Afterword

Index

B.O.D.Y. - Performance „trace“, Galerie Wedding, Berlin, Erika Matsunami, 2012

Link to video

The “B.O.D.Y.” consists of pictures and recorded sounds of different people, nationalities, gender and age groups, as well as a part of myself.

My audiovisual concept on the subject of the body comprises both feelings of closeness and distance.
I try to create a virtual world of sensitive touch which interacts with the shared senses of others.

The project ”B.O.D.Y“ 2000-2009

The performance project “sensation of motion in time” began in the year 2000 with two actresses from Theater Thikwa, a Berlin-based theatre project by actors with and without disabilities. It was originally conceived as a performance and video installation on the subject of “time, space and bodies”, which was presented at the “touch” exhibition held at the Künstler Bahnhof Westend by the Karl-Hof society. Both of the actresses I worked with back then suffered from spastic paralysis. Later in 2003, I worked with two other actresses from the same theatre on my performance project “sensation of motion in time#2”, which was presented within the scope of the exhibition “(in-)perfekte Menschen” (literally: (im)perfect people) at the Martin-Gropius-Bau museum in Berlin.

The visual piece “body landscape” evolved at the time of this second performance in 2003, when I started taking microcosmic shots of body parts and skin. I was reflecting on nature, ultimately comparing it with social beauty criteria. In their natural environment, trees and plants have their own forms and do not underlie any fixed norms when it comes to how they look. Looking to the landscape, it became clear to me back then what life means. With the microcosmic photos of body parts in the work “Landschaft (landscape) des Körpers (body)”, I examined issues of identity, gender, beauty ideals and body consciousness.
Up until today, I continually turn to the subject of “time, space and bodies” in my work, using this theme in various media such as photography, video and sound art, performances and mix-media installations. In doing so, I deal with the transformation of thoughts and feelings, as well as the creation of conceptional content.

The wall installation “B.O.D.Y.” consists of a series of 20 fine art archival prints sealed with Fotosec and presented in a 20 x 100 cm space, as well as seven different sounds which can be heard through binaural haedphones and consist of recordings of people of different nationalities, gender and age groups. The 20 photos of different human bodies have been hung next to each other at 10–25 cm intervals, arranged from light to dark or dark to light gradients (there is no beginning or end of an image). In addition, seven sounds which individual guests can listen to through binaural haedphones (individual hearing in the closed system) supplement these images. Physical sensitivity is intensified together with the dual intimacy of the acoustic setting – a physically “attached” way of listening through binaural headphones where synthesised sound with an “intestinal” imagination evokes the function of internal organs (the steady rhythm of a heartbeat, breathing and the tentative sounds of organs). The intensity in both the audible range and field of view stimulate the onlookers’ imaginations, which in turn leads to a sensitisation for the otherwise invisible details of living bodies. This wall installation was created with a collage technique and the audio is based on the Surrealist method of dépaysement. The effect of the installation is intensified by the sounds, which, as a sensual audible expression, are completely devoted to the audience and allow onlookers to ultimately make their own free associations with the images.
The gradient from light to dark or vice-versa is a metaphor for “time, space and bodies” in nature, for life and for death.

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Digitalization from analogue photography

Please select a number and click it.

And please listen on headphones

Dimensions: 590-875 (variable) x100 cm, 7 x sounds (7 x MP3 player + binaural headphones)

Installation “B.O.D.Y.” consists of photography and sound (sonic and music) composition of and for different people, nationalities, gender and age groups, as well as a part of myself.

 

My audiovisual concept on the subject of the body comprises both feelings of closeness and distance.

I try to create a virtual world of sensitive touch which interacts with the shared senses of others.

My study in visual art, sound (sonic and music) composition and sculpture + improvisation based performance.

- visual art in photography in the topic of closeness and distance (photographic technique: ratio, reflection in light - the object and its event which phenomenon is relationship and emotion (person and body in an environment))

- sonic (music) composition in the topic of closeness and distance (sound recording technique: ratio, reflection in sound - sound object and its wave and space as well as the environment (object and environment)), the object and its event which phenomenon is relationship and emotion (person and body in an environment))

- sculpture in the topic of narrativity of time and space (relief)

Photography and sound (sonic and music) composition both are based on 'recording' materials. (from the real space and its reality)

Thereby the question is, what is 'recording'? How I organised the recording itself and the recording materials for the visual and sound (sonic and music) composition.


