Noi Sawaragi: Notes on Art and Current Events 50

Remembering Seiko Mikami, media artist – or was she? IV

(Continued) So what exactly does this term “world membrane,” which Seiko Mikami liked to use around this time, mean? When did she come up with this term and when did she actually start using it? I do not know the precise answers to these questions. But what I do know is that the first time I heard Mikami use the term directly was at least prior to her participation in the “Curator’s Eye ’93 vol.3” exhibition at Gallery NW House and the two-person show “ICONOCLASM” (both held in 1993) that I mentioned last time. To be specific, it was in her plan in the pages of Quarterly InterCommunication (NTT Shuppan) (1)

This magazine is the bulletin of the NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC), which later became one of the bases of Mikami’s activities along with Canon ARTLAB and Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM), and was already being published by the ICC before it opened in Hatsudai in 1997. In four pages of the second issue published in the autumn of 1992, and as part of a feature titled “The Organism as an Information System,” Mikami presented a magazine exhibition under the title (including parenthesis) Himaku (karanaru) sekai, or “World Membrane.” But that is not all. As I noted at the beginning of this series of essays, I was initially a harsh critic of Mikami’s work. Yet for some reason, she asked me to edit these pages. What is more, she even asked my opinion on whether it was appropriate or not to use the term himaku (karanaru) sekai to refer to the new series of works she had conceived of around this time. I will refrain here from describing the details of that exchange, but what I will say is that I accepted her invitation, removed the (karanaru) from the Japanese title himaku (karanaru) sekai, and provided a short essay titled “Seitai himaku ron (A Theory of the Organism and Skin).” Thinking about it now, however, I cannot help sensing that Mikami’s concerns at this time were condensed into the subtle difference between himaku (karanaru) sekai and himaku sekai. In fact, Mikami’s own preference was fluctuating considerably between two different Japanese words for “membrane,” both pronounced himaku, but using slightly different characters.


From ”Seitai himaku ron (A Theory of the Organism and Skin)” in Quarterly InterCommunication, No. 2, 1992 (NTT Shuppan).

Incidentally, the details of Mikami’s pages in this magazine exhibition are as follows. (2) On the first spread are arranged a total of 10 experimental humanoid images across the left and right pages. (3) All are presented under the subtitle ,”Conceptualization of sculpture project,” and probably provided the ideas that were later reworked into Mikami’s life-sized sculptures. These tiny figures, most of which wear some kind of high-tech membrane to protect their bodies from the outside world, are labeled from left to right: Deep Sea Research; Environmental Accident; Racism Ku Klux Klan; Military Affairs; Medical Science; Computer Industry; Nuclear Plant; Terrorist Activity; Space Activity; and Bio Technology. These were given the English title “World Membrane,” with the Japanese title himaku (karanaru) sekai added in small letters underneath. This difference in emphasis probably stems from Mikami’s desire to increase the marketability of her own motifs in the English-speaking world, given that at the time she had recently been living and working in New York. However, it is likely that she was at least thinking mainly in Japanese, and in light of this, her decision to render “World Membrane,” which if translated into Japanese would be something akin to himaku sekai (using one of the two Japanese words for membrane referred to above), as himaku (karanaru) sekai (using the other word for membrane) reveals both the fluctuation in her thinking with regard to membrane-like things and its individuality.

Before expanding on this, however, let us consider Mikami’s own words as published in the pages of this journal. Under the above-mentioned heading, Mikami included two short, memorable passages on the left and right pages. These are: “The life sphere, especially the area in which humans can lead active lives without artificial enhancement, is extremely limited and narrow,” and “Above ground: bodily functions decline at around 5200m. Under water: breathing becomes difficult after several minutes at around 10m.”

In other words, what Mikami calls himaku (karanaru) sekai refers to the physiological functional limits of the human body. At the same time, she is superimposing over these words the fact that with new membrane technology these functional limits can be extended from outer space to the seabed, from radioactive contamination zones to bacterial contamination zones. In short, himaku (karanaru) sekai is a dualistic concept that ties together all these impossibilities and possibilities. Last time, I touched on the fact that our bodies are themselves a system that is fully encapsulated in a thin membrane (skin), isolating the inside from the outside. Dramatically expanding the functional limits of the human body by using artificial membranes developed with the help of technology is equivalent, in other words, to protecting afresh this natural membrane with an artificial membrane that is different from skin. In sum, the himaku sekai or “world membrane” Mikami sets forth actually supposes a condition in which the living body is doubly encapsulated. By no means is she simply laying before us various state-of-the-art membrane technologies and stating their possibilities. Rather, they are necessary on account of the tremendous “weakness” of the human body – because if our natural membranes were strong enough, there would surely be no need for such doubling. The “protective ability” necessitated by this double weakness is probably what made Mikami stick to the expression himaku (karanaru) sekai with “karanaru” in parentheses instead of himaku sekai, which in normal circumstances would connote potential strength.

By inference based on the above, it would seem at the least that Mikami’s concern at the time was not with media per se. In this sense, although the field of media art, where interest inevitably tends to focus on technology, was the avenue that provided Mikami with the most opportunities to show her work, we need to think again about whether this was a good thing for her. Rather, I think Mikami’s starting point was the very “fragility” of the naked “living body = encapsulated body,” which, unless it is protected by expandable media, merely clings to an extremely small area of the atmosphere. To put it another way, I think perhaps Mikami incorporated these high-tech elements (ie, world membrane) into her own art practice for the purposes of amplifying the mild physical sensation of the fragility, proneness to soiling, mutability and changeability of the human body, which on its own is incredibly weak.

