Photo: Yohei Yamakami
Space Art Tanegashima/Kagoshima, Japan
2015
Wood, Steel pipe, Glass ball
W:4.5M D:7.5m H: 4.5m
The place where this work was installed, located at a latitude of 30.25°N, makes a circular motion at 1,443km/h, taking the axis of the Earth as the center. This is faster than the speed of sound. If we take the sun as the center, however, the Earth moves at an even faster speed. Normally, we feel as if we are living in the same place without the ground moving. If we think about the Earth, sun, galaxy, or universe as the center, however, we are drifting through a massive cosmic space at a fearsome speed, moving continuously through a space to which we will never return again.
Visitors enter the interior of the work that has been constructed in the middle of a grass field, in order to experience the rotation of the earth. In the upper section, 1040 pipes have been installed in accordance with the apparent diameter of the sun and the solar altitude of Minamitanecho (in Kagoshima). The long, narrow pipes allow the sunlight to filter through selectively, while the glass balls in 40 colors fitted in between them imbue the light with varying colors and patterns. The Earth’s rotation is thus transformed into a moving image that shifts every few minutes.
The overall shape is that of a polyhedron made up of 16 equilateral triangles, called a gyroelongated square dipyramid. This allows for sunlight to enter year-round, while also expanding the patterns traced by the light within the interior of the work, making it possible to show the subtle changes in a more striking way.
The pipes that admit the light are made from the supporting pillars of greenhouses the walls from the scaffolding boards used in construction sites. The interior walls are daubed with a mix of paint, sand, and shells, and the exterior walls with waste oil. Coral collected from Hirota Beach was used to pave the floor. By shifting our point of view and giving a different value to things that are familiar to us, we are able to approach a cosmic perspective that allows us to reassess our very existence.
With the sound of waves in the background — music courtesy of the moon’s gravity — gazing at the patterns of the light as they moves quietly, taking shape according to the speed that is defined by the two dimensions of space and time that constitute the universe, I hope that the audience can cast their thoughts on how time flows constantly in this world we inhabit, and our relationship to distant stars.
北緯30 度25 分に位置する作品設置場所は、地球の軸を中心に考えると時速1443km で円運動をしています。これは音速を上回る速度ですが、太陽を中心に考えるとさらに速い速度で地球は移動しています。普段、地面は動かずいつも同じ場所で暮らしているように感じられますが、地球や太陽、銀河や宇宙を中心に考えると、私たちは猛烈な速さで広大な宇宙空間を漂流し、二度と戻れない場所を移動し続けています。
この作品は、草原の中に建てられた作品の内部に入り、地球の自転を体験する作品です。上部には太陽の視直径と南種子町の太陽高度に合わせ、1040本のパイプが取り付けられています。細く長いパイプは太陽光を限定的に透過させ、中に嵌められた40 色のガラス玉は光に異なる色と模様を与えます。地球の自転が数分毎に変化し続ける映像へと変えられます。
全体の形状は双四角錐反柱という16の正三角形による多面体です。一年を通じて太陽光を取り入れられること、作品内部で光の描く模様が引き伸ばされ、微かな変化をより顕著に見せることを両立させています。
光を取り入れるパイプはビニルハウスの支柱、壁面は建築現場で使われていた足場板、内壁は砂や貝、外壁は廃油で仕上げられ、床には広田海岸で集められた珊瑚が敷き詰められています。視点を変えることで、見慣れたものに別の価値を与えることは、私たちの存在を宇宙から見つめなおす視点に通じるのではないでしょうか。
月の引力による音楽－波の音－を背景に、時間と空間という宇宙を構成する二つの次元によって定義される「速度」が描く、静かに移ろう光を眺めながら、私たちの暮らすこの世界に常に流れている時間や、遠くの星との関係に想いを馳せて頂けたらと思います。