Close Up

28 October 2017: Abstraction vs. Representation

talking-picture-takahiko-iimura.jpg

What one sees in an image does not necessarily represent the truth of the subject shown. Photography and film inherently create a tension between representation and abstraction, expertly highlighted by Iimura and Ito.

Talking Picture (The Structure of Film Viewing)
Takahiko Iimura
1981-2009 | 15 min | Colour | 16mm

"[In Talking Picture] I have examined the validity of an identity in video, which is different from the actual voice, between "the I who hear" and "the I who speak". It extends also to "the I who see" and "the I who is seen"." – Takahiko Iimura

A Chair, Takahiko limura, 1970, 5 min, B/W, Digital
Blinking
, Takahiko limura, 1970, 2 min, B/W, Digital

After coming back from New York in 1969, Taka Iimura started video production in Tokyo. Working in experimental film since the early 1960s, he first combined the art of film with video thus making a kind of flicker effect in video in two pieces: A Chair and Blinking. These videos are experiments in perception, and are very minimal in form consisting of a single object, which requires a lot of attention.

Spacy
Takashi Ito
1981 | 10 min | Colour | 16mm

A film whose subject is the place (A gymnasium), the time, (the 10 minutes the film runs), and the unconformity of reality (the gymnasium), and illusion (the representation of the gymnasium). All the components are strictly combined in an endless cycle, a Möbius strip, an Escher film in a Japanese tempo, from Slow to Fast, from Pianissimo to Fortissimo.


Part of pic.london festival 2017