Miyajima speaks to each participant five times in the process from the beginning to end. 4 Put simply, ‘Death Clock’ connects the artist with an ever-growing number of people, who are in turn connected to one another through their participation in the art work.Įverybody who registers with this work enters a dialogue with the artist when they register. He describes this concept as ‘where Tatsuo Miyajima forms a relationship with everything’. ‘Death Clock’ places emphasis on the second of three operative concepts that underpin Miyajima’s art practice: ‘Keep Changing’, ’Connect With All’ and ‘Go on Forever’. In this regard, Miyajima’s thinking has arrived at a point where he believes ‘those who can teach how to die can also teach how to live’. It should also be noted that while the earlier two works form memorials to the traumas of the past, ‘Death Clock’ looks towards the present and future where an individual’s death lies. Through this work, Miyajima declares that no man can interfere with the right to life nor harm the dignity in life and death. The reason Miyajima did not create a system alluding to artificial death is so that, even if a person dies unnaturally after their registration, it still values and records their desire for a natural death. But this death is a different kind of death it is like the aforementioned welling up of an intuition that makes us sense the next life ahead. People who register with ‘Death Clock’ are asked to type in their own date of death. He created an experience in which viewers were confronted with an unnatural mass death that happened to other people.Īlternately, ‘Death Clock’ creates a place where one can confront one’s own death. Prior to undertaking ‘Death Clock’, Miyajima was thus able to visualise death as a phenomenon without shape or image, as darkness, in a way that was at once compelling and persuasive. The sudden, complete darkness symbolises mass death. After a few minutes, the counter gadgets light up slowly, one by one, and the space returns to a gentle light blue. Should an audience member pass by that place, all the gadgets are shut down forcibly and the gallery sinks into complete darkness. ‘Mega Death’ is presented in such a way that there is one un-illuminated area within the gallery. ‘Death of Time’ symbolises the enormous death toll in Hiroshima through this darkness that has no beginning or end. Miyajima invests his deep feelings about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in this work. In ‘Death of Time’ – a series of sculptural forms that are lined up lengthwise – thereĪre counter gadgets that stay dark without counting down, forming about the width of a human body. The fade to black that happens during the regular motion of numbers symbolises the concept of a natural death. They refer to the Buddhist notion that life is eternal, as is reincarnation. The numbers count down from 9 to 1 and then fade to black, only to repeat again. To begin with, the iconic digital counters in Miyajima’s works depict the rhythmic passage of time from birth to death. Two works that visualized the stark contrast between these two types of death – one a part of nature’s cycle and the other forcibly imposed – were ‘Death of Time’ and ‘Mega Death’. 2 Miyajima’s works exploring the devastating legacy of the atomic bomb reflect on the concept of artificial death, on an epic scale. 1 Conversely, artificial death means an unnatural death that arises from the desire to do as one likes with another person’s life – death prematurely imposed through human intervention. For Miyajima, natural death means a kind of death that gives us a premonition of the next life welling up from within us. Miyajima began to express two kinds of deaths – natural and ‘artificial’ – in his art works starting from the early 1990s. She started seeing them when she got on the bus that morning.Japanese artist Tatsuo Miyajima has created three works containing the word ‘death’ in their titles. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.Īndie didn’t know what to make of the numbers. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to and purchase your own copy. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.Ĭontact the author: other titles by J.
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