2012.  Installation I Performance

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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

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.