Surface Between Meaning
artists residency
Exhibition,installation and concert performance.
"Surface Between Meaning" was an exhibition created during a one month residency at Todohyo, Toyooka, Hyogo prefecture, Japan. Explored here, were architectural interactions, local archives, sound, adaptations and transformations of materials with media such as ink, pencil, paper, photography, video, found objects, as well as generating site specific installations and sculpture.
alpha_alpha created 2 distinct works in 2 separate and very different spaces in the architecturally significant building with a 100 year history called, Todohyo. This manifested with found objects, readymades, archival images, location recordings.
Within another room, chosen carefully for its atmosphere and a historical architectural contradiction – that of a European truss roof structure assembled around and on the post and beam construction of traditional Japanese construction methods – we developed a spatial intervention.
Here, we sat with the space for some time. It slowly revealed to us certain surface qualities and construction details. We brought attention to the truss roof system with a spatial intervention of a 30 metre paper scroll. The paper scroll being chosen for its frameless qualities, (affordable and available from a local stationery shop) also for its length. It was draped over the truss beams at three positions and plunged towards the floor surface. Mark making played an important role... the scroll was taken to various parts of the house. There the surfaces, textures of the buildings materials were rendered visible through charcoal, lead and pastel.
The observations of the historical building and our appreciation for place-related encounters slowly revealed that the surfaces are significant to how they create an atmosphere. Surfaces that also enabled a soft acoustic warmth in the room. Over the course of the residency the 30 metre scroll was developed into what became as much a durational work as it was a spatial intervention. A daily ritual of creating new markings on paper.
The duo developed a series of frames to view and capture moments in – to create a device that changes a surfaces meaning. Those were made in card template form as a way to create a hard edged boundary for soft mark making materials such as charcoal.
Those templates were inspired by local architectural details, the Tajima regions landscape as well as particularities or quirks from from the house itself.
The duo developed a series of frames to view and capture moments in – to create a device that changes a surfaces meaning. Those were made in card template form as a way to create a hard edged boundary for soft mark making materials such as charcoal.
Those templates were inspired by local architectural details, the Tajima regions landscape as well as particularities or quirks from from the house itself.
A vertical assemblage that was titled ‘Time Totem’ encapsulated the artist's approach to location, readymades, accumulated information, legacy technologies and systems, architecture and history. Here, found objects from the significant and architecturally listed house are stacked by the date of their fabrication...vertical layers of time. Beginning with the eldest (Samurai box) at the base..