Setting aside the question of whether it is right or wrong, such an interpretation also resolves the issue of the “abruptness” of the works she contributed to the “ICONOCLASM” exhibition at Rontgen Kunst Institut, which last time I suggested may have been the “missing link” connecting Mikami the junk artist and Mikami the media artist.

Among these pieces, one can find none of the technological elements that had determined the superficial assumptions regarding Mikami’s work. On the contrary, the objects used were nothing more than pieces of utterly ordinary technology, or rather utensils, such as tweezers and files, showers, scales and soap dishes, brushes and razors. Based on the interpretation above, however, even if it may seem at first sight that the work Mikami exhibited at this time had no connection whatsoever to the work that came before it, in fact if the membranes derived from technology for expanding the living body are taken away, we remove all the elements inessential to the matter of how much the surface (ie, membrane) of the human body is constantly in contact with the outside world, easily damaged, and for that reason continually in need of protection, thereby revealing the core of Mikami’s concern.


Molecular Informatics ~ morphogenic substance via eye tracking (Version 1.0) (1996), Canon ARTLAB, Hillside Plaza, Tokyo. Photo: Mikio Kurokawa, courtesy Tama Art University.

Later, Mikami took part in the “Art Labyrinth: A Viewpoint to Japanese Contemporary Art” exhibition (4) held at the Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art in March the following year, 1994, with work of a similar style to that in her solo show at Gallery NW House. Following that, with 1995’s “Molecular Clinic 1.1” (the 5th Canon ARTLAB exhibition), she further developed her work using the Internet as part of a collaborative project with curator Yukiko Shikata, who became a lifelong friend, while in 1996 she staged “Molecular Informatics – morphogenic substance via eye tracking” (the 6th Canon ARTLAB exhibition, at Daikanyama Hillside Plaza), again with Shikata as curator.


World Membrane and the Dismembered Body (1997). Photo: Takashi Otaka, courtesy NTT InterCommunicaton Center (ICC).

This tendency continued unchanged, coming to fruition with World Membrane and the Dismembered Body, a permanent exhibit in the Anechoic Room at ICC, which opened the following year, 1997. On the other hand, however, the “sculpture project” she conceived of in 1992 was ultimately never realized. Similarly, the nuances of “World Membrane” were altered so that it more accurately and substantially reflected the original meaning of “membrane.” Despite these subtle differences, however, when we think about the nature of the minimal state in which Mikami’s interests are most condensed in accordance with the work she showed at the “ICONOCLASM” exhibition that serves as the “missing link” connecting the duality and fragmented character of Seiko Mikami the artist, all these differences both large and small no longer represent a problem. Mikami’s expression always arose from the all-too-limited membrane-like properties of her own body, and amidst her battle with an incurable illness she unexpectedly returned once again to “World Membrane.” With this in mind, one could conclude that the modality of the world she continued to create, whether “junk art” or “media art,” was fear of the uncanny phenomenon that was her own body and variations of the menacing sense of estrangement she herself felt at being unavoidably bound to it.


Sophie Ristelhueber, Beirut (Thames & Hudson, 1984).

I have in my possession a certain foreign book. It is a small photobook titled Beirut, put out in 1984 by the UK publisher Thames and Hudson. It was given to me by Norimizu Ameya – who for a time not only worked with Mikami but also lived with her – on the grounds that it might provide me with some clues. In it, the Lebanese capital of Beirut, which had been turned into ruins that were shocking to look at as a result of the civil war that began in 1975, is depicted in a detached manner.


From Beirut.

According to Ameya, timing wise, there is a possibility that Mikami’s interest in destroyed buildings (the 1985 solo show “New Formation of Decline”?) was sparked by this photobook. As if to corroborate this, throughout the book there are notes and sketches left by Mikami, suggesting that she habitually carried this small photobook around with her. As for my analysis of this, it will have to wait until next time. (To be continued)

 

 

    1. Signs, however, were already visible in the 1990 solo exhibition “Information Weapon 1: Super Clean Room” (Toyoko Global Environment Institute, Yokohama). This show, in which visitors took an air shower and donned protective clothing before viewing the works installed in a super clean room, had the affect of strongly focusing our attention (I also experienced this) on the

himaku

    1. (membrane) that existed between the works and our bodies. As well, at the “Pulse BEATS” solo show held at the P3 Alternative Museum (Yotsuya, Tokyo) in 1990, Mikami tried her hand at a real-time interactive installation that had as its interface the audience’s pulses. Furthermore, the “World Membrane / Waste Disposal” exhibition held at P3 art and environment from June to August 1992, while serving as a domestic trial run of the “World Membrane: Disposal Containers” exhibition held in Sydney (Artspace) from October to November the same year, could also probably be described as one of the first examples of Mikami’s use of the term

himaku

    1. (membrane). Here, however, the shift from “containers” to “bodies” in “World Membrane” developed as a plan in the pages of

Quarterly InterCommunication

    1. in autumn the same year and touched on above is not yet clearly apparent.

  1. Other artists featured included Tishan Hsu and Ronald Jones.
  2. The second double-spread featured work included in the 1992 “World Membrane / Waste Disposal” exhibition mentioned in Note 1 above.
  3. The participating artists in addition to Mikami were Yoichiro Kawaguchi, Complesso Plastico, Atsuhito Sekiguchi, Kodai Nakahara, Miran Fukuda, Yukio Fujimoto, Yukinori Yanagi and Kenji Yanobe. The exhibition was organized by Kazumi Seno, a curator at the Okayama Prefectural Museum of Art.

 

Noi Sawaragi: Notes on Art and Current Events 1-6

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