at theembodiment, reticently and metaphorically.
The female artist is materially and semantically intended to contain hollowness/emptiness (utsu)
inside. Her body metamorphoses to be a poetic place, in embodying the untranslatable, though
briefly, while something external (hoka) transfers from/into her and other material bodies, which are
an artwork and an audience. The artwork and the audience are enacted to freely shift and move
between images and rooms; to poetically perceive and express understandings and meanings.
—
What is the untranslatable in art that touches me lovingly and truthfully? How can an artwork embody theuntranslatable?
The untranslatable is the life that drifts as it metamorphoses and transforms our experience in andreflection on the world in a more rich and poetic manner. It can only be embodied temporarily by
the poetic work of art as it ‘transfers’ in variant ways. It is embodied in a poetic language that
contains fertile silence, an architectural body that internalises emptiness/hollowness, or an enduringform of love that longs for motherhood. The embodiment of the untranslatable is experienced as‘shadow light’ (as an aid to knowledge, hence it is truthful) that shifts; an ambiguous image thatshimmers; a poetic place that opens; or a nuance of love that trembles.
—
This thesis has developed sets of terms that can help us in thinking about the untranslatable. Thisdevelopment was achieved through joining fragments of ideas from different literatures and texts ina manner of poetic translation. Many were uncovered as well as discovered from ancient tocontemporary philosophical, theoretical and artistic resources. It has been difficult to articulate theuntranslatable in this thesis. But the untranslatable in art is, indeed, a struggle for anyone, whether
an artist, an audience member, Japanese, English, female, male, and so on. This is why I drew voicesfrom various disciplines, not limited to either Western or Eastern knowledge, to one side or one
sex.
The main research questions, in retrospect, have responded to what I had always wanted to know:“What is the work of art?” and “How can I achieve it through my practice?”. This articulation
process has increased my awareness of nuance and subtly that mediate semantic and material
understandings of the world. This, in turn, liberated my own sense of being (life) and reminded meof its transformative nature grounded in motherhood, described by Rilke as shared intention
towards life 8. The work of art is to provoke this mode of intention, provoking a sense (knowledge)
8 Rike, Letters to a Young Poet, 38.

85

of love and longing among an artist and an audience. The significance of the untranslatable (whatresists translation) is that which makes us remain alive.
I have differentiated poetic language from everyday language. I consider the former to articulate theuntranslatable. I think of art as embracing literature, poetry, architecture, drawing, music, dance andso forth. As a visual artist who works with installation and video art, I have honed my research inthese mediums. But more generally the concepts discussed in this thesis are just as useful to otherart forms. (For example, ‘fertile silence’ may work in music.)
This thesis is, thereby, written for both artists and audiences. I hope that the thesis can educate us
to think about art in relation to language, including art’s untranslatability. Indeed, it has alreadyhelped my understanding of art,and has enriched my own senseof possibility for making art.
This is evident in the last workthat emerged from this project,shadowlight, [figure 1]. Amongother photographs from thesame shooting, this image caught
my eye (as an audience member
as well as an artist) precisely
because of the way ‘light shadow’keeps transferring from/into
fertile silence and prompts theFig.1. Utako Shindo, shadowlight, archival pritt 40 x 60 cm,2016.

opening of a poetic place.
—
Towards the end of this project, I have observed the growing sense of division and exclusion in thehuman world. It appears to me that the era of global translatability has contributed to forging
oppositions, perhaps against its intention. The cause might be its weakness with the untranslatable;with that which is capable of mediating, maintaining and embracing subtle differences through drift
and transference. My research findings suggest that it is difficult to have a good grasp of theuntranslatable without the aid of poetic language that can express nuanced understandings. And
this aid is lacking in the translatable view of the world, supported by those subjects who are often
doubtful and fearful of changes: transformation of the world and metamorphosis of themselves.
So, I have wanted to emphasise the generative aspect of poetic translation, which prompts thesechanges through articulation and embodiment of the untranslatable. It does require our patience, tokeep working on it and waiting, but when the moment comes, like a butterfly taking off, it gifts us
with surprise, beauty, wonder and joy. While we wait for it, we can also cultivate playful andhumorous sensitivities that will engender ‘boredom’— a neutral space or empty space that allows
for things to enter — without doubt and fear.

