Braille text is printed under the Japanese and English
statement at the entrance. Some information in the text
is not contained in the Japanese and English
statements. Likewise, the lip speaking that appears in avideo in this work is also a media form that can’ t beread or understood by the majority of people who use
their five senses. Perhaps, no one can comprehend all
the symbols used in this work and I believe this is what
artwork generally is. Despite that, I’ m offering you thishandout to give you a deeper insight into the works. If
you are willing to view them once again, in other words,“replay” the journey, please start by touching the Braille.
Hegel said, “H istor y repeats
itself,” to which Marx added, “firstas tragedy, second as farce” . But
before you start to “play” this, I’ dlike to impress this upon you: af a r c e d o e s n’ t g u a r a n t e e ahappy ending. Its depend withyour distance to see it. And farcei s s u b j e c t i v e . Yo u h a v e t oprepare for what could happen
some day.
Because the third time could bea tragedy.

Text Gaetan KUBO
Photo Keizo KIOKUTranslate byPenguin Translation

１The world isfull of sounds
The number I dial in the video is 400. Used for dial andbusy tones, 400Hz is also close to chord G4. A speakeris embedded in the wall behind and at the end of thevideo, the room is shaken by a sonic wave tuned to G.
Feel free to answer the phone when it rings.

2
I cannot hear you but
I can listen to you

A stethoscope, set at almost the same height as myheart, was converted into a microphone. It picks up thesound of my monologue coming from the wall. The
sound is then passed on by short-circuiting through acatfish skin, where it’s rectified and amplified by aneffector, and finally outputted to a speaker under thetank. It ripples the surface of the water and thevibrations power the electricity generator under thetank. I placed an object in the shape of my ears on theright and left sides of the tank, the head of a catfish at
the back, its tail at the front, and tuning-forks that
produce a sine wave at every corner.
This is a “catfish sound vibration electricity generator”
that combines magic and science —a folk belief thatthe skull of a catfish looks like a cross combined withcymatics studies that observe the wave patterns ofwheat grains on a glass plate formed by vibrating theplate with a violin bow.

3

Matora Oishi (Drawing)"Map of Catfish
in the bowels of Japan.
From Eiryaku-era
astronomical
fortune-telling encyclopedia"

This is a fortune-telling book based on Chinese
astrology, called zassho. These books were widely
spread throughout the Edo era. At the beginning ofmost zassho, there was a map of a Japanese island
covered by a drawing of a huge “earthquake bug” like adragon. Before catfish drawings became popular, thiswas a creation from the imagination of people who
wondered where the huge shaking came from.

4
A canister for tea leaves
resembling
Zhang Heng'sseismoscope
Zhang Heng’s seismoscope is supposedly the world’s
first seismograph. Invented by a Chinese scholar,
Zhang Heng, in 132 CE, it was able to detect distantearthquakes and roughly determine the direction from
where each earthquake occurred. To indicate this, thedevice dropped a ball from a metal dragon head into
the mouth of a corresponding metal toad. When weconsider Japan’s first seismograph, which was invented
in the Meiji era (1868-1912) by o-yatoi gaikokujin (hiredforeigner), Zhang Heng invented his seismoscope
surprisingly early. None of the original devices survive,
nor do the blueprints, so the inner structure of thedevice is still shrouded in mystery. Thus, there arevarious theories regarding the seismoscope.

5 Contact of Dream:
Experimental image
reproduction of [Tubastentoro-phonica] bySamuel Morland
I wonder when human beings first recognized sounds?
Pythagoras found a tone scale from the differences insounds made by the hammer of a blacksmith, andAristotle noted the existence of soundwaves. There aresome interesting points in this iconography that waspublished by Samuel Morland in 1671. In the iconography,
which was announced as the invention of themegaphone, he focused not only on the expansion ofsound but also its multiplication, and the sounds ofvoices resonating with each other. From this, we realize
the world is full of sounds.
This work and another copperplate work are theinverse of the original digital data that was transcribedin the original block print.
Each copperplate was etched and filled with ink,
making it the reverse of the original block print. In otherwords, it is stored as it is and the lines are not inked.

6 Contact of Dream:
Experimental image
reproduction of[Speaking statues
connected to the wall]by Athanasius Kircher
This iconography of Athanasius Kircher’s invention
shows the mechanism of a megaphone in the wallcatching outside sounds and consolidating them
before outputting from its narrow end, next to amouth of a statue, to make it sound as if the statue istalking. The work of the voice coming out from the wallin this exhibition is the embodiment of this fantasy.

