Interview: Jio Shimizu

Jio Shimizu: Claisen Flask, 2010. Variable dimensions. 532nm laser modules, glass flask, text by Buckminster Fuller, program motor, optical mirror, optical lens, high frequency sine waves, solar sensors, modulation circuits, etc.

What have you made for the show?

I have made an installation consisting of several elements. It evolves around a Claisen Flask - a scientific vessel that was originally used for vacuum distillation and condensation. It was devised by Ludwig Rainer Claisen, the famous German organic chemist in 1893. Another central element is a text fragment written by Buckminster Fuller, an American architect, inventor, and futurist. If you stay in the exhibition space for more than 8 minutes, you will notice how the spaces are connected as laser light travels between the entrance room with the text and the room with the flask within an approximately 8 minutes interval. It has been my intention that the text and flask should be experienced on a parallel level.

Jio Shimizu: Claisen Flask (detail, Buckmeister Fuller quote), 2010.

How is the text by Fuller related to the Claisen Flask?

In its entirety the text is as follows: Physics has found no straight lines – has found only waves – physics has found no solids – only high frequency event fields. The universe of physical energy is always divergently expanding (radiantly) or convergently contracting (gravitationally). To me Fuller's words are full of interesting suggestions. In the context of my installation these words are some sort of key words: “no straight lines – has found only waves”, “no solids – only high frequency event fields”, ”divergent”, “convergent”. For instance consider the sentence “no solids – only high frequency event fields”. When we look at glass it appears solid, but when studying the micro world we realize that glass is composed of atom nucleuses, electrons and so forth. In my work, I wanted to represent that glass is not solid, but waves.

Jio Shimizu: Claisen Flask (detail, Claisen flask), 2010.

You often work with site specific installations. What considerations do you make regarding the exhibition space when preparing for a show?

Often I get my inspiration directly from the space I am exhibiting in. Then I either select a work that corresponds to the particular room or make a new one. This venue has two very oblong rooms, and I wanted to create a connection between them. Therefore I composed several scenes. It was important to me that the viewer noticed the text first, so I placed it in the entrance room. Nevertheless the laser quickly guides you to the other room, which is a bit brighter, and here you get to see the flask and the patterns of light, that it creates. Suddenly it gets very dark and silent, and the laser dot moves slowly back to the entrance space, where it briefly lights up the text, finally enabling you to read it in the dark. It is like in a cave lit up by a candle. Then the laser runs back very fast and hit the flask. So I have constructed the installation as a loop encouraging you to circulate between the two rooms.

Why has it been important to you to add a sound dimension to the work?

I made an earlier version of Claisen Flask for Museum of Modern Art in Japan back in 2006-7 that was focused on light wave interference. Since then I have been thinking about making a direct connection between a sound and light dimension. And this time I had the idea that the laser light in the exhibition should function as an optical form of communication by using modulation circuit and light sensors which were placed on both side of the flask. Thus visualizing and transporting the sound from one room to the other. In other words, the laser light which one can see is "sounding light".

Could you elaborate on your interest in science in connection with this particular work and your work in general?

Sometimes we can find and discover beauty through the field of physics and math. I began my artistic career as a "sound artist" in 1990's. Back then I made experimental models that could record vibrations as means to investigate how the behavior of sound is closely related to space - in other words, sound waves behave with mathematical precision in space. I found out that it depends on the size and materiality of the space, so when we hear a sound we equally hear the "quality" of a space. Then I started doing research on the relation between sound, math, and space by using oscilloscopes and pulse generators among other scientific equipment.

Jio Shimizu: World Model, 2001.

In 2001 I was finally able to produce a sound work, in which the sound vibrations where translated into a visual image as a mathematical function. This I called World Models. It really made you aware of the fact that sound is waves as you could both hear and see the dynamic vibrations. What was most interesting about this particular work was that all the sound forms were made by only two pure sine waves. In 2004 I began to investigate the interference pattern caused by the reflection of light between the surfaces of two glass plates, also known as “Newton Rings”. After experimenting with different lenses and glasses of various thickness and shapes, I finally discovered that I could spread the laser light, if I attached the laser to a special designed lens. And that was sort of the beginning to Claisen Flask.

What experience and thoughts do you wish to communicate to the viewer?

I want to find the beauty and mystery in the phenomena that surround us and to establish a feeling for the connections between the micro and macro world. What interest me is the complexity and richness of the real world, which is also why I don't work with illusions generated by computer simulation. I see my work as sort of a reply to the somewhat complex suggestions in Fuller's text, though not as an answer.

Thank you.

Jio Shimizu: Claisen Flask (detail), 2010.