MICHIKO TSUDAYou would have gone there to see them by then.

Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2019 Photo: Hirabayashi Takeshi

The body of work that TSUDA Michiko is creating
includes installations composed of arranged
mirrors, frames and video equipment, as well as
pieces created in collaboration with various
performers. For Aichi Triennale, the works were
exhibited in tatami rooms and on the earthen floorof the Ito Residence that was built in the Edo era
on Shikemichi.
You would have gone there to see them by then.
(2019) is a video installation with the placementof a mirror, an empty frame, and a screen in the
Ito Residence. Displayed on the screen is
combination of real-time video captured by acamera installed in the garden and prerecorded
footage of a performer.
She encouraged the viewer to move freely
throughout the space, which was created using
both real and virtual images, where the viewer
could both see and be seen, and the boundaries
blurred between viewer and performer.

gardentatami roomtatami room

garden

You would have gone there to see them by then.
installation / 2019
Size: variable
Material: woods, double-sided mirror, screen, video camera, projector
Place: Ito Residence, Aichi
Link to video documentation
https://vimeo.com/367583990

Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2019

Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2019 Photo: Hirabayashi Takeshi

The video projected onto the screen at the backof one of the tatami rooms continually shifts
between several prerecorded videos of
performers in the space and real-time footage ofthe viewer from the same perspective.
The performers’ movements incorporate
elements of characters from Ozu Yasujiro’s films.

scene a, stills from video material
duration: 4 min, color, no soundperformance: KAMIMURA Megumi,
FUKUTOME Mari,
SAKAI Naoyuki

Score aScore a (2019) and Score b (2019), placed in
the alcove, depict traces of the performer’s
movements on the screen, invert them as if
reflected in a mirror, and layer the images toform a hanging scroll.

Sound installation Audio Guide: Inside and Outside (2019) was exhibited in an indoor space, it
yet it maintains a high level of continuity with the outside by being held on the earthen floor.

“Inside and Outside” script
This audio guide will not explain the work,but will make time to think about ‘borders,’
through words and through the things you see and hear inside.
This house has been here for nearly 300 years since it was built in the Edo period.
Centuries ago, people made a living selling rice here, but they also inhabited the space.
The place where you stand now is in between the inside and outside of the house.
Though you are inside, the ground is made of earth so you are probably wearing shoes.
To do a public exhibition in this very private space is as if something large is trying toenter something small.
The viewer of this exhibition might be a visitor from outside.
Inside and outside is entangled and distorted in this environmental sound.
Usually, an exhibition takes place in a white cube, where you only see what the artist
wants you to see.
Japanese houses like this one are made to heighten our five senses and draw attention
to the environment itself.
Please take time to think about this house’ s transformation into a public space as you
observe what lies in front of you.

Audio Guide: Inside and Outside
sound / 2019
4’ 30
Material: Stereo sound, noise-cancelling headphone
Place: Earthen floor at Ito Residence, Aichi

Installation view at Aichi Triennale 2019 photo: by ITO Tetsuo

Environmental sound recording and mastering: FUJIGUCHI Ryota
Narration and voice recording: TSUDA Michiko
Assistant: Woomin Hyun
Translation: KITAGAWA Mitsue
Special thanks: SATO Tomoko, Alex Queen, Vered Engelherd, Julia Santoli

TSUDA’s works, which are both simple andcarefully calculated, skilfully capture the structureof the Ito residence and turn the private space
into an exhibition space.
These works transform the exhibition space
through the acts of “seeing” and “listening” andquestioning the cognitive processes or bodily
sensations that we unconsciously take for
granted, and showing that different stories arise
depending on the person and the place fromwhich they are viewing. (Kobayashi Maiko)Although King Logs Others

Installation view: Roppongi Crossing 2019: Connexions, Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2019 Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Although King Logs Others is a new piece basedon Lewis Carroll’s 1871 children’s novel Alice
Through the Looking Glass. Arranged on top of acheckered floor that mimics the pattern of achessboard are a camera (king), monitor (queen),frames (knights), walls (rooks), and mirrors(pawns/Alice), which viewers can walk between.
In this work, TSUDA harnesses the uniquecharacteristics of visual media to recreate theabsurd events that take place in the world of Alice
Through the Looking Glass, highlighting thedistortions that inevitably occur as a result ofwords and rules, and the events shaped by them.

Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Although King Logs Others
installation / 2019
Wood, floor cover, mirror, camera, monitor, projector
Place: Mori Art Museum

The artwork is configured in the exact same
positions as when Alice realizes she is in a gameof chess in Chapter 1.

N
K
K

N

Q

P
Q

R

Photo: KIOKU Keizo

KR
K - King - camera: capturing real-time video
Q - Queen - monitor: showing image from camera
N - Knight - empty
R - Rook - wall
B - Bishop - fence (no bishop in this score)P - Pawn / Alice - double-sided mirror

Photo: KIOKU Keizo

Mirrored letters from an extract of the poem “Jabberwocky” are cut out of the screen andprojected in their correct form onto the wall.

This work also served as the stage for several
performances about the poem “Jabberwocky”
titled “DANCE AS CHISEL,” which were held
over the course of the exhibition.

