Two human figures appear in front of what looks like a white canvas. They begin to fill the empty space by drawing with paint brushes, as if making a painting. Little by little, the space transforms into the interior of a room. The technology that is used for synthesizing video images in this work is called “chroma key.” So, do the artists use brushes and technology for exposing a hidden scenery that has been there from the beginning? Or are these two people creating an entirely new one?
The artists ASAO Reiko and MIYAZAKI Hiroki, together operating as the duo “couch,” engage in the creation of works and projects that explore the primordial and experiential aspects of making things.
Their installations and video works are based on realistic backgrounds related to artistic technique, computing theory, fables and other narratives. The duo employ technical methods that incorporate uniquely critical viewpoints, and introduce manual operations into their trompe l’oeil-like installations and electronically generated imagery.
“Nevermore” is a work in which the artists used paint brushes and “chroma key” image synthesizing technology, to depict a life-sized, ordinary kind of scenery that gradually (re-)appears out of a white canvas.
Supported by: Toshiaki Ogasawara Memorial Foundation, Public Resources Foundation, Yokohama Arts Foundation
タイトルの《寓話の寓話（A Fable of a fable）》には，「始まりも終わりもなく常に過程であり，構造全体の中心もなく，果てしないひろがりをもったひとつのものがたりを写し取ろうとした、あるひとつの小さくて私的な試み」という意味が込められています．
助成：公益財団法人小笠原敏晶記念財団
“A Fable of a fable “Black-tailed gull’” 2022
This is a kinetic installation that tells a story by way of slit animation, a technique of animating images by moving striped transparent sheets across them. Six slit screens slowly move on rails. Each time they pass in front of a drawing, that drawing is animated to unfold in a number of different scenes. The moving images may seem unrelated to each other, but together they tell one narrative of black-tailed gulls that has no beginning and no end, so it doesn’t matter at what point one starts looking at them.
“A Fable of a fable” is a kinetic installation that tells a story by way of slit animation. It consists of a number of drawings, and several slit screens on rails. When the screens slowly pass in front of a drawing, several images unfold across different temporal and spatial settings. All images, however, are connected to tell a narrative about black-tailed gulls that has no beginning and no end.
The title “A Fable of a fable” reflects the idea of the work as a “a small, personal attempt to capture a narrative that is always in process with no beginning and no end, and with a structure that expands endlessly and without a center.”
Supported by: Toshiaki Ogasawara Memorial Foundation
