"Absolute Helligkeit"
- The second part of the shadow trilogy
2012. Installation I Performance
Concept, visual design, sound design, performance: Naoko Tanaka
Dramaturgical collaboration: Adam Czirak
Technical director on tour: Milos Vujkovic
Duration: 40 min.
Production: Naoko Tanaka, Christine Peterges
Co-production: SOPHIENSÆLE (Berlin)
Support: Senate Department for Culture and Europe, PACT Zollverein (Essen), Kunststiftung NRW
Thanks to: Jo Grys, Gallery Murata & Friends, Alise Michon
Video-Dokumentation: Heiko Rahnenführer
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In a room that lost its stability, a single point of light is the real protagonist. This autonomous eye floats like a satellite in the universe, stimulating the senses of the observer in order to uncover unknown spheres of our thoughts.
In astronomy, the concept of ‘absolute magnitude’ (‘Absolute Helligkeit’ in German, literally ‘absolute brightness’) is a measure which allows us to compare the brightness of individual stars. The brightness is calculated at a distance of 32.6 light years and allows us to comprehend that which goes beyond the limits of our physical perception.
This installationsperformance delves into the connotations that this mathematical measure evokes, in order to relate the subjective and the objective, the sensory and the tangible. This is what causes the epistemological astonishment in the spectator.
„Naoko Tanaka's image-noise-movement-machine astonishingly resembles the phenomenon of thought. And this insight accompanies the shadow images through the room in the circular light, intangible but clearly there, at the limit of the logically understandable. Suddenly science seems to once again be connected to that which is incomprehensible to our senses. Beyond this point lies the wonder of very early science and the spectator draws level with the human being in the absolute brightness, as a trembling, vibrant body of a participation-membrane. Naoko Tanaka's epistemological linkage between science and art offers a perfect way of exploring it.“
- Franziska Oehme - ARTiBERLIN online, 07.07.2012
Tour
23.06.2017 // PACT Zollverein, Essen
09.02.2017 // Sophiensaele, Berlin
15.&16.April 2016 // Commedia Futura, Hannover, Germany
26.&27.Juli 2015 // Echigo Tsumari Art Triennale 2015, Niigata, Japan
30.10.2014 // Theaterfestival Favoriten 2014, Dortmund
03.10.2014 // explore dancefestival, Bucharest, Romania
22.& 23.06.2013 // PACT Sommerfest / PACT Zollverein, Essen
09.& 10.05.2013 // 18. Internationales Figurentheater-Festival, Erlangen
30.04.2013 // Danae Festival, Mailand, Italy
04.07.(Premiere) 05. & 06. & 07. & 08.07.2012 // PERFORMANCE PLATFORM. BODY AFFECTS // Sophiensaele, Berlin