Kenta Cobayashi
> Metronom: You live in Tokyo in a shared residency with other artists you depict / feature in some of your works. Can you describe your personal artistic experience of the city of Tokyo?
Kenta Cobayashi: I lived in Tokyo up to a year ago—now I live elsewhere. It is a unique experience to have lived in a city going under a fast-paced transformation especially for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, and now to observe it from the outside. One thing I remember fondly is the many strolls I’ve gone on with my friends from around 2 AM till morning. Right around then, I have gotten tired of following club scenes or fashion and simply wandered about; instead, getting engaged in visiting places like shrines dotted around the city. The sense of time we experience from the progress of city development—constantly revitalizing with vigour akin to that of the Instagram feed—is in coexistence with the sense of time conveyed through the mythology, dating back thousands of years, embedded in these shrines. Perhaps Tokyo was an ideal location to learn about the many “layers of time”. The sharehouse too provided me with insight into the perception of time. What struck me the most was the discovery of a coincidental synchronized trend breaking out in different communities that have branched out from a single share house. To be specific, during the same period of time we were into Japanese mythology, a previous member of the shared residency, who I have not kept in touch for a while, was also into it. It was experienced in the likeness of regaining a small dose of primitive sensation.
> M: You describe yourself as a ‘digital native’. Can your practice be considered closer to the “link” or to the “share button”, by which I mean closer to hyper-textual realities or in some way made-up of quotations and appropriations?
KC: If I were to rephrase the words “link” and “share button”, it would be “wormhole”. [1] The images are misshapen—as if bugs have eaten out of them—with my intention to express that the photographs are the result of interference from a different dimension, beyond its two-dimensional layer. I think the concept of “hypertext” can be considered a branch of philosophy in itself. “Ordinary texts” without links will go unseen by others—except by its authors. There is no meaning in those kinds of spaces. The act of putting links on them—and thus interconnecting them with different universes—gives texts life for the first time. Let’s say one “clicks” on a link and moves from page A to page B. Which one of the two pages is the user situated in that specific moment? This is the kind of “sense of space” I want to manifest in my works. A photograph gets captured by way of a “click” and gets distorted by way of a “click” as well.
> M: In the show From My Point of View you presented a 9-square-grid called “Hello #square #smudge”. The paint/graphic signs that determine the work seem to chase through one frame to the other. Can you explain this piece and it’s a reference to your long-term project “Everything”?
KC: This connects with the above-mentioned answer: I want to express that a single image doesn’t exist independently—“everything” connects up from all kinds of angles. And because of this interconnectedness, an image is constantly in dialogue with “everything”. In this work, I focus on a “square”. The graphic signs of each photograph get overlaid and intertwined with that of other photographs via a mouse cursor, stretching out the data of colour embedded in the square of bitmap—a basic unit of an image.
> M: You also present a video work. How do you deal with video as a medium? What is your personal approach to technology and its obsolescence?
KC: I am interested in the “layer of time” coverable with the video medium. Here, the graphic signs transcend layers, thus connecting the work into a single theme. I get the same type of sensation when I take photos in the style of straight photography. Technology, on its surface, seems to be a thing where a vast variety of things appear and disappear, one after another. But come to think of it, all things operate on the surface (interface) of the concept we call, “technology”. It embodies a universality that applies to all time periods (even the age when wall paintings were drawn in the Lascaux cave 20,000 years ago). The history of mankind can be seen as a dance with technology—we hug and thrust, and at times stumble due to its heavyweight or occasionally make light spins. And now, humanity will need to take the next step forward with the imminent arrival of the era of AI. If we don’t feel it out and instead contemplate on what kind of step to make, we won’t be able to dance gracefully.
> M: In your work we can perceive a personal attitude towards distortion. Why do you feel the necessity to intervene inside the digital reality? How do you deal with the ‘gesture’ and the ‘fortuity’ of the signs?
KC: It’s apparent that the density of the “digital world” will continue to grow worldwide. With this status quo, I thought, why not take the lead in diving into the said expanse and “swim”—like a child sticking a finger in the puddle of water to play. Adults might think it is a meaningless act. But people can learn from its ripples, the characteristics of or the influence of gravity on water molecules. I believe that the universe we’re living in, is embedded in all things created by human beings.
[1] wormhole. In physics, a wormhole is a tunnel in space that is believed to connect different parts of the universe; a tunnel in the geometry of space-time postulated to connect different parts of the universe. (Collins English Dictionary)
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Kenta Cobayashi (Japan, 1992) He received a BA at Tokyo Zokei University, Tokyo (2015). He has had solo exhibitions at G/P gallery (Tokyo, 2017 and 2016). His works have been featured in major group exhibitions such as From My Point of View, Metronom (2018); GIVE ME YESTERDAY at Fondazione Prada (Milan, 2016); New Rube Goldberg Machine, KAYOKO YUKI·KOMAGOME SOKO (Tokyo, 2016); New Material, Casemore Kirkeby (San Francisco, 2016); Close to the Edge: New Photography from Japan, MIYAKO YOSHINAGA (New York, 2016); trans-tokyo / trans-photo, Jimei × Arles International Photo Festival (Xiamen, China, 2015); The Devil May Care, Noorderlicht Photogallery (Groningen, NL, 2015); The Exposed #7, G/P gallery Shinonome (Tokyo, 2014). His works have been acquired by major institutions like Asian Art Museum, San Francisco. His first photo book ‘Everything_1′ was published by Newfave in 2016.
Cover image: © Kenta Cobayashi, “Hello #square #smudge”, 2017
06/04/2018