TOKYO STILL MOTION
Tokyo in 16 movements
About motion
The object-observer relationship is rarely static.
Usually, one of the two parties is in motion. While the object moves, the observer usually remains static, and vice versa. In a film – to put an example of art in motion – the observer must remain seated staring at a surface. Still images follow each other on the screen creating the idea of movement.
Having made movies too, I personally prefer to move the viewer through still images. I -as an observer- never remain static in front of a still image, being a picture or a painting. After a first general approach to the work – where zoom-out is generally applied to the work at first sight- I like to discover the work in parts, creating and enjoying a visual journey. It is through the leisurely journey that I discover details and fragments that many times I reconnect returning to already traveled parts. With each new journey, the work acquires new meanings. And so, through the years, my eyes change and new routes are bringing new meanings as new visions of the same work of art. While the work remains, its journey changes in space and also in time.
In 16 Movements I present 16 works that although they seem static they are offering an infinity of possible routes.
The sound supporting certain moving images has accompanied us since the creation of sound films. The sound-image relationship has become so intense that for me it is impossible to divide them, and precisely in this case the images -with their corresponding soundtrack- acquire a whole new dimension. The wonderful music of Tomoo Nagai adds a new dimension to the work: its textures, its sounds – especially created for each of the images in this exhibition – weave with infinite delicacy a series of invisible paths that invite us to travel each work in a special way: a different way of discovering impossible landscapes through paths and directions suggested by soundscapes.
The Mysterious Passages
I remember when I was very young, a book stumped me. It spoke of a city -Buenos Aires- and marked exactly one place -located next to an old church- a kind of narrow and anonymous slit that was a passage to a hidden place. It connected with a secret place, in another space, another time.
Then I found similar ideas in other books, other cities. I am fascinated by the idea of thinking that in each city there may be secret passages that communicate with other spaces, other times. I myself have tried many times to find these spaces. I believe that the ultimate goal of each of my trips is precisely this. I have not yet succeeded, but I will never cease in my search.
My photos of Tokyo speak of movement, crowds that circulate frantically through spaces that appear to be static or in full swing, other times it is the observer’s journey that transforms a static image into a moving space. But in all the images there is an underlying idea: the idea of trying to discover that secret space, that anonymous passage unnoticed by the crowds that will take us to another space, another time. I’m sure Tokyo contains countless spaces like these, it’s just about being able to find them.
Here again, the wonderful sounds and textures created by Tomoo Nagai add many mysterious layers encouraging us to move our eyes through the moving pictures looking for those hidden mysterious passages.
Marcelo von Schwartz and Tomoo Nagai, Tokyo, November 2021
English