Time River, 2004
LED, IC, electric wire
100 x 1300 cm (room installation)
2004
photo by Myoung-Rae Park
Courtesy Gwangju Biennale
I am making installations which experiment with different types of time. It is not possible to reach a conclusion about one particular system. When we visited the Greenwich meridian yesterday, I was struck by the idea of focal points like zero in western culture. But zero is nothing in reality. The idea of Greenwich Mean Time is based on the measure, and this is not a meaningful concept for me. There is no absolute length of time, only a personal rhythm. Time is life. ~ Tatsuo Miyajima.
Time River is a joint work which based on new experiment 'participation of viewers' with philosopher, Yasuo Kobayashi. 'Participation of viewers' means that making an artwork together over conversation with people other than artist which is chosen by Biennale executive office. This time, i discussed with Mr Kobayashi several times and he selected keywords for the work. These keywords are Dividing, Human rights, History, River.
I've inspired by these words and proposed the artwork formed with the groove on the floor like the river and placed around 400 of the LED digits in it which counts down from 9 to 1. The river has 1m of width, 80cm of depth and 13m of length which makes the river uneasy to across for people and there is the bridge placed on center of the river. People are not able to go to next room without across the deep river. The river embodies '38 degrees' and countless life and death lines in that river, shining. There is hidden message: You must across it. I have used minimum size LED to realize the image of countless life and death.
Time in Water v1-01, 2004
Time River, 2004
Iced Time Tunnel, 2004
Sea of Time, 1998
Keep Changing, Connect with Everything, Continue Forever, 1998
Running Time No.2, 1994
source: tatsuomiyajima.com
© 2003 Tatsuo Miyajima & TGA Co., Ltd.