Paysages fertiles / Daito Manabe et Motoi Ishibashi — Transphere #1 — Maison de la culture du Japon à Paris — Exhibition — Slash Paris

Past: March 16 → May 7, 2016

At this time of permanent connection and innovation that governs our lives, what meaning do creation and contemporary art have? Who are the artists today? The series of exhibitions Transphere questions these issues, by presenting creators from Japan driven by an experimental spirit and inventive audacity. The first part of this voyage through the artistic practices of today is a piece entitled Fertile Landscapes, presenting the duo, Daito Manabe and Motoi Ishibashi.

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Since the early 2000s, Manabe and Ishibashi have been innovating artistically by making use of technological developments: RFID, LED, video mapping, myoelectric sensors… Their goal is to create a zone of porosity between the real and the virtual, to encourage us to become aware, and to experience the difference between reality and perception. Their installations and playful interactive mechanisms seek to stimulate the public’s imagination.

For Fertile Landscapes — Transphere #1, they are presenting a new creation and a dozen older projects.

Their new work, rate-shadow allows us to see the invisible. The subtlety of this creation lies in a LED light technology they have specially designed for the occasion. Illuminating shapes, these lights create shadows that, viewed through the filter of a smartphone or Ipad screen, then reveal colours invisible to the naked eye. A work that must be discovered in two phases.

Daito Manabe + Motoi Ishibashi, Rate-shadow, 2016 Photo © Graziella Antonini

A dozen of their older projects to (re) discover are also being exhibited in video format. Lasers, articulated robot arms, drones or the latest generation of rolling armchairs, are for both creators some of the many experimental means of expression they use, particularly in the choreographed pieces they design with the ELEVENPLAY contemporary dance company. They are also collaborating with the techno pop group Perfume, taking up the challenge of investing the expressive possibilities of the universe of entertainment.

Members of the Rhizomatiks creators group, they regularly collaborate with scientists and specialists from a variety of disciplines for their projects. Far from the classic model of studio artists, the group bases its way of working on the synergy between multiple exceptional talents.

At the border of artistic practices, innovative technologies and societal issues, the transversal activities of Manabe and Ishibashi are another way of questioning art and creation.

Curator: Aomi Okabe, Art critic and Artistic Director of Exhibitions at the MCJP

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