I was planning visit the Kuandu Museum a few month ago and enjoy minced pork rice, but
due to the coronavirus epidemic, some projects have been postponed, and now I am juststaying in Maebashi, and busy taking care of my two children.
I would like to introduce my previous works, before writing about matters I was planning toresearch in Taipei.
Roughly speaking, I have worked on two types of art works: one is an attempt to intervene
my body in the White Cube, and the other is a project that move away from the place I
usually live in and head for a place like remote area. In the former case, examples include
a performance of digging holes through the floor of the gallery to the outside, or living in
the gallery with my feet off the floor during the exhibition. Also I did bouldering with thethings I have picked up around the gallery, by nailing them on the wall of the White Cube.
The latter work includes parades on underground waterways in Tokyo. I took a rally between a tumulus and tennis courts of a junior high school adjacent to it.

In the former (the idea of intervening body in the White Cube) there is a physicality of performance or action, and one of the propose of this project is to the install physicality andthe sense of body in the White Cube. In the work of excavation anaglaph, I hollowed ahole from the floor of the gallery to the outside, and the light passed through lens and mirror, to reflect the outside view in to the darkness gallery. This is a camera obscura withuseless effort. I intended to make the relationship between the act of digging a hole andthe image become nega-posi in this project.

anaglaph, 2015

In my another work of an aerial life
12 days on the ledge, first of all, I
imposed a rule on myself, “Do notput my feet on the ground throughout the exhibition” to think about
desks and chairs carefully in an different view, they would not let ourfeet down, because they can be regarded as the ground lifted vertically. Then, I found on the structureof walls, columns, and beams. I
was going to give them functions
for a space of living. Based on plywoods hung from walls and beams(although there was a debate over

12 days on the ledge, 2016

whether this plane was groundlike), and I spend my days during

the session to expand my range of activities and fulfill my lives. I set up climbing ropes andattach scaffoldings to the wall with wood chips. The gallery was located on the 2nd floor,
and there was a cafe on the 1st floor, so I expand my range of ‘movable area’ to the cafe
where I ate curry. At first glance, walls are all just walls, but in aerial life, they are divided
into places where I can act and where I absolutely cannot act depending on the presenceor absence of base materials. The ropes and scaffolds increase in a form corresponding tothe nature of such architecture. And when I move, the traces of my hands and feet are increased, and they become black lines and accumulate in the gallery. The installation ofthese life functions and my traces was the aim of this work.

The latter (the idea of moving away fromthe place I usually live in and reach aplace like a frontier.) was designed, likecollage, to connect one’s emotions andbody to a hidden space that has become
vacant due to social changes. parade
was a work of parades in the underground culvert in Tokyo, which is designed based on the anti-nuclear demon-parade, 2012

stration that took place many times after
3.11. I chose a river as a shooting location that was buried in the underground by the urban development before the 1964 Tokyo Olympics. In 《parade》, I made multiple exposures using strobes in a completely dark culvert, to capture on film a fictional parade in theunderground space of Tokyo.
tennis with tumulus was a work about tumulus. The idea of this work came from myamazement at many tumuli that existed
next to the living area, when I moved fromTokyo to Gunma. The state that the tumulus and the tennis court of the junior highschool were adjacent each other in Maebashi, and this condition was like a coltennis with tumulus, 2019lage. I invited local children to play of hitting tennis balls from the tennis court into

the tumulus and captured it in a video work. Many tumuli have been employed by tomb
vandalism centuries ago and forgetting, but have something sacred apart from their historical value. Perhaps this sanctity, in the form of some kind of power, was associated with
the image of nation or race, and it seemed that the impact was not small. When I proposed
this plan for this work to two places, “the school” and “the temple”, in a reaction of “thetennis with tumulus, 2019school” clearly showed the respect for the tumulus. It made me recognize the tumulus as akind of “authority”. On the other hand, “the temple” originally owned the land in that area,and there were many tumuli in it. Many lands had been sold for use as agricultural land orresidential land, so there was the background that only the tumuli that cannot be sold asassets remained under the control of the “temple”. In Japan, Buddhism was introduced alittle after the Kofun period (the Tumulus period: when many ancient royal tombs werebuilt), precisely the Buddhism altered the relationship between politics and religion, andpersons in powers began to make vassals build temples and statues of Buddha instead of
their own tombs. I thought that the temple, the manager of the tumulus, readily accepted
my plan because the Buddhist spirit did not include the tumulus.

Roughly speaking, my series of works can be considered in the general term “play”. It also
can be said that what my work proposes to do is to play with the elements of the place.
“Play” is a reinterpretation of the real space and social space. It deviates from its legitimate
uses while creating new rules and pleasures, and always involves negotiation with things
that build the space like ownership, codes and norms, and physical dangers.
“Play” in the gallery is an interpretation to the meaning of the White Cube and the historyof art. On the contrary, the play that takes place outside the gallery and focuses on a partof society is a question to the history and the memory of the community in the place. Agood “play” is to use what is on the spot as much as possible (it is even better if it does notcost money) and to temporarily set up new rules that reveal the codes covered there andthe spirituality behind the scenes.