DANCE AS CHISEL
performance / 2019
Duration: 30min
Performer: KAMIMURA Megumi (Dancer, Choreographer), HIRAKURA Kei (Art theorist)
Place: Exhibition space at the Mori Art Museum
Link to video documentation
https://vimeo.com/335092041/c586a26904

Walking Condition

Installation view at Windshield Time, Toyota, 2019 Photo: KIDO Tamotsu

TSUDA Michiko chose a small theater on thesecond floor of Nishimachi Kaikan as her venue,
a building located in Toyota City’s Nishimachi
neighborhood. The building is not open to the
public though it has a theater that used tofeature plays and other performances. TSUDA
Michiko’s installation was placed on the space infront of the theater’s arced, overhanging stage
typical of Showa-era architecture.
TSUDA has directed spaces that question
boundaries—inside and outside of frames,
subject and object—making full use of visualmedia. She also directs her own independent
performances. In this new work, a female
performer in the video announces her every
move. She walks forward and backward, thecamera moving along with her movements, thedistance between camera and performer
permanently fixed. Her movement to either side
signifies her departure from one frame andarrival into another. Sometimes she disappears,
the image blurs, and other performers come andgo while the experience expands. TSUDA
herself self-referentially talks in the video at theexhibition space as a prologue.
Japanese has two words for dance: odori andmai. ORIKUCHI Shinobu says that the Japaneseword odori refers to jumping while mai is used
for the circular movement of revolving in asacred ritual with the gods. The audience here
"revolves" around the exhibition in a mai of theirown. Audiences wander inside, outside, andbetween a forest of frames. Despite the space’s
symmetrical composition and though only twoframes contain projections, the installation
generates surprisingly mysterious andambiguous spaces from different viewpoints
using only projected imagery, mirrors, and empty
frames.
(AMANO Kazuo)* ORIKUCHI Shinobu. Mai and Odori
https://www.aozora.gr.jp/cards/000933/files/4772
1_69585.html
Photo: KIDO Tamotsu

There are two screens, two mirrors of the same size, and three empty frames in the space.
Projected on the two screens is a performer who verbally announces her movements in 27
different phrases about walking (e.g., “My right foot is pushing down on the ground,” “Theground is soft,” “I am walking backward,” “I have been overtaken,” “I am on a stage,” “I amdancing,” “I am waiting,” “I am on the border,” etc.). The audience wanders around the spaceand becomes a part of the installation as they attempt to search for the movements on thescreens and in the mirrors.

Walking Condition
installation / 2019
12min
Performance: FUKUTOME Mari, TSUDA Michiko
Screening System: TOKISATO Mitsuru（TOKISATO PLAYER）
Camera Operation: AOYAMA ShinyaSound Recording: WATANABE Shunsuke, FUJIKAWA Takashi
Thanks to SEKI Manami
Equipment Support: ARTISTS’ GUILD
Support: istyle Art and Sports Foundation
Project to Support Emerging Media Arts Creators, 2018
Link to video documentation
https://vimeo.com/367716429/599d4b6dd4

Installation view at Windshield Time（scene from both “I am dancing,” and “I am waiting”）

Photo: KIDO Tamotsu

Photo: KIDO Tamotsu

Before the videos start to play, there is a video prologue by the artist in a separate location of the exhibition space.
Long ago, the word motoori, now extinct, used to be a synonym for mai,the Japanese word for the circular movement of “revolving.”
Wandering without purpose or moving sideways in search of a purpose.
Mai was born out of unconscious revolving movements.
In mai, words come before the movement.
It’s even said that mai is the state of inviting the gods.
An exhibition could also be called a mai of sorts,
as people wander around in search of art.
This is my attempt to invite the gods using the sideways movements and utterances of mai.

Photo: KIDO Tamotsu

You would come back there to see me again the following day.

Installation view of “Open Space 2016: Media Conscious” (2016) Photo: Tadasu Yamamoto

You would come back there to see me again the following day. is an installation work, total of
twelve frames are suspended from the ceiling. All frames are identical in terms of size andmaterial, but while some of them are empty, others have mirrors inside, and yet others are fittedwith screens. Visitors walking around in the exhibition space see at once reflections ofthemselves in the mirrors, video footage projected onto the screens, and parts of the room
through the empty frames. All of these impressions come together in their minds to create an
unexpected mix of pictures of themselves and others, forming a maze of optical illusions of sorts
for them to wander in.
Mirror is a motif with a long tradition also in the history of painting. Just like sceneries seen
through empty frames appear as if cut out from the “here and now,” filming with a photo or video
camera can be considered as an act of cutting out specific parts of reality.
TSUDA attempted at this kind of format several times. In this series, visitors move around freely
in the exhibition space, and thereby explore the process of how exactly the things they see arebeing projected, one screen contains an additional temporal element in the form of prerecorded
video footage.
This work won Tsuda the New Face Award of Art Division at The 20th Japan Media Art Festival.

