Asagaya-Gunkanjima Delivery Project
multi-media installation, 2017-2018Hashima, also known as Gunkan-jima, which means the Warship Island in Japanese. As the coal production base in the early 19th century, it was once an island with a population density 9 times of that in Tokyo, before the island was deserted due to the decline of coal-mining industry in the mid-20th century. In 2009, Gunkanjima was developed as a tourist destination by the local government, launching a tourist trip called “Gunkanjima Tour”, including stops such as sea cruise, souvenir sale, and a tour into the ruins. Although Gunkanjima is a history, it is not of the past. Rather, it is a fast-forwarded sketch of the future.
On Google Earth, this commercialized history becomes an even more enter- taining image. In this artwork, the artist transformed the real streets he walks on into a model with 3D scanning software, so as to realize a massive transfer and elimination of real life on the computer. As a realistic prophecy of fast produc- tion leading to fast die-out, Gunkanjima becomes the end point of daily life in this work. Meanwhile, if we attribute the ambiguous, distorted visual language of Google Earth to “the loss of detail”, to enter this world means to discard details (i.e. the reality as detail) and thus shape a more effective world view. The loss of detail means lightweight, and lightweight means it needs a smaller storage space compared to “the reality”, which will no doubt be seen as a survival strategy in the future world. The lightweight for reality is a attened cube in the end, a sus- pension after an object loses functional volume. The oating streets and the com- mercialized Gunkanjima in this work are the vivid re ection of such mechanism.
exhibition history:
“Metamorphosis Divide” Organhaus Art Space, Chongqing，2018
“Exhibition of the 23th Student Campus Genus Award” ,The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation,Tokyo，2018
“The MEC2018 Exhibition” ,SKIP City Museum, Saitama，2018
“OFFLINE BROWSER: The 6th Taiwan International Video Art Exhibition”, HongGah Art Museum, Taiwan，2018
screening:
“Non-Syntax Experimental Film Festival held by Calm&Punk Gallery”, Tokyo/ Kyoto/Fukuoka，2021