Distance - aether, Contemporary Art Museum, Kumamoto 2015
Distance - aether
Distance – Aether presents memories of my grandfather, inspired by a trip I took to follow his footsteps through his beloved hometown of Kumamoto. It employs photographs taken by my grandfather during his lifetime as well as a detailed diary and autobiography. How would the distance between my grandfather and me be changed as I trace the times and places where he lived and the temporal and spatial difference between us? In ancient Greece, the word aether was used to describe an eternal glowing upper layer of the atmosphere that was thought to be a pure, unsullied domain where the souls of men would eventually go. The theories of physics developed in the nineteenth and early twentieth century promoted the concept of aether as a sublime, transparent substance, invisible to the eye that filled the empty spaces between all things. It was thought to connect innumerable physical bodies no matter how far they were separated. Today, when the tremendous progress in communications technology has made it possible for all of us to be connected to anyone, in anywhere, is it possible for people to feel thoughts that cannot be put into words and invisible connections between people through vibrations in the aether, as if tuning into a certain frequency on the crystal radio.
Special thanks to: Toshiki Matsuura Exhibition support: Hitoshi Katagiri, Fumio Hayashi, Akihisa Yamamoto, Naomi Hamaguchi
