Movement act
The 67th Tokyo University of the Arts Graduation Works Exhibition was held from January 28 to February 3, 2019.
The work 《Movement act》, exhibited in one corner of the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum — one of the venues — was so fascinating that we wanted to introduce it here.
First, please watch the video below.
How was it?
I saw it with my own eyes, and “magnificent” is the only word to describe it.
The motion of 16 balls being physically flicked and crossing paths again and again — narrowly avoiding one another while a wooden rail lends an air of instability — creates real tension in the viewer, keeping the heart racing.
The creator, Shun Onozawa, was originally drawn to juggling and has been active as a performer himself; that’s what led him to create this work.
Precisely because he loves juggling, the work is infused with his feelings. The keyword is “design that includes failure.”
Aiming at 100% perfect success ends up pointing toward something mechanical, like an industrial product. Onozawa deliberately uses a wooden base and other means to keep ball control fuzzy — resulting in a work that embraces failure as part of the piece.
Half-jokingly I pressed him, “So including failure in the design — is that just an excuse?” — but he answered earnestly, “I wanted to express the thrilling, heart-pounding feeling of juggling.”
As he put it — “I wanted to express that real, contingency-laden live sensation” born between the juggler and the juggling ball — because he loves juggling so much, the work is presented as one that absorbs both the enjoyment and the tension of that world.
The performance runs four times per hour, calibrated so that one out of every four is likely to fail.
The video in the first half of this article captured that rare failure scene.
The seemingly fully controlled motion of the balls in the early and middle stages ultimately breaks down at the end.
A young student of the digital generation delivered an analog, raw expression through this piece — one that firmly stood as art.
The work was in fact selected as a “University Purchase Work” and will be preserved at Geidai.
It was also on view at “3331 ART FAIR 2019,” a partner event of Art Fair Tokyo 2019.
The price is a bit on the higher side, but made-to-order production is apparently available.
He will go on to graduate school, moving on to the next new creation.
We look forward to his future works as well.
