House 100
Shibuhouse
21 May – 30 July 2012
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(English below)
“前衛が死に、皮肉的な表現が増えるいま、美術は誠実さを欠いているようにみえる。ナルシズムとニヒリズムは存在しない注目を浴びようと戦い、キッチュとキャンプは形骸とかした主役の座を奪い合い、アーティストと批評家は鏡に写る自分の姿を見てエゴイズムに酔うだけだ。
Ken Wilber, The Eye of Spirit: Integral Art and Literary Theory
今回の渋家「House 100」展は、渋家のありのままを展示するという、パフォーマンス要素を取り入れた試みです。渋家とは2008に形成されたアーティスト・コレクティブで、かれらは渋谷でシェアハウスをしながらアートの可能性を探っています。今回の展示は、アーティスト、デザイナー、ミュージシャンなど渋家のメンバー達自身がインスピレーションを受けた人々にインタビューして、日常とアートを分つ境界線を問うことを主旨としています。
会期中The Containerはオフィス風、あるいは渋家の家のように改装され、インタビューワーとは雑談形式で家や家族、またそれらが芸術活動へ及ぼす影響について会話します。
インタビューはどれもネットで生中継され、後日オンラインで動画を観ることもできます。加えて、ブログやツィッターによる詳細も随時ネット上に載せられます。
“中継は…少し前に見た動画がどんどん消えて流れていく。電子は、一フレームごとに二つのイメージを構築し組み合わせて画面を完成させる。だがスクリーン上にみる動きは、連続したフレームによる目の錯覚にしか過ぎないうえ、一つ一つのフレームは不完全な画の連続でしかないのだ…“
Sean Cubitt, Timeshift: On Video Culture
会期中The Containerには、インタビューのための椅子、ライト、パソコン、ビデオカメの他、渋家メンバーの写真が雑誌Time Magazineが毎年発表する「世界で最も影響力のある100人のリスト」を模したレイアウトで展示されています。インタビューが一つ終わると、インタビューワーの写真も壁に加えられていきます。
インタビューが行われている際にThe Containerへ行った場合、コンテナ内に入ることはできないものの、外から見ることはできます。
渋家（シブハウス）について：
渋家は、20数名のメンバーにより2008年に結成されました。そのメンバーにはアーティストのみならず、医大生や編集者、デザイナー、映像制作者、ミュージシャンなど様々な興味をもつ人々がおり、渋谷にあるシェアハウスで生活しています。
実生活にアートを取り込む作風を用いて毎月22日にアートパーティや様々なパフォーマンス／アート・イベントを開催する、今注目のアート集団です。3月11日の震災以降は哲学的かつ政治的なテーマを扱い、今後の日本の新しいスタンスを確立すべく模索しています。
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“With the death of the avant-garde and the triumph of irony, art seems to have nothing sincere to say. Narcissism and nihilism battle for a center stage that isn’t even there; kitsch and camp crawl all over each other in a fight for a representation that no longer matters anyway; there seems to arise only the egoic inclination of artist and critic alike, caught in halls of self-reflecting mirrors, admiring their image in a world that once cared.”
Ken Wilber, The Eye of Spirit: Integral Art and Literary Theory
Shibuhouse’s performative exhibition, House 100, at The Container does what Shibuhouse do best—being Shibuhouse. The young loose-collective which was formed in 2008 and explores the notion of art through their shared residence in the central Tokyo neighbourhood Shibuya, gives us an opportunity to consider the borders between acts of art and simply living, through a series of interviews they are conducting for the duration of the exhibition. The interviewees are a range of artists, designers, musicians and professionals the collective selected as figures of inspiration.
The Container is set up for the duration of the exhibition as an office, or an external representation of the collective’s residence, hosting the guests and enabling members of Shibuhouse to hang out with them in an informal environment that seeks to investigate the ideas of what is a house or home, what is a family and how these subjective definitions contribute to, or facilitate, artistic production.
The interviews, which will all be conducted inside of the actual container, will be broadcast live on the internet, with additional information and a synopsis available online through the collective’s blog and twitter account. A copy of each broadcast will remain permanently online.
“the broadcast flow is . . . a vanishing, a constant disappearing of what has just been shown. The electron scan builds up two images of each frame shown, the lines interlacing to form a “complete” picture. Yet not only is the sensation of movement on screen an optical illusion brought about by the rapid succession of frames: each frame is itself radically incomplete, the line before always fading away, the first scan of the frame all but gone, even from the retina, before the second interlacing scan is complete. . . . “
Sean Cubitt, Timeshift: On Video Culture
Visitors to The Container will find little else than Shibuhouse’s setup for the interviews: a couple of chairs, some lights, a computer, a video camera and portrait photographs of the collective’s members laid out in a similar composition to the cover of Time Magazine’s 100 (an annual publication which features the 100 people of the year). After each interview is complete, a portrait of each interviewee will be added as well to the wall. If one attends the exhibition while an interview is taking place, entry to the actual container will be forbidden, but visitors will be able to peek in. The complete interviews, instead, can be viewed online (both live and eventually also in an online database.)
Shibuhouse is a young loose collective from Tokyo Japan which was formed in 2008 and includes 20-some members. The members, who are engaged in various disciplines – from visual art practitioners, to medical students, publishers, producers, designers, film makers and musicians – all share a house together in the busy neighbourhood of Shibuya in central Tokyo.
Their interventions (such as “Bad Cloth” in 2010, which prompted the involvement of the police and the Yakuza) and their monthly house parties on the 22nd of each month, have earned the collective local notoriety and a new approach to the discourse about the relation between art and life, blurring the distinction between one’s personal life and conventional art practices.
Following the disaster of 3/11, like many other young Japanese, the collective has started to also become more engaged in philosophical and politically driven discussions about the future of Japan and how those may facilitate a change in Japanese culture and the local art scene.
• A programme of the interviews will be accessible at:
• You can join Shibuhouse’s Twitter account for reminders and additional information about each interview:
Twitter @shibuhouse
• The interviews will be broadcast live at:
UST http://www.ustream.tv/channel/house-100
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