SODA WORKS 2018

show what you can not do on stage
1920’s. The government directed all people towards this
gymnastic exercise in order to promote their physical health
and well-being.
This movement was influenced by calisthenic radio broadcasting
in U.S and also by the Sokol movement - an all-age
gymnastics organization first founded in Prague in the Czech
region of Austria-Hungary in 1862. Japanese radio gymnastics
started across the whole nation in 1929, and was “perfected”
in 1951. The same song and movement is still widely
used since then and is common knowledge for all ages. It
says that Sokol movement emphasized the systematics and
aesthetics, actions leading nationalism in 1920’s. So I argue
that the wide spread use of the radio gymnastics in Japan is
still affecting the national characters on levels of nationalism
and education as well. I contemplate that the Japanese
peoples’ organized character comes from “Muga”(※) which
is one of thought of Buddhism the Japanese have taken in
deeply and unconsciously. It played a big part in realizing the
meticulous national reconstruction after the war. All people
were in step and sent out with the same power in the same
direction and motivation. Consequently, Japan, which was
reduced to burnt-out ruins, could revitalize itself into one
of the strongest economies in just under 20 years after the
war. Eventually it became a host country for the Olympics -
the first in Asia - and showed off their national power. It conjured
up negative effects as well, like a leaning towards the
totalitarianism and militarism of the previous era. National
power and social conservatism increased rapidly due to two
happenings in the following 30 years : burst of economic
bubble (The age around the 60-80s was called “The bubble
economy”, because shortly after revitalization it collapsed
suddenly, as if the bubble breaks. ) in 1980’s, an Tohoku/
Fukushima’s earthquake and tsunami in 2011. Also some
behavior of the old nation including the gymnastic education
still remains. As irony would have it, Tokyo will become a
host country for Olympics again in 2020. We should see the
contrast between recent age of Japan and prime age when it
was a host country for Olympics for the first time more clearly.
So I tried to refer to those two different ages, and to claim
not only critical perspective but also a sense of crisis about
that through the method of collective actions as metaphors.
The doctrine of “non-self”, that there is no unchanging,
permanent self, soul or essence in living beings.
3. Practice of “absence”
We also realised that we could find and use “absence” as the
one of elements in the space. That is a new perspective to
embody the thought of affordance.
Here are concrete examples, I consider three patterns of
motives when we move(do) between point A and point B.
1 to create “existence” at point B
2 to create “absence” at point A
3 both of 1 and 2
We aim to deal with “absence” as the same element with
“existence”. This practice about “absence” is research to
visualise reactions summoned by absence/death/separation
etc. it means experiment “to touch nothing”. This
is different from the skills of a pantomime. I was trying to
make “nothing” be visible, this is the most biggest difference
with Pantomime. Because it is a skill of illusion that makes
people imagine existence even if there is nothing. It is not
reaction to “nothing”. My interest was what people would do
when they touch the things that they perceive as “absence”
in an epistemological way.
4. Documentation regarding “action and absence”
As the preliminary step towards materialistic “absence” as
personal research, I was collecting documentations about
“caring about death by human and animals, such as funeral
ritual, and views on life and death, in terms of body expression.
Various funeral are still taking place among human realm
over the world. Some practical and hygienic issues are always
following those ritual in terms of body treatment methods.
There are burial, cremation, open-air burial, water burial,
bird burial, scattering of ashes etc. Also cosmos burial is in
development nowadays. In Japan, there is some evidence of
people practicing the ritual for caring about their dead since
B.C. The history of the funeral went through many unique
transitions with the influence of various religions’, cultures’
views of life and death. Not only ways of treating the body,
but also the style of the ritual and grave are different in each
age. But this funeral culture could be found not only in human
beings but also in some animals.
Some research has shown that Neanderthals, a now extinct
species or subspecies of humans, may have performed funeral
rites by placing flowers with the dead. In the 1950s and 60s
in modern day Iraq, researchers discovered fossils of pollen
and flowers at a Neanderthal burial site in Shanidar Cave.
Research into mourning practices has extended to the animal
kingdom as well. Several species of animals, wide-ranging
from penguins and birds to horses and elephants, have
been reported to exhibit surprising actions as a response
to grief. Visual documentation has shown that elephants,
during the loss of a family member, have been known to
make a line in front of the dead body and stroke it carefully.
Some not leaving its side for several days. Another docu-