2015/07/14

かなたの記号 / Signs of Faraway

"歩く言語 / Walking Language" 55x6m / silver spray paint and silver ink / 2015 / mural at Hiraku Suzuki solo exhibition “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki

ドローイングは、絵とことばの間にある。かつて、“描く”と”書く”は未分化であった。古代人は、いわゆる言語を使い始めるずっと前に、そこら辺に転がっている石や、洞窟の壁や、マンモスの牙に、天体のリズムを刻んだ。人間はそうして記号を発明し、文字や言語を生み出すことによって、常に未知なるものとして目の前に立ち現れてくる世界の中に自らを位置づけ、世界を研究し、世界と関わり合いながら生き延びてきた。いまここを生きる私たちは、既存の言語の概念だけで、この世界の新しい時間と空間の広がりの中で起こっていることを充分に理解し、未来を指し示すことはできるだろうか。

僕の方法論は、この現在進行形の世界に対応した、もうひとつ別の考古学としてドローイングをとらえてみることだ。まず既に遍在している亀裂から世界に入り込み、世界を点と線に解体することからはじまる。

例えば路上にゆらぐ木漏れ日の形や、アスファルトの白線の欠片や、葉脈のカーブ、読めない数式、グラフィティ、肌に浮いた血管、ビルの輪郭、中国の棚田の地形、地下道での靴音の響き方、獣道、レコードの溝、熱帯植物の枝振り、車のヘッドライトの残像、SF映画のシーンに一瞬映る看板に描かれた架空の会社のロゴマーク、飛んでいる蚊が空間に描く軌跡。
そこにある点と線をよく見る。反対側からも見る。そしてなぞる。身体を使う。再配置する。何か現象を起こす。繰り返す。

こうして、解体された世界の欠片をつないで、新たな線を生む。この線は、”いまここ”と”いつかどこか”を接続する回路となる。その回路を行ったり来たりするのは、絵でもことばでもない、ただの記号である。このただの記号を、変化し続ける現在において発掘すること。僕の仕事は、離ればなれになってしまった”描く”と”書く”のあいだの闇、そのかなたに明滅する光の記号を見いだし、獲得し続けることである。
鈴木ヒラク

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Drawing exists between pictures and language. In fact, drawing and writing were once one and the same. Long before we began using what we now know as language, the ancients etched the rhythms of the stars into mammoth tusks, onto cave waves, and across the face of ordinary stones. This is how humans invented signs. Letters and language were developed by humans to orient themselves within a world where the unknown is constantly present. And we have managed to survive as a species by using language to better study and relate to our world. But is anyone living today capable of fully grasping new occurrences within our world’s ever-growing expanse of time and space and pointing to the future with only our existing concept of language?

My methodology interprets drawing as an alternative archaeology that corresponds to our world in the present progressive. I begin by first slipping into the world through the ubiquitous cracks that already exist and deconstructing them into dots and lines.

Take, for example, the wavering shapes of the sunlight as it filters through the trees onto the ground, the chipped white lines in the asphalt, or the curving veins of a leaf. An indecipherable mathematical formula, graffiti, veins bulging through the skin, the outlines of buildings, the topography of a rice terrace in China, the sound of footsteps echoing in an underpass, and an animal’s trail. The grooves on a record, the branches of a tropical plant, an afterimage induced by car headlights, the fictional company logo seen for a fleeting moment on a billboard in the scene of a science-fiction movie, the path of a mosquito flying through space.
I look at the dots and lines within them. I look at them from forward and behind. I trace them. Use my body. Recompose them. Produce an effect. Repeat.

In this way, I connect fragments of the deconstructed world and generate new lines, which become the circuit that connects the here and now with the somewhere, some time. Neither pictures nor words can be transmitted in this circuit. Only signs can. I excavate the signs in the ever-changing present moment. My practice is to discover and acquire flickering signs of light in the faraway, in the dark and widening gap between drawing and writing.
Hiraku Suzuki

"歩く言語 / Walking Language" installation view “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki
"歩く言語 / Walking Language" installation view “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki
"GENGA #001 - #1000 (video)" "鍵穴 / Keyhole" installation view “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki
"GENGA #001 - #1000 (video)" installation view “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki
"GENZO #2" installation view “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki
"casting" installation view “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki
"casting" installation view “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki
"GENZO (photo)" installation view “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki
"circuit #7" installation view “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki
"circuit #6" installation view “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki
"歩く言語 / Walking Language" installation view “Signs of Faraway” at ACAC (Aomori, Japan) photo by Kuniya Oyamada © Hiraku Suzuki