-> I explore them in terms of aesthetics practically and theoretically

Evenif in art and science, art must be 'perceptional' and 'cognitive'.

Art object (including painting) has no function, therefore 'something' is an artwork.

B.O.D.Y. - Performance „Minotauros“, Frauenmuseum Bonn, Erika Matsunami, 2011

B.O.D.Y. - 7 x Sound (electro-acoustic Sound)

Thank you for UNI-K, UdK Berlin under the direction of Prof. Dr Supper Martin, Sound Studio, Niklas Schmincke, Studio P4, Funkhaus, Berlin, 2010.


A new sound system is planned for the future presentation. The original compositional concept is retained.



-> Transformation into 'something', is x

-> Transformation into 'something', is x

Installation B.O.D.Y. is unique, due to the burglary in my atelier in Berlin in 2014, a part of the original film was stolen. There is only one, I cannot produce from the original. Another way of digitalised manufacture is the copy from the aspect of the materiality and from the reason of its authenticity in art i.e. 'unrepeatable'. But I mention that 'uniqueness' of B.O.D.Y. that refers to people in this project, that matter of art and event are 'unrepeatable'. Therewith my question is 'What is uniqueness in art?', this question to me the same level of the question 'What is art?'.

There is a regulated norm between painting and photography for the aesthetic judgment of the authenticity of the artwork, especially in originality. From this aspect, the photography can be distributed the 'many (a large number of)' original prints and is cheaper than the painting for everyone to share. (I mention that photography will overcome the painting.)

For this reason, contemporary art, even if the painting (with the help of the robotic arm) of Joseph Nechvatal, who is an artist and composer from the later 20th century to the 21st century, is not high art (his most known as the artwork is his poem and composition more than his painting with help of the robotic arm. his painting with the help of the robotic arm is in terms of phenomenology towards art philosophy contemporary. -> Wittgenstein, Wohllheim, Danto), however, I appreciate his artwork at the (post-) conceptual level towards 'oneceness'.


Digital programmed NFT art is an interesting new art medium, that addresses logic as an artwork. However, from the ecological perspective, there are still many issues for the generality. i.e. energy consumption and environmental pollution

We do not know yet, how that ecological and economic dynamic with regard to the social system would be solved by the development of technology.
For example, how a system with quantum computing will be developed.


 


Digitalization and Digital humanity in artistic formalism, Erika Matsunami:


I explored B.O.D.Y. (2010) between 2000–2010 before starting academic discourse on digital humanities.
This installation is the conclusion of my exploration 10 years long. (...)

My question at that time was, how can technology shape and formalise a person's history and life as well as personality?

One is DNA, as a blueprint of a person. It is eternity and our life, that will be protected in the environment, but how it will be protected?

It gives us a new consideration of identity. If it works in a positive way, which does not belong in capitalism. It will maybe lose racism, sexism as well as gender difference and their conflict in society. In the economic system, it should be transcendency. If it won't transcendency and anarchy, then it will maybe start the dictatorship again, such as in the modern imperialism era.

Perhaps, in the 22nd century, 100 years from now, our thoughts about something will be completely different.

In 2022, after B.O.D.Y., my recent artistic research and project Stillleben/Still life address biology and ecology (life science) towards posthumanism from the critical aspect, it started artistic research and project a.o.i. - lasting memories in Winter 2021. (in other words, not digital humanities, but rather life science should be advanced more than digital humanities, that is my way of artistic research.)

(In 2022, I started to work on B.O.D.Y. for the catalogue.)

 

Humanity

My artistic practice in sculpture is 'relief' of its spatiality and narrativity in connection with materiality rather than as the symbolism in the post-conceptual era. It is something, MA (間) as a transmedia between Relief and Byōbu.

Something x in art and humanities:

Artistic research Untitled*

--> Wittgenstein, Wohllheim, Danto, and so on

On minority and majority in a society


When extreme categorization occurs in society, by which norm of


----


Extreme categorization is a “one and only” category with no overlapped. In Germany, it calls 'pure' - unmixed


Take for example the dark gallery in Copenhagen where will be represented my artwork in photography; only analogue photography, but it is in the sense of large scale (kind), and it does not mean the photographic category by Dark gallery.
The final artwork in analogue photography must be Silver Gelatine Prints (not prints art, only in photography) for the gallery collection. For the representation, I can do everything, but it must be in photography. They are not dogmatic, and rather unconventional. Thereby, the artistic approach is possible to create very widely. – a narrow focusing on the subject

(Artwork is a contribution, not a commodity. But it is possible to produce goods from the artwork.)