Exhibition view at “Open Space 2016: Media Conscious” (2016) Photo: Tadasu Yamamoto

You would come back there to see me again the following day.
installation / 2016
Size: 19200 × 9600 × 5800 [mm]Material: Woods, Mirrors, Screens, Video cameras, Projectors, Lighting
Place: NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC], Tokyo
Link to video documentation
https://vimeo.com/182132070

You would come back there to see me again
tomorrow.
installation / 2013
Size: 8000 × 8000 × 5000(H) [mm]Material: Woods, Mirrors, Screens, Videocameras, Projectors, Lighting
Place: Bangkok Art and Culture Centre

Exhibition view of “MEDIA/ART KITCHEN” (2013)

The installation, You would come backthere to see me again the followingday., 2016, launches an ambitious
inquiry into the nature of privacy inmedia, but the true experience of thework is only possible throughmovement. Moving through the spaceamid Tsuda’ s suspended frames, theviewer simultaneously appears withinthem through the use of various media,
each of which adds a new effect to thesituation. Within the frames, the viewer
confronts their own reflection, either asa mirror as a projection from thesurveillance camera. While initially this
could serve as a surprise or anamusement to the viewer, they
eventually grow accustomed to theidea that they are in a zone of total
surveillance. It is in that moment that
their gaze might “slip” into theemptiness of the frames that do notreflect the viewer, but rather offer aview of what is behind them.
What emotions do we experience when
we feel a camera lens directed uponus? Even if it is filming us against ourwill, do we not still find ourselves
performing as an object, rather thantaking on the role as a subject ofsomeone else’ s attention? MichikoTsuda’ s practices suggest that ourperception of ourselves is blurred byour representation within media; but at
the same time, the media field, which
can appear as aggressive – the lurking
threat of a forest – is nothing more thanour own reflection. There is no single
interpretation for Tsuda’ s works,
however. Just as with the dark thicketsof the forest, the subject has two
options: to watch or to be watched.
Text by Alisa Bagdonayte

Exhibition view of “Observing Forest” (2017)
installation / 2017
Size: 18250 × 6950 × 4000(H) [mm]Place: zarya Contemporary Art Center, Vladivostok

Exhibition view of “Landscapes: New vision through multiple windows” (2017)
installation / 2017
Size: 10535 × 6350 × 3500(H) [mm]Place: Japan Creative Center, Singapore

TSUDA incorporates into her installation a seriesof silkscreen prints by Kumi Sugai (1919-96), twopaintings by the Gutai artist Saburo Murakami(1925-96), and one by his colleague in the group,
Kazuo Shiraga (1924-2008). Occupying half of
one of the two large galleries on the museum's
second floor, Tsuda's own work, You would comeback there to see me again the following day.,centers on several picture frames hanging fromthe ceiling in a seemingly haphazard formation.
Some of the frames are empty, while others
contain mirrors or screens that present us withprojections of ourselves from unexpected angles.
Gradually, it becomes clear that each of theframes has been carefully positioned to capture aparticular scene. Even the empty frames change
the atmosphere in the room by creating a sense of
distance between us and the things we see
through them. Regardless of where we look, thenine prints in Sugai's Architecture Series (1974)
are always visible. Inspired by the blur of colors
and shapes Sugai saw out the window of his
beloved Porsche while speeding down the
highway, the works depict snatches of clouds inthe blue sky and simple geometrical patterns. The
only frame from which Sugai is absent encloses avideo image of the opposite corner of the room,
where the Murakami and Shiraga pictures hang.
This footage, shot each day of the exhibition andscreened on the following one, adds anothertemporal dimension to the space. Tsuda also
provides a handout of "movement scores" for the
Gutai artists' works. Recalling diagrams of dance
steps, the scores are TSUDA's interpretations of
the speed and motion that went into making theworks. Murakami's paintings belong to a vertical
realm involving violent movements of the arm,
while Shiraga's picture, created by sliding his feetacross a canvas on the floor, embodies ahorizontal one.
(Christopher Stephens, “By the Numbers: A Trip
through Time and Space” artscape Japan. 4 Feb,2020
http://www.dnp.co.jp/artscape/eng/focus/2002_01.html )installation / 2019 Size: 17000 × 7200 × 5510 (H) [mm]Place: Ashiya City Museum of Art and History

Installation view at in number, new world photo: OMOTE Nobutada

She would come back there to see me again the following day.

Still cuts from videos
She would come back there to see me again the following day.
Dual Screen Video / 2014
She would come back there to see her again at the following day. #1: 3min35
She would come back there to see her again at the following day. #2: 5min04
Courtesy: TARO NASU, Tokyo
Performance: Kaori Ito

Installation view of Solo Show “The Day After Yesterday” (2015) Photo: Keizo Kioku

She would come back there to see her
again the following day. is a dual channel
video installation consists from twovideos shooting one performer fromdifferent positions, one is displayed as it
is and another is flipped horizontally andthose are juxtaposed side by side.
Quite a simple method with minimum
manupulation are directing to unreal world
and leading viewer to the crack of thereality.

