Statement (English)

Theory of Everything: Video Art from Tokyo
selected & mixed by Yuki Okumura　

Screening dates & venues
1. Workstation Arts Center, Beijing
February 18th, 2006 14:00 - 17:00

2. Location One, NY
June 21st, 2006 20:00 - 21:00

3. Einstain Auditorium, New York University, NY
July 31st, 2006 16:30 - 17:30

4. Asian Cultural Council Office, NY
August 15th, 2006 16:30 - 17:30


see some of the videos online => here.

THE ARTISTS:

Taro IZUMI
Hiroaki MORITA
Daisuke NAGATSUKA
Daisuke NOSE
Yuki OKUMURA 　
Ken SASAKI 　　
Koki TANAKA (only till the 4th screening)
Mai YAMASHITA + Naoto KOBAYASHI
Naho YOKOYA

A “Theory of Everything” is a theory that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena. Briefly speaking, a TOE is a single theory that somehow merges the general relativity theory, which introduced the new conception of space and time, with the quantum theory, which introduced the new conception of the relationship between the observer and the observed (that is why one of the proposed TOEs is called the quantum theory of gravity). There have been numerous theories of everything advocated by theoretical physicists around the world, such as the string theory or the loop quantum gravity theory, but none has been able to stand up.

Just like physicists, the Japanese video artists introduced in this video-screening program work with the fundamental question: “what is the world?” or “what is the universe?” While physicists studies on particles that natural human eye can never grasp, in mathematics that is a purely theoretical realm, or on the begging and the ending of the universe in terms of both space and time ? all based on trans-humanity and non-everyday life, the artists produce “small events” in everyday life to elicit how (the laws of) the universe is strange, mysterious and unrealistic, probably much more than any sci-fi movie.

In order to do so, using the video should be the most appropriate way. In the video, a kind of microcosm where everything is regulated within one frame and one linear time, by “editing” the space and time everyone can produce a phenomenon that cannot happen in the real world. Therefore, five dice shows the same spots every time they are thrown (Mai Yamashita + Naoto Kobayashi’s “miracle”), one same sneaker tumbles down the stairs one after another (Koki Tanaka’s “Sneakers”), a yellow balloon moves from one place to another instantaneously as so-called teleportation (Yuki Okumura’s “Transfer”), a normal hotel room is converted into the inside of a train (Naho Yokoya’s “Me Living in the Real and Me Not”), and a baseball bat keeps running with its head chafing against the ground (Ken Sasaki’s “Bat”).

Not trying to get an objective answer of the “Theory of Everything”, but trying to project a new sightline towards the physical phenomena based on the “Theory of Everything”, the artists make “studies” from purely subjective perspective.


Yuki Okumura