Their concept is based epistemologically and in terms of anti-realism such as danish philosophy in humanities and arts. In Germany, it would be rather comprehended in the context of Kant, and many others.

-> Thereby, my suggestion for this question, one is the exploration of the methodological manner./Dabei ist mein Vorschlag für diese Fragestellung die Erforschung der methodischen Vorgehensweise.

That is the artistic approach on and towards subject.

What is a punctum Roland Barthes?
But what was unique to the photograph, according to Barthes, was its punctum, which he defined as the sensory, intensely subjective effect of a photograph on the viewer: 'The punctum of a photograph is that accident which pricks me (but also bruises me, is poignant to me).

Nanay's approach "Distributed attention" in Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception, Bence Nanay, OUP 2016

Camera Lucida: Reflections on photography, Roland Barthes, 1980

"In a deeply personal discussion of the lasting emotional effect of certain photographs, Barthes considers photography as a symbolic, irreducible to the codes of language or culture, acting on the body as much as on the mind. The book develops the twin concepts of studium and punctum: studium denoting the cultural, linguistic, and political interpretation of a photograph, punctum denotes the wounding, personally touching detail which establishes a direct relationship with the object or person within it."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Camera_Lucida_(book)


Camera Lucida: Reflections on photography, Roland Barthes, 1980, this book by Roland Barthes is what drew me most to photography as an art medium, and that's why I never thought of becoming an industrial professional photographer. (It was in the 1980S. Generally, in the Western, photography was a luxus hobby, It was necessary to take time, with higher motivation, and studying photography it was through photochemistry and optic mechanically was the same as painting and sculpture.– a high-valued art) Because photography is 'Ereignis' through the reflection of the light towards the objects dynamically, its speed of light, time and space, the atmosphere in the environment, and randomness are 'Ereignis' on film, is not the evidence of the fact.
Even if the medical examination is through photographic technology, that is for the observational document and there is a specific methodology in each context, not the evidence, but rather a specific methodology is explored in the medical study.

For example, X-ray pictures also have shadows on the chest. What is that? It was a way to confirm by combining with other medical examinations. 


 



 

'Uniqueness' as the aesthetic domain in terms of Kant's theory of judgment is also the same as the relationship of X and Y, changing together with our knowledge and awareness.

I see the artistic approach as a domain of aesthetic value more than from the aesthetic experience through seeing the side.


Ich verstehe die künstlerische Herangehensweise eher als eine Domäne von ästhetischem Wert als von der ästhetischen Erfahrung durch das Sehen, sowie Ereleben her. Ich begreife als "Ereignis" eher gelegentliche "ästhetische Erfahrung". (Grasping Kant from an Outside Perspective of German Idealism.)

Towards “Chapter 6. Uniqueness“, Aesthetics as Philosophy of Perception, Bence Nanay, OUP 2016, pp. 117–127

Aesthetic vandality on B.O.D.Y. by Erika Matsunami 

A series

On aesthetic vandality and queer

- Autonomy in love


Homosexuality is legally recognized and protected in Western industrialized countries.

freedom of love, without discrimination of gender difference, and of race.

But even there the pitfalls of capitalism intersect more complicated than in a classic love affairs (platonic love).


Will the digital humanities change the family structure in society? (Are human rights thoroughly protected?)

On Love in two female disability performers who were sitting in the wheelchair – sensory love

From platonic love to sensory love in two female disability performers who were sitting in the wheelchair. Love in this extremely limited situation, not in general terms.

https://www.art-identityem.com/kopie-von-writing

 

-> Momentanaufnahme /snapshot and distributed attention ->  from a static image to a new aesthetic experience

Analogue photography as a new fashion

 

It might be possible to create a something new in the post-photographic era, because free of the industrial norm.


After Camera Lucida: Reflections on photography, Roland Barthes, 1980, in the 21st century.


That is an aim of the exhibition SKIN with three different types of the wrok by the anaolgue photography and its individual representation in the exhibition SKIN at the Dark Gallery CPH, Copenhagen in 2023.


Material is only one thing 'digital' in digital photography, but the possibility of materiality in analog photography is wide.