Installation view of Solo Show “The Day After Yesterday” (2015) Photo: Keizo Kioku

Journey

Journey: Narita Photo courtesy: Tokyo Arts and SpaceTsuda Michickoʼs Journey, in collaboration with
Caroline Bernard（Lili range le chat), is acollection of 3D printed objects of airport
terminals from around the world. These
object-landscapes were produced based on data
generated from video of airport terminal spaces
captured while in motion on the transportescalator. These snapshots of airport terminals
as physical objects create an interesting kind ofrepresentation that stands in-between motion
and stasis, time and space, transience andpermanence as well as materiality andimmateriality.
In the words of the artists, “airport is a place
which is full and without holes where movement
is partitioned and calibrated byprocedures. ” These portrayals of airport
terminals in its fleeting state evokes the idea of“non-place,” a term coined and championed by
the French Anthropologist Marc Augé. In Augéʼsview, “ non-place” refers to spaces of transience（e.g. hotel rooms, shopping malls, airports etc.）
where humans traversed and yet did not develop
strong affinities and significance with.
“Non-place” is a kind of spatial or architectural
manifestation of super-modernity. Seeing fromthis light, Tsudaʼs objects are also lessdepictions of individual places. They emphasize
less on differences and specificity of places.
Rather, viewing together, the objects paint apanorama of a common super-structure, that is,a global intersection where millions ofanonymous individuals come and go on a daily
basis that are devoid of unique character andcultural specificity. The distorted and warped
shapes of the 3D models created a depth ofhollowness and spatial ambiguity, confronting
the audience with the cold reality of modern
everyday and its associated triviality. These
fuzzy object-landscapes of airport terminals are
abstracted and clinical views of modernity. They
offer a unique snapshot of modern life, frozen at
the moment when it was captured/buried much
like the historical site in Pompei where asedimentation force petrified the scene andpreserved it in history. (IP Yuk-Yiu)
Installation view at FALSE SPACES Photo courtesy: Tokyo Arts and SpaceJourney was created in 2013 as a result of collaborative project “Migratory Project” started in2009 with French artist Caroline Bernard. We speak to each other using English, which is asecond language for both of us, so we use images to help communicate more nuanced details
and we wove this into the piece. The collaborative production sometimes requires the use of
those places we know as airports, with countless rules and strict processes, and after going
through departure procedures there, you are left in a space which belongs to no country. We
created a 3D space based on travel shot footage taken from the perspective of things likemoving walkway handrails in this post-departure area of airports. It seems to work fine fromthe perspective of the camera, but when viewed from other perspectives it begins to resemble
something like a shattered space or fossil. We think that this is the most universal of all
spaces, transcending both nationality and time but at the same time it’s like a metaphor of theworld which is tightened by many rules and surveillance.

still of video from Journey: Narita

Journey
3D printed object, video / 2013 / 201912min
3D animation: Shota Yamauchi
3D Print Data Editing: Daisuke Ida
Production Cooperation: Stratasys Japan Co., Ltd.
Link to video sample
https://vimeo.com/364226610/

Journey: Chicago

still of video from Journey: Detroit

Journey: Madrid

Journey: Detroit Photo courtesy: Tokyo Arts and SpaceSCREEN BABY #2

Document photo of performance SCREEN BABY #2 photo by bozzo

A lecture performance referencing several distinctive scenes from OZU Yasujiro’ s films
Early Summer (1951), Tokyo Story (1953) and Tokyo Twilight (1957) to reenact and analyze
the body movements of the characters in simple form. From the unnatural but calculated
movements and gestures of the characters in the scenes, their genders and age groups aswell as their relationships within the family are read in a choreographic perspective,
analyzed and scored in search of new discoveries.

KAMIMURA reenacts a scene from Tokyo Story, ‘Noriko cries’ photo by bozzo

SCREEN BABY #2
performance / 2020
Duration: 75 min
Direction: babytooth [KAMIMURA Megumi, TSUDA Michiko]
Performance: KAMIMURA Megumi, TSUDA Michiko
Stage Assistant: FUJIKAWA Takashi
Stage Design: SASAKI Ayami
Camera: NAKAGAWA Shu
PR Design: MATSUMOTO Naoki
Talk: 1.24 Guest: SAKURAI Keisuke (Composer / Dance critic),
1.25 Guest: SHINODA Chiharu (Theater Director / Artist / Event Organizer)a scene from Tokyo Story, ‘Parents arrive’ photo by bozzo

Link to video documentation
https://vimeo.com/402118112

Reenacting a scene from Tokyo Story, ‘Tidying up’

photo by bozzo

steps

movements / broom

Step toward the right with the rightfoot and take two steps

About two sweeps for one spot

Step back and over the left foot withthe right foot and step to the left withthe left foot.
Take four diagonal steps to the backof the frame.
Stop.
Go out from the frame in five steps.

Stop the step
Little and quick movements

Score for a scene from Tokyo Story, ‘Tidying up’Tokyo Twilight, ‘Akiko passing out’

Reenacting a scene from Tokyo Twilight, ‘Akiko passing out’ photo by bozzo

NEWS

Photo: Kazuyuki MatsumotoNEWSperformance / 2018
Duration: 70 min
Direction and Performance: baby tooth[KAMIMURA Megumi, TSUDA Michiko]Place: SCOOL, Tokyo
Date: Feb 14-15, 2018
Organizer: Azumabashi Dance Crossing Committee
Grant: Arts Council Tokyo

Document photo of performance News at SCOOL, Tokyo Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

Tidings (2016) was an attempt to consider themechanism of theatrical performances. News has
slightly different meaning. Both word have same
meaning of “transmitting” but the first one include
the meaning of intuition or more little things andthe second one strongly include the meaning ofbroadcasting in public.
News deals with “media” as transmitting
the information such as newspaper, radio,
telephone and television. In the performance,
we perceive body as medium and examined theway of transmission of news, which would form
alternatively from the word of Marshall McLuhan“All media are extensions of some human facultypsychic or physical” .

