How far does the dematerialization of work go? ? A first monograph on the Japanese artist Fujiko Nakaya details how she sculpts fog, producing works in incessant transformation and in dialogue with the meteorological and topographical conditions of their environment.
Fujiko Nakaya sculpts fog. A pioneer in this strange art, since 1970 she has continued to create fog works throughout the world, each time different and specific, designed in studied interactions with natural, urban and architectural elements, and/or in collaborations. with other artists, musicians, dancers, directors. Besides the disturbing beauty of these interactions, besides the force of the experiences proposed, this reiteration and this insistence on the material deserves to be questioned. What does fog work do? ? How to sculpt the ephemeral and the evanescent ? How much artifice is there in this recreation of a natural phenomenon? ? What are the issues and goals? ?
This first exhaustive monograph of the Japanese artist gives prominence to this major aspect for thirty years, without excluding her other works, videos and paintings – which find their place at the end of the work but retroactively shed light on the genesis of an approach which leads from painting and the representation of forms to the apprehension of movement and time, to the processes of formation and deformation. The monograph offers answers to the questions these fog sculptures raise. They are nourished both by articles presented in the introduction to the catalog raisonné, by numerous comments from those with whom F. Nakaya collaborated (among others Bill Viola, Trisha Brown), and finally throughout the book by the writings of the artist herself. From this elegant trilingual multimedia work (in French, Japanese, English), we can identify four remarkable dimensions: the paradoxes of an unsituable work, the induced redefinition of the status of the work, the artist and the spectator, the originality and coherence of the approach, and finally the editorial quality of the publishing project.
The paradoxes of unlocatable work
First of all, we strike the paradoxical dimensions of this work. Yuji Morioka highlights the paradoxes of a “ sculpture which oscillates between material and immaterial, object and phenomenon, and which could perhaps be described as a situation sculpture » (p. 18), because of its interactive dimension. Anne-Marie Duguet insists on the originality of an approach “ naturally artificial » since it involves artificially producing — by a technological device, developed and patented by the artist — a mist of pure water, therefore “ natural » ; she makes this choice of a natural material so that we can enjoy walking through it or lingering there (p. 22), but also to protect the environment and play with it. It is in fact “ conversation with the wind » according to the beautiful expression of the artist (p. 233), who also describes his work as “ atmosphere sculptures » (p. 217) or “ negative sculpture » since the atmospheric conditions play the role of a mold: “ in sculpture, it’s about working with the atmosphere as the raw material and letting the wind handle the chisel as it pleases in the mold of the atmospheric conditions » (p. 354).
Redefinition of the status of the work, the artist and the spectator
In such work, the work is no longer thought of as a closed, completed and lasting totality, it is processual and in progress as in many other contemporary creations. It is still necessary to emphasize here that, if it is in incessant transformation, it is because it is in dialogue with the meteorological and topographical conditions of its environment (next to the title of the work, we always find mention of the number international code of the weather station where it took place). The artist therefore assumes a multiplicity of functions: designing and “ sculpt » but still interpret the “ partition », developed according to the location by the ramps of nozzles, or improvise according to the wind and the elements, controlling the opening or closing of these nozzles (the collaborators’ notes and the precise descriptions of the works give an idea of this dimension of improvisation on a score, notably in Nakaya’s collaboration with the choreographer T. Brown: both seek to “ give shape » to what is in perpetual change, the dance movement and the movements of water particles ; their collaboration redoubles the conditions for improvisation and its potential richness through the interaction of the dancers’ movements and the evolution of the fog on stage ; it hides or reveals them but can also make them risky (soil humidity, etc.).
Finally, the traditional status of the receiver is also affected by these propositions of mists, in which we find ourselves partially immersed or totally enveloped, which we can look at from the outside, or penetrate, in which we can or cannot remain. By his presence which increases the temperature, the visitor modifies the fog, while being modified by it. The space is undone and remade, the contours are lost, the senses are distributed differently, the sounds are absorbed, the imagination is stimulated by the shapes which can be guessed in fragments, by the very movements of the mist. As the artist writes, “ in fog, what is visible becomes invisible, and what is invisible—like the wind—becomes visible » (pp. 119 and 233). However, as Kenjirô Okazaki’s article recommends, it is not a question of giving in to the mysteries of the immaterial or to a mystique “ nebula » of the invisible, we must learn to distinguish in this technologically recreated fog a material made of “ light and radiant water particles » (p. 75).
Originality and coherence of the approach
It is necessary to carefully consult the catalog raisonné, careful and copious, which constitutes the heart of the work and allows us to measure the extent of this work on fog (around sixty achievements and projects are listed until December 2011 ), to measure its originality, to finally situate it in the coherence and evolution of the artist, from his practice as a painter to that of a videographer then to the production of fog.
Each of the fog sculptures is referenced and described with precise readings of measurements and topographical conditions, mention of the meteorological station, and indications of the number of nozzles, pumps, type of valve, sensor, programmer, etc. These details given on this sophisticated material device allow us to understand both the originality and the coherence of the artist’s approach.
On the one hand, far from using smoke bombs to create a halo or a fog screen, as others do or have been able to do (in very different registers), we are thinking of the way in which McCall or A.- V. Janssens sculpt the immaterial, or the repeated use of smoke in certain concerts), far from concealing the means used to create a fascinating illusion, far from producing a “ effect », she seeks to produce a material defined by interactions between artifice and nature without hiding anything. The dematerialization is therefore only relative since the device is exhibited. On the other hand, there is great coherence because this research, inseparably artistic and scientific, is part of an assumed lineage (the artist is the daughter of Ukichiro Nakaya, the inventor of the production of artificial snow crystals ), and continues with its participation in the activities of Experiments in Art and Technology. The research is reflected in patent filings for the production of fog using ceramic nozzles, as well as in projects. We can give the example of Foggy Wake in a Desert (1983), a permanent installation in Australia of a fog sculpture, in collaboration with Dr Y. Mitsuta as part of a program to study the causes of desertification.
The coherence is not only intellectual, it brings together these artