So Kanno + yang02 and The SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA: Vanishing Mesh

The Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] presents Vanishing Mesh exhibition, a new installation work by two groups of artists, So Kanno + yang02 and The SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA.

Vanishing Mesh is an expression that hints at the various boundaries and other defining lines that are gradually becoming invisible due to technological innovation. This exhibition is an attempt to review present informational environments through the innovation of technology-based art in a ubiquitous society. Thanks to the popularization of smartphones or smart mobile devices, it enables us to communicate through the networks wherever we are.

So Kanno + yang02
The installation by So Kanno + yang02 features 16 various objects in different sizes, such as a traffic cone, a plaster figure, a car, and a plant, etc., where micro-computers and other types of components are embedded. These objects are connected to the internet, which allows the visitors to experience the work by logging in to / "riding" each object via a web browser. These "avatars" exist as substitutes of—yet together with—real human beings (the visitors) in the same real environment that is subject to physical laws, rather than operating in a virtual space. Against the backdrop of the age of Internet of Things, where all kinds of things are connected through networks, and where artificial intelligence is about to mature, this work observes the new relationships that emerge when inorganic, non-autonomous objects transform into persons that act and perceive the world according to their own intentions. 

The SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA
The SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA (SWO), celebrating their 15th Anniversary of its foundation this year, has presented performances and installations that invites the public to create a collective sound representation using sine waves (the most fundamental component of sound) and following a rule that allows each participant to play one single sine wave. The SWO only provide a framework and introducing a possibility to the decentralized, participatory art that is defined by the interplay of the spectators and the sine waves they play. While maintaining their style which offers visitors’ participation, they unveil three new pieces of their work for this exhibition in YCAM. One of them is an audio-visual work where vast amount of video materials are picked up from the internet, disassembled/recomposed based on an original algorithm, reduced to abstract elements of light and sound for the construction of a sine wave. In this exhibition, The SWO display a new type of participatory art that coalesce in today’s ubiquitous society.

With the works presented by these two groups of artists, the exhibition will be a precious opportunity to examine the present state of media art today.

Gallery tours with YCAM education team
March 18, April 1, 15, 29, May 5, 13, 2pm


Technical direction: Yohei Miura
System development: Mitsuhito Ando, Yohei Miura and Junji Nakaue
Production management: Clarence Ng
Hardware development and creation: Mitsuhito Ando, Richi Owaki, Keina Konno and Takuro Iwata

Curator: Tsubasa Nishi
Supervisor: Kazunao Abe