Document photo of performance News at SCOOL, Tokyo Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

Document photo of performance News at SCOOL, Tokyo Photo: Kazuyuki MatsumotoLecture Performance for “You would come back there to see meagain the following day.” : Make a reservation seatLecture Performance for “You would comeback there to see me again the followingday.” : Make a reservation seat
performance / 2018
Duration: 60min
Direction / Performance: TSUDA Michiko,
FUKUTOME Mari
Place: Rohm Theater Kyoto（In exhibition“Media Arts Festival in Kyoto: GHOST”）
Date: January 28, 2018
Organizer: Agency of Cultural Affair

In the installation space of “You would come backthere to see me again the following day?,” thelecture performance include the lecture for seeing
this work and workshop to find each participant’s
own position. Participants put “footprint” on theposition on the floor as their reservation seat.
Performers go around the installation space
following those footprints.
Even though with same composition, exhibition
space strongly affect to the impression of
the work. If not only the suspended objects
are the artwork, where is the beginning of
the experience? The participant deepen theirunderstanding of the work in the process offinding their best viewpoint as their invisible
reservation seat.

A REVERSE VIEW

Photo: Mikuriya ShinichiroPerformance produced in conjunction with babytooth, a group comprising TSUDA Michiko(Gothe-Snape’s collaborator on several video works in the exhibition) and dancer Kamimura
Megumi. Based on MATERIALS FOR CIVIL TWILIGHT, A REVERSE VIEW took placeover the period from when the sun began to set until it disappeared completely. Kamimura
would repeat a particular choreography, while Gothe-Snape or Tsuda attempted to copy it.
The remaining person endeavored to describe in the first person all the phenomena taking
place with and around them as an individual (for example, “I am walking” or “I am opening
the curtain”), based on the fact that the Japanese term tasogaretoki (twilight) has its origins
in tasokare, meaning “Who is it?” On the chime, the pair switched roles, which then repeatedthree times. A “sun” carrying a speaker made a circuit of the gallery, and the performanceended with its final disappearance. (KUMAKURA Haruko）

A REVERSE VIEW
performance / 2017
Duration: 28 min
Direction and Performance: Agatha Gothe-Snape, babytooth[KAMIMURA Megumi, TSUDA Michiko]Place: In the space of solo exhibition of Agatha Gothe-Snape “OH, WINDOW,” MAM Project, Mori Art
Museum, Tokyo
Date: May 13, 2017
Link to video documentation
https://vimeo.com/259026763

Document photo of performance A Reverse View at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo Photo: Mikuriya Shinichiro

A REVERSE VIEW 2017

Agatha Gothe-Snape and baby tooth (MichikoTsuda and Megumi Kamimura)
Saturday 13th May 2017
HORIZONEVERY SINGLE TH
ING FROM OUTSIDEOPENS CURTAINS
UMI
PRE
TEN
ME
DS T
GU
O CL
MI P
OSE
RET
ME
CUR
GU
END
TAIN
MI
S
S
T
PR
OO
ET
PEN
EN
CUR
DS
TAI
TO
NS
CL
OS
EC
UR
TA
INS

MEG

I AM-ING
TIME-KEEPERNO POEMNO NOSTALGIANO ROMANCENO NARRATIVEDAN DAN DAN-ING
BLOWING HAIRLEARNING
OBSERVING

THE PARAMETRES

0º

THE THINGS

THE PEOPLE

1º
DANCE OF WHO ARE YOU?

I AM-INGDANDANDANING
DAN
CE
OF
WH
OA
RE
YOU
?
I AM
DA
-IN
G
ND
AN
DA
N-I
NG

A REVERSE VIEWA REVERSE VIEW

6º

SUN EXITS

18:37

TALKING SUN MOVES AROUND PERIMETRE OF ROOMMEGUMILOOKING IN

19:08

Score of performance A Reverse View at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo

Document photo of performance A Reverse View at Mori Art Museum, Tokyo Photo: Mikuriya Shinichiro

Screen Baby

Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

Screen Baby is a lecture-performance thatexamines how the body movements create astory. By analyzing carefully the movements ofcharacters in several OZU Yasujiro films: Tokyo
Story, An Autumn Afternoon, and Akibiyori andmakes a score of them.
babytooth perceive the movements of thecharacters as choreography, make the score ofthose, reenact, and film those.

Document photo of performance Screen Baby, reenacting a scene: Eating Ramen in Akibiyori (1960) Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

Screen Baby
performance / 2017
Duration : 60 min
Concept / Direction: babytooth[Megumi Kamimura, Michiko Tsuda]
Performance: baby tooth[KAMIMURA Megumi, TSUDA Michiko], FUJIKAWA
TakashiPlace: SCOOL, Tokyo
Date: April 28, 2017

Left: Still from a scene: Eating Ramen in Akibiyori (1960), Right: Reenactment of the performanceLeft: Stillcut from scene of an apartment in An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujiro OZU, 1962), Right: Representation in the performance
Filming two performers' representation of movement of the actor
and the actress separately. And layering those two footage.

