73°51'N 54°30'E

73°51'N 54°30'E are some of the coordinates of a group of islands called New Land situated in the Arctic Sea. My Search of New Earth has started from watching satellite maps using the GoogleEarth programme. The New Land (rus. Новая Земля) – a Soviet nuclear test site, where the largest atomic bomb in the world, able to destroy tens of towns was detonated. The simplest association: Japan – Hiroshima. The distance that divided me from the destination of wandering into the unknown has evoked one feeling – of emptiness. The emptiness following from ignorance, fear of the strange, a huge leap from one’s warm and safe fireside towards the mythical Odyssey of one’s dreams.

The Japanese ideograms denoting emptiness, 虚無 (kyomu), 空しさ (munashisa), 虚 (kyo), 空 (kuu), 空虚 (kuukyo), 無 (mu), 無意 (muimi), processed into a monotonous video image were juxtaposed with a digital image of Tokyo, slowly drawn in 3D by a programme simulating reality. White, standardised blocks were slowly inhabiting the satellite map, slowly because of weak data transfer on the Internet. The picture of my pause before the journey was a picture from a distance, when the optics of vision change and the angles of seeing get a new dimension, the emptiness was filled in with swollen and pulsating form, giving me a permanent sense of stupefaction.

The installation 73°51'N 54°30'E depends on electric power – time of battery living, until of their running on. This work is the first attempt to cope with distance adopted in the face of the unknown and the undiscovered. The white patches of the mind.

special thanks to Aki Wendland and Yasuyuki Saegusa

2009 - Looking for a NEW EARTH, Sojo Gallery, 熊本市 [Kumamoto] (Japan)