7 Contact of Dream:
E xpe r i m en t al i m ag e
reproduction of a Letter
to Blake from Bell.
Sung to G(as his initialGraham) using a deadbody's ear(Specimen)
by Graham BellBell’s ear phonautograph is a recording device with noplayback function. It uses a needle attached to acorpse’s eardrum. A digitized letter from Bell toClarence J.Blake about an experimental result wasprinted, and put at the back of a glass plate covered insoot. Afterwards, I exposed the glass plate to light andtraced the description which could be vaguely seen.
In general, people tune sound to an A. But in the letter,
it is suggested that Bell picked a G, the initial letter of
his name, Graham. I wonder if he whispered his name
as if he were talking to a person who unexpectedly
became an unnamed specimen in the name of scienceand technology development.
While I was tracing the lines and thinking such things, I
saw a reflection of myself on the glass plate and I
realized G is also the first letter of my name — Gaetan.

8 Contact of Dream:
Experimental image
reproduction of disk record of
shake happened in Tokyo on
1887 by unknown person
Seismic disk recordings worked by attaching a needle
to the surface of a glass plate covered in soot, whichthen etched vibrations from an earthquake and madea copy of the seismic blueprint of the recorded data.
This work is based on a full-scale copy of a blueprint ofa recorded earthquake. I put a glass plate covered withsoot on the copy, flooded the glass plate with light,
then traced the data which could be vaguely seen.
As early records of earthquakes were taken withanalog systems, the individuality of recorders arereflected strongly, including the density of soot andsensitivity of a needle. Tracing the data by hand makes
it less realistic than if it was printed. However, I believe
recording is a subjective action in the first place. The
recorder of the blueprint was unknown.

9 Thomas Edison"Edison tin foil
phonograph called
Sogon-ki (Voice revivemachine) in Japan"(Replica)
When the phonograph was first introduced into Japan, it
was translated into Japanese as sogonki (voice
reproduction device). As the nuanced meaning of theChinese characters used in the word indicated “Device
that revives voice”, the device probably suggested theability to revive the dead or be able to “replay” their voice
forever by recording their voice once. The microphoneand speaker, which look like they are talking to a water
well with an unseen bottom, have a unique shape thatgives a sense of connection to the afterlife.

10 Sir James Alfred Ewing"Ewing type Disk-recording
Seismograph"
James Alfred Ewing, who first introduced thephonograph to Japan, later invented the world’s firstmodern seismograph. It is interesting that the shape ofrecording devices developed from barrel to disk while
the seismograph’s shape developed the other way
around. It indicates how earthquakes and sounds havea c l o s e re l a t i o n s h i p. A l t h o u g h t h e d i s p l aye dseismograph has instruments measuring two axes,
east-west and north-south, a third instrument thatmeasures vertical motion was added later. Seismic disk
recordings and the “model showing the motion of anearth-particle during an earthquake” were recordedwith the later version.

11
Telesensation map ofSound and Vibrations
I improvisationally made a collage of the materials I
collected while making the artworks, and connected
the dots. As I started to make the pieces for theexhibition during the COVID-19 pandemic, I wasn’t
allowed to do some physical research, such as visiting
libraries or interviewing people, when I started theproject. So, I started to collect what I thought was alimited amount of digital online data but it grew wellbeyond the original scope and, as a result, I ended up
drowning in a massive amount of data. I had to output
the information to come back to reality. Placing mymouth and body in the centre, I added symbols andconnected them like organs. This action seemedabsurd, but also made me have a sense of doing
something that is worth doing.

12 SEKIYA Seikei (Kiyokage)"Model showing themotion of an earth-particle
during an earthquake"
S E K I YA S e i k e i w a s o n e o f t h e fi r s t J a p a n e s eseismologists. He quantified the motions of east-west,
north-south, and high-low using a disk recording
seismograph. He enlarged the movement of land eachsecond by 50 and made three -dimensional
representations of this with wire. The model on the left
shows the movement of the ground from the start ofthe earthquake to 21 seconds; the centre shows theground movement from 22 seconds to 41 seconds after
commencement, and the model on the right shows themovement from the last point up to 72 seconds.