Stillcut from a scene in an apartment in An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujiro OZU, 1962)

Representation of a scene in an apartment in An Autumn Afternoon (Yasujiro OZU, 1962)
using cut board and woods

Document photo of performance Screen Baby Photo: Kazuyuki MatsumotoRepresenting a scene in an apartment in An
Autumn Afternoon (Yasujiro OZU, 1960) andfilming it from the alternative viewpoint todocument their movement. After shooting withperformer, cameraman represent the same
movement of camera with the sound of film but
without performer. It was for examining whether
the story can be told without actor and actress.

Document photo of performance Screen Baby, from reenactment of a scene at an apartment in An Autumn Afternoon (Y1962) and filming from alternative viewpoint Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

Tidings #2

Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

Tidings #2
performance / 2017
Duration : 75 minConcept / Direction: baby tooth[KAMIMURA Megumi, TSUDA Michiko]
Performance: KAMIMURA Megumi, TSUDA Michiko, YAMAGATA Ikuhiro
Place: ST Spot Yokohama
Date: February 10-13, 2017
Production: ST Spot
Flyer Design: MATSUMOTO Naoki
Link to video documentation
https://vimeo.com/229737310

Document photo of performance Tidings #2 at ST Spot, Yokohama Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

Tidings #2 is a form of discipline by which we attempt to record and playback aura andatmosphere by regarding people, things and space as recording media.
When recording sounds or images, media such as tapes or memories are physically affected.
If the media are played by appropriate devices, the sounds or images are reproduced as they
were actually experienced. However, unintentionally recorded materials can be also played if
the media are played by inappropriate system. Those accidental sounds or images may not
be just noises or errors, but may be inaudible or invisible objects.
1. Spirit of language
A discipline to give physical power to words.
2. Trace
A discipline to read traces left by others.
3. Telephone
A discipline to listen to voices of objects and to have conversations with them.
4. Separating voice
A discipline to visualize possibilities.
5. Selfie
A discipline to eliminate self-consciousness.

Document photo of performance Tidings #2 from a scene of ‘Spirit of Language’ Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

6. Palm reading
A discipline to integrate a story from fragmented things.
7. Sending Wish
A discipline to see the past and the future, while seeing the present.

Document photo of performance Tidings #2 from a scene of ‘Trace’ Photo: Kazuyuki MatsumotoIn fortune telling, a fortune teller integrates several fragmented
information such as consulter's worries, his appearance andvoice, and the palm or constellation, to tell a story which gives
answers to the consulter.
If such a technique is developed, the fortune teller must be able
to read from anything.
In the performance, the consulter's palm is projected on a whiteboard, and the fortune teller reads that. In the middle of theprocess, the palm is replaced by a newspaper, but the fortune
teller continues reading.

Document photo of performance Tidings #2 from a scene of ‘Separating Voice’
Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

Document photo of performance Tidings #2 from a scene of ‘Palm Reading’ Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

Tidings

Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

Tidings
performance / 2016
Duration : 60 min
Direction and Performance : KAMIMURA Megumi, TSUDA Michiko
Place : Morishita Studio, Tokyo
Date : Mar 4, 2016
Production : Azumabashi Dance Crossing Committee
Link to video documentation
https://vimeo.com/184656340

Document photo of performance Tidings at Morishita Studio, Tokyo Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumoto

Tidings is an attempt by KAMIMURA Megumi(choreographer) and TSUDA Michiko (visual
artist) to consider the mechanism of theatricalperformances.
In theater, performers pretend to do something
as someone (something) else, and the audience
watches those acts or events. Both of themunderstand that the performances are "lies",
but they nonetheless believe in them. Suchcomplicities make the theatrical performances
function properly.
In this piece, two performers continue a dialogue
to examine and reconstruct the elements oftheatrical experience/performance, and the rules
which are shared almost unconsciously.

Document photo of performance Tidings at Morishita Studio, Tokyo Photo: Kazuyuki Matsumotoz = a + z i — corridor

Michiko Tsuda explores ‘haptic vision,’ and what might be called in art historic terms, ‘optic
vision,’ to which she adds explorations of illusion: optical and virtual. She uses meta-framing
devices, elaborate constructions of frames-within-frames, to explore perception and the gaze.
Tsuda brings her training in mathematical abstraction and engineering, to bear on digital
optical works of trompe l’oeil, or fooling the eye. Her work is encountered most thoroughly
when it is activated by people, and she often invites dancers into her installed environments.
Tsuda is often commissioned to “configure” her environments as sets for theatre, and isinterested in concepts of theatricality, optical distance, and staging. She expressed
descriptions of staging in “formulate” ; as expressed in the present work’s title.
Text by Zasha Colar, curator of “kyoto casual”

Installation view of “kyoto casual”

z = a + zi — corridor
installation / 2015
Material : Frame, mirror, LCD monitor, lamp
Place : The Japan Foundation in New Delhi
Exhibition : Kyoto CasualReward: installation