86What I have just written may appear to be outside of an art context, but it is not. It was necessary
for me to speculate how this art of poetic translation shall find its place in this world where we live,
and to think through how this project can contribute in a generative manner. As just indicated, thesense is now strongest that we are called to work towards securing and cultivating poetic places
where the untranslatable can dwell, within this world. In terms of my own practice, this calls for a
few steps to be taken in the wake of this research project. Firstly, the research findings shall beaccessible to wider audiences; through making and presenting my artworks that reflect thesefindings, and through translating this thesis (the useful sets of terms, to begin with) into otherlanguages to be readable for non-English speakers. Secondly, my own poetic language shall befurther developed through more practice and experimentation with materials, processes and venues,
and through more time spent on learning and absorbing the poetic sensitivity of works that set a
precedent (in literature, visual art, architecture, film, and so on). Lastly, the soul of this body andothers shall be nurtured through more care and attention to the nuances of love that ground thislife-world.

87

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APPENDICES

1. Catalogue poster for ここがどこなのか_ where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget (the final exhibition):text by Dr. Katsuhiko Suganuma and the author.
edited and directed by the author.
designed by Atelier W (Manabu Kanai).
printed by Arena Printing and Publishing (John Hinkson).
available from http://www.utakoshindo.info/writings/where-it-is-here-can-i-forget/images/Texts_KSuganuma_UShindo_March2016.pdf..

2. Review on the final exhibition by Dan Rule:
text by Dan Rule.
published on April 1, 2016. by The Age Newspaper.
available from http://www.theage.com.au/entertainment/whats-on-melbourne/the-pick-of-this-weekends-exhibitions-20160327-gns21d..

3. Images from the final exhibition by Christian Capurro:
photo by Christian Capurro.
on view at http://www.utakoshindo.info/exhibition/where-it-is/.

4. Film from the final exhibition directed and edited by the author:
entitled The Untranslatable, A Poetic Place.
filmed by Dimple Rajyaguru and Ben Andrews.
directed and edited by the author.
on view at http://www.utakoshindo.info/exhibition/where-it-is/. or https://vimeo.com/169430138.

appendix_1

appendix_2

where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget

The final exhibition by the author in this project.
19 March and 16 April, 2016
Sutton Projects, Melbourne.

——————————————————————————————————————————————(clockwise from door)

I rain _私雨, 2015
water color, glassine, MG Litho
47 x 88 cm
I rain_Watakushi ame, 2015
water color, glassine, MG Litho
47 x 48 cm

where it is here_どうでもいいことさ_it does not matter_どうやって来たのか_how I have got here_忘れられるかな_can I forget
2016
comprised with 20 pieces of works on paper or fabric, 2 video works *332 x 645 cm*
Gesture of Shadows, 2015-2016
video work (3:40)*
Topology between the three, 2014-2016
video work (3:55)

波の間に間に̲Nami no Ma ni Ma ni [at the Mercy of the Waves], 2015

oil pastel, tracing paper, acrylic cube
dimension variable——————————————————————————————————————————————All images were photographed and digitally produced by Christian Capurro in April 2016.

appendix_3The Untranslatable, A Poetic Place
Title: The Untranslatable, A Poetic Place
Year: 2016
Duration: 9min. 46sec.
Filmed by Dimple Rajyaguru & Ben Andrews
Directed and Edited by Utako Shindo
Please view from http://www.utakoshindo.info/exhibition/where-it-is/ or https://vimeo.com/169430138.

appendix_4