By Catherine Lilin“For the harmony of the world is made manifest in Form and Number, and the heart and soul and all the poetry of Natural Philosophy are embodied in the concept of mathematical beauty” -(On Growth and Form, D’Arcy W. Thompson).
These words are printed largely on one of the walls of The Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei; words that through an artist blooms into an extraordinary exhibition. This artist is known as Kawaguchi Yoichiro, and Zero Gravity Paradise is the name of this exhibition. Having heard nothing about the artist prior to this exhibition, I was left in awe by his works. While it is Kawaguchi’s first exhibition in Taiwan, his name is not an unfamiliar one in the art industry; he is an artist, an educator, and a great innovator in the development of computer art. Kawaguchi grew up in the southern island of Japan, at a small age he was surrounded by nature and witnessed the growth of nature at close distance. This evoked his fascination with the biological aspects of life. Later on in university, he studied information and computer graphics. His interests then started to shift into bionic life forms. His childhood fascination, along with his new interests in computer graphics, made him question whether it was possible to represent digitally the growth of bionic life on its own. With inspiration from D’Arcy W. Thompson’s words, “the heart and soul and all the poetry of Natural Philosophy are embodied in the concept of mathematical beauty,” he was determined to create a series of artworks that represented the growth of life through technology. This exhibition is Kawaguchi fulfilling this determination. To represent the growth of life that is sensational and uncertain through mathematical techniques that are rational and logical is a very bold and hard task. Without the introductory words of this exhibition, I could not understand the concept when I walk into the exhibition space. Kawaguchi’s works included physically present, still sculptures as well as moving images through flat TV screens. Yet the exhibition did not only show the final results of artworks but also his creative process. Included are his first draft sketches and 3D computer graphic images of these sketches. None of the artworks clearly depicted a certain “thing” but rather lump of shapes mashed together. Most were curled up and long, which in a way all looked like some sort of living creature. Some sculptures extended and wiggled through like caterpillars, some looking like the shell of a snail with little hairs attached, and some simply just a blob of “things” that had eyes on them. As for moving images, some looked like the surface of mercury or boiling water in high-saturated colors, some with different shapes sticking together continuously to become a bigger lump of that shape. All in all, it was not exactly a pleasingly aesthetic view, but a disturbing one. Nevertheless, I believe art to be more than simply beauty, thus my level of fascination was in no sense diminished. My confusion on the other hand was rather intensified as a contradiction, but also a pleasurable sense: escaping from the normality of the world but still feeling very much a part of reality. The walls of each exhibition room were black but the colors of each artwork were very vibrant; neon yellow, bold red, magenta, blue. Some colors were so strong that as a viewer I felt defensive, as if the colors were splashing towards me ready to attack, when in truth they were nothing more than still objects. The artworks are simply not what one sees in daily life. They are very peculiar in shape, movement, and color, yet each of them shows movement and growth just like any living organism that was interestingly created through numbers, and shown through TV screens (a product that is a normal in daily life). Personally I feel that it is precisely this clash of irregularity with rationality that creates an atmosphere both absurdly surreal yet unexpectedly real. This image above is one of my favorites of Kawaguchi’s work. The artwork is named Cytolon and is in the form of moving computer graphics with a duration of 2 minutes 29 seconds. During this time, the image shifts its cover from red to green and restarts the process. A melted deformed shape in the movement of “boiling” liquid fills the rectangular frame of the screen. I found myself standing in front it for a full 2 minutes 29 seconds. With no comprehensible reason, my vision was drawn to the shifts and changes of the deformed abnormality before my eyes. According to Kawaguchi, Cytolon represents the biochemical nature of human blood vessels and cells. The shift in color represents the density difference from blood to water. The boiling movement shows the blood flow between vessels. The vision may be hard to comprehend, but after understanding the meaning, Kawaguchi himself seeks to show reality and specifically growth in organisms and bionic life. Zero Gravity Paradise is not an exhibition that will be well-received by everyone, as most of Kawaguchi’s artworks are too uncanny for the public to comprehend. If one is looking for a relaxed and aesthetically pleasing artistic experience, than Zero Gravity is certainly not a good choice. But for anyone who seeks visual shock and free interpretation of a bewildering experience, than Zero Gravity Paradise is definitely worth seeing. a
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May 2024
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