A still camera is found in the woods in Grenoble, France with a memory card full of pictures of
persons unknown. By deduction, it would seem that those photos are shot in the family event
such as camping, birthday party and music concert. They were so attractive to me.
Trying an investigation to trace them, from Japan, by exploring the Grenoble area with theGoogle Street View. The discovered photographs are of a family with two small children that
regularly meets up with the same group of friends. The investigation in Street View enabledcertain places present in the pictures to be accurately identified, from the shape of amountain behind the concert, the holidays or the baker’s shop in Sciez, Grenoble and
Aix-Les-Bains. The photographs are combined with screen captures taken in Street View infunction of their similarities and closeness: a girl in black is celebrating on her birthday, a girlin black in a parking lot. A party in a suburban home, a swimming pool in a suburban home.
The images brought together in this way seem to come from a single source.
Even those are came from a source which has opposite direction: one from “private” andanother from the all-knowing proposition of Street View open to the Internet “public” space.
The people and places taken in Street View melt into the family pictures as continuous event.

reward: installation
installation / 2015
Size : 2.2 x 2.5 x 3.9 m (variable)
Place : TARO NASU, Tokyo

Installation view of “The Day After Yesterday”

Photographs show you images

Installation view of “Photographs show you images” Photo : KIOKU Keizo

extrasInstallation view of “railroad siding” (2015) Photo: Ken Kato

"Photographs show you images" is an English translation from the Japanese title which is asentence often found on packaging - "Photographs for reference only." However, in adifferent context, such a phrase has multiple meanings.
I asked a Japanese-English translator to translate this Japanese sentence to English
several times. Each translation has a different meaning: One translation is regarding"photograph" as object; one is an instruction for a specific photograph; another describesthe "photograph" as a medium and another is a grammatically direct translation.
These sentences appear as wall text accompanying five pairs of images printed alongsideeach other. Each image was sourced from a roll of 35mm half film I was given by an
acquaintance whilst travelling. These phrases also appear as a series of simply designed
slides looping on a monitor nearby.

Photographs show you images
installation / 2016
Materials : Inkjet print, LCD monitor,
filmcase, texts
Place : taïmatz

extra
installatiaon / 2015
Materials: Projectors, screens, backdrop stand,microphone stand, lighting equipment, etc.
Exhibition : railroad siding 2015, Tokorozawa

extra is an installation consists of two screenssettled face to face. On a screen, a video
shooting the other screen is projected and viceversa. In the video, TSUDA is setting up thosescreens on which projecting the texts about the
space and time. Viewers see a visual image ofthe other screen on a screen. In the room, thelightings are turned on that viewers can see theoutside of the screens. Viewers see projected
images and real space alternately, this simple
setting blurs the boundary of the screens.

jet lag

Disposition of Apparatus— TableDesk

Installation view at “jet lag”

“jet lag” is a project explores the new forms offilm with simple principle of moving image.
Tsuda visited in Slovak museums andresearched the way of showing the exhibits.
The way of showing the exhibits is creating a
way how the story will be understood. Using
one footage filmed in museum with different
order of editing and creating two different
stories. Same as if visitors see the exhibits inthe museums and “edit” the information in
their mind, sometimes misread or
misunderstand the images.

jet lag
two channel video installation / 2012
Duration : 11min30
Materials : projectors, desk and table
Place : K.A.I.R., Kosice

Document photo of “Disposition of Apparatus” (2015) Photo: MIYAZAWA Hibiki

Disposition of Apparatus — TableDesk isa performance using two divided rooms thatconnect via cable from the camera to an
LCD monitor and projector. Audiences stayin one room with a monitor settled
horizontally on the table which is displaying
a real-time image from a camera settled ona desk in the other room which TSUDA sits
in front of. Audiences can put objects, food,and write on the transparent sheet laid out
on the LCD monitor. Another camera
captures what is happening on the LCD
monitor. It includes objects and illustrations
and the camera connects to a projector in
TSUDA’s room.
Disposition of Apparatus — TableDesk
performance / 2015
Duration : 2 hours (variable)
Materials : Two rooms, Desk, Table, Video camera, Projector,
LCD monitor, Foods, Paper, Pen, Objects on the desk and table
Place : blanClass, Yokohama

Reward: installation

HeavenHell and Happy world

Installation view at “story on story” (2012) Photo:Ryuichi Maruo

By observing some sites and some people inthe city Busan, I cannot avoid my visitor'sview. It’ s quite similar landscapes to Japan at
a glance, but if I look carefully it has manydifferent aspects. Those differences of reality
are like looking into mirrors.
The research was for looking for somemechanism of the site. Then, there I findsome typical attitudes of the people which arecaused by the physical or social regulations of
the site. Some sites have very similar shapeand visual elements but the people there does
totally different movement of the body. To
strengthen the contrast of them, I conducted aperformative actions; copying the body
movement from one site, and applying it to adifferent site which has similar mechanism.
To visit the mutual sites through thelooking-glass makes a crack in each space.
A VISITOR FROM LOOKING-GLASS
video / 2011
Duration : 09'05
Production : Space Bandee, Busan

Tsuda developed her idea with an inspirationfrom a “mirror” and worked on her project withthree pairs of twins, who give an impression of
mirrored-double-individuals. As a hypothesis in
Jacques Lacan’s “Stade du miroir” suggested,
there has been an argument of a potential
influence on our perceptions by the image of
oneself reflecting on mirrors in the procces ofself-formation. It is not myself, not others, notparents or siblings, she presented an installation
with videos showing the presence of the twins as
doubled-individuals reflected on mirrors inmirrored room, which confuses the audience toidentify which is which.
stills from “A Visitor from Looking-Glass”

