Haruo Ishii: Omnipresence Ver.1
Artist(s):
Title:
- Omnipresence Ver.1
Exhibition:
Creation Year:
- 2001
Medium:
- Sound Installation
Size:
- 40 feet x 25 feet x 7 feet
Category:
Artist Statement:
The twentieth century was an age of mass production and mass consumerism. Our lives depended upon the consumption of huge amounts of energy sources such as petroleum as well as enormous amounts of other natural resources. However, it is said that fossil fuel sources such as petroleum will play out after another hundred years or so – meanwhile destruction of the natural environment around us continues, the environmental crises deepens, and in many ways eats away at our existence. Upon the threshold of the twenty-first century, one can only assume that we are facing an inevitable change in our lifestyles and concept of values.
This work consists of roughly 500 motors which make music by ringing bells while light-emitting diodes (LED) flash on and off in the darkness. The bells and light-emanating diodes are placed at varying heights and locations surrounding the one experiencing them. The bells are made of copper and brass pipes, making sounds and producing music from the striking of a wooden ball driven by a computer-controlled motor. The lights flash on and off by motor in synchronization with the music. The sound the viewer hears is only the slight sound of the copper bells themselves with no electronic processing or amplification. The luminescence of the LEDs is also something quite subtle.
What this work offers its audience is a chance to watch carefully and listen consciously. In our day-to-day lives, we come in contact with so many things and pieces of information that we may have gradually lost the inclination to actually watch and listen, to experience our surroundings. We must learn again how to watch and listen, to recover the will to experience our natural environment.
In the natural sphere of this world or of the cosmos, there is no specific center and all things exist as separate and independent entities. On the other hand, many things have a mutual and organic involvement with one another, as a whole forming a single living organism. In this work, sounds are produced in different places and resound to compose a harmonic state. In other words, each bell sends out a different sound but forms an organic and harmonious state, symbolizing a sort of multidimensional perspective of the cosmos.