Now, I will tell about my project in Taipei.
1 Research on tochka

I research the remaining military tochka that were made from World War II to the Sino-Taiwan War. The tochka along the coastline are structured for attacking soldiers as they land.
The small window of the tochika can be ‘eyes’ which also provide a function of attaching,as well as a scene that has a hostile structure. I would like to make works using tochka.
For example, I will take pinhole photos or create a new ball game by using the structure ofthe tochka. I will reinterpret the traces of a big story of history through my works as “play”.

2 About garbage, disused items and reuse
I think the kitchen knives of Quemoy island, which have been transformed from the tracesof war into daily utensils, are a wonderful and unique work. Conversely, the news that lanterns in which people’s wishes were written launched into the sky caused a problem of
garbage or fires, seems like a black joke, but it should be also universal, because individual desire and desire for an affluence create a burden on the environment. I am interested
in things losing its meaning or being diverted. I will research on garbage and disused
items.

3 Research of the coal mines
I want to research on the origins of the coal mining towns of Chiuten and Shifen, the memories of Japanese rule, and the physical sensations of coal miners in their labor. It is a universal problem not only for the people of many countries that were once ruled by Japan,
but also for universal labor and exploitation. I will practice with my body and summon
memories and senses to the modern world.

Research on insect cooking in Taiwan / my family
My great-grandfather graduated from the agricultural department of a Japanese university
and conducted insect research in Taiwan under Japanese rule.
Under colonial policy, understanding the ecosystem is essential for developing economic
zones such as agriculture. On the other hand, for this insect lover who grew up in Hokkaido, Japan, must have been happy to study insects in Taiwan, located in the tropics. I
research insect lovers’ desire for colonies throughout the history of them. I also collect insects and eat them, as my lifework. Frankly speaking, I do not like insect food, but I thinkdisgust and desire are coded sensations by culture. For instance, the experience that “Itwas delicious when I tried fried cicada” is accompanied by the joy of breaking through itwith revealing my internalized code.

On another note, finally, I would talk about the current plan.
I have a slight atopic dermatitis (Oh, there is also atopy in Taiwan, right?), and recently I am
thinking of a plan for my itching by the reaction of the atopy. I am paying attention to numer-ous interpretations of the cause of atopy, and the unconscious act of scratching. People withatopic symptoms, including myself, often scratch themselves unconsciously in the middle ofthe night. The plan is to capture these unconscious movements with VR gloves and create
sculptures by movements of hands in VR space. In their sleeping, they put the gloves on
their hands, by applying the action of scratching in the middle of night to the clay-like material
prepared in VR space, I create a nega-posi relationship with scratching by atopy.
The name “atopy” came from the Greek word “atopos” - a=denial, topos=origin whichmeans “unidentified” or “strange” and was named by Arthur Fernandez Coca and RobertAnderson Cook in 1923 (from Wikipedia). The cause of itching is still “unidentified”, andeven now, there is no clear interpretation about the cause of atopic dermatitis. Heredity,allergen, and stress are cited as factors for atopy. It seems that the situation of atopic patients, in which they do not know what is causing it and not to improve it easily, are stress,relationships, anxiety, chemical fibers, Western medicine, artificial things, modern lifestyle,etc. Atopy can also be caused by a variety of psychological factors, such as “unbearabletemperament” and “dependence on one’s mother”. There are classic things such as spir-itual disabilities and ancestral behavior, too. On the other hand, there is a dependent interpretation such as “smart people get atopy.” and “Statistically, patients with atopic dermatitis have good grades” (But I think that is bad for poor performance people with atopy.).
In my plan of the project, the shape of the sculpture which was shaved during sleep, isassumed to be the appearance of various “itch-causing things” surrounding the bodythroughout it. By thinking of the emergent form as various things, I make into my own storiesof itching. I will guess that the shape in suggesting and will ask a fortuneteller to see it too.
In this plan, it can be said that the exhibit with a limited number of visitors at Corona disasteris the best way to focus on my sensitive physical circumstance. In addition, VR technology
is used for production that does not assume physical contact with participants or collaborators (At first, I assumed an ensemble with a scratch sound with atopy, or a percussion centered on itching.), at the same time, by replacing specific physical wounds with virtual, it ispossible to collaborate with others who actually suffer.
The patients are facing the atopic dermatitis negatively and secretively (They scratch theaffected area in their pockets, secretly scratch it with their feet, at home, or unconsciously.),so the total amount of impulses, pleasures and pains associated it seems to be like theirlittle buried resources of mental energy. This plan for atopy should have been realized before
staying in KdMoFA. Well, I am looking forward to seeing you.