Text: TSUKADA Junko, curator of “story on
story”

HeavenHell and Happy World
video /2012
2'44
Production in Akiyoshidai International Art Village

Installation view at “story on story” (2012)

Occupants and Kingin the Configuration Forest

The body of work titled Occupants and King in the Configuration Forest gives multiple
perspectives on what appears to be a complex spatial relationship. The work consists of an
installation and a screening of four video pieces, each titled "Arrangement of a Room,""Defective Formal Logic #01," "Defective Formal Logic #02," and "A Note about the Daily
Work in the Forest," which are shot in the same installation space. This installation, or the‘film set,’ is comprised of minimal, wooden structures - two frames, three frames with walls,
and two frames with mirrors – all in the same size and are movable with casters.
At the first glance, the audiences may have difficulty comprehending the exact spatialconfiguration. For example, it is difficult to distinguish the mirrors from the frames. Only bymoving and interacting, the audiences are able to understand what they thought as a mirror
turns to be just the frame, and vice versa. The television monitors connected to the video
camera are also fragmenting their perception.
As the title suggests, the work plays on the interchangeability of viewpoints. Through theaudiences’ movement and the performers in the video, such differences in experience areanalogous to being both ‘occupants’ and ‘king.’ This work is an attempt to highlight aninevitable power struggle that underlies within the principle of moving image: a complex
and simple relationship between the subjects, the camera, the photographer, and theviewer.

The act of changing the arrangement of the attractive space led to various unexpected
situations and created a variety in space arrangement that happened only then and there for a
moment, caused by subtle differences between the two performers’ movements or the anglesof the equipments’ positions. And Tsuda’s careful act of recording this event by video camera
is an attempt to explore and document a structure that video imagery cannot evade.
Considering that Tsuda’s camera basically followed the performers’ behaviors all the time, thevideo is a record of the performance. However, the performance was choreographed by theartist and took place in a set installed by the artist as an attempt to perceive a fictional space
where the real and the virtual are crossing each other. Thus, by recording the performance,
Tsuda probably intended to document the temporal space and its variable structure and depththat emerge only in video imagery.
Text: HATTORI Hiroyuki

Occupants and King in the Configuration Forest
video and installation / 2010
Size: 8000 × 6000 × 6000 [mm]Material: Woods, Mirrors, TVs, Video cameras, Lighting
Place: Aomori Contemporary Art Centre, Aomori
Exhibition view of “Bikkuri!” (2010) Photo: YAMAMOTO Tadasu

Link to video sample
https://vimeo.com/michikotsuda/configurationforest

Yeu & Mo

still from Arrangement of Lines #02
Yeu & Mo is a series of video works shot in a specific situation. The set for shooting is installed
symmetric. Some vertical mirrors are placed in the center of the room, and a video camera faces tothe reflection of those mirrors.
The reflected objects on the mirrors and the objects behind the mirrors are optically merged in thecamera view. This description takes an example of the situation when two people stand at before
and behind of the mirrors.
In the case of the person at backside of the mirrors, some parts of the body get behind. On the other
hand, body parts of the person in front of the mirrors are reflected on the mirrors. When it happensat the same time, bodies of those people are combined together in the camera view. Those bodies
are directed to form one figure carefully in the image.
When the camera looks at the mirror, a video camera is reflected in the mirror instead of theviewers. Seeing the images from the camera, which is facing to the mirror, would refer to what isseeing.

Yeu & Mo
video / 2007-2009
strip 1:16 min, color, sound, 2007
glass 0:38 min, color, sound, 2007
family 1:09 min, color, soundperformance : Masa Sano, Noriko Tsuda, Hotaru Tsuda, Michiko Tsuda, 2007
here there 0:57 min, color, sound, 2007
Arrangement of Boxes, 8:40 min, color, sound, performance : Kazue Ikeda, Michiko Abe, 2007
Arrangement of Lines #01, 4:46 min, color, soundperformance : Miwako Takano, Hinako Matsumoto, 2008
Arrangement of Lines #02, 4:56 min, color, sound, performance : Aya Irizuki, 2009

still from Arrangement of Boxes

Link to video sample
https://vimeo.com/michikotsuda/ymTsuda focuses on creative work based on the characteristics of the video. The realizationof her works involves spatial choreography and collaborations with performers. Her works
represent a unique special expansion and poetic richness and take a variety of forms suchas installation, video, and performance. In recent years, she also does performance as aunit "babytooth" with Megumi Kamimura. Her installation work “You would come back there
to see me again the following day." has received the New Face Award at the 20th JapanMedia Arts Festival in 2017. Exhibitions include the solo show "Observing Forest" (zarya
contemporary art center, Vladivostok, 2017), "The Day After Yesterday" (TARO NASU,
Tokyo, 2015), and the group exhibition "Aichi Triennale 2019", "Roppongi Crossing 2019:
Connexions" (Mori Art Museum, Tokyo, 2019). She completed a Doctoral Program in Filmand New Media Studies at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo Universityof the Arts, in 2013, and received a grant from the Asian Cultural Council(ACC) for a
6-month residency in New York in 2019.

© Michiko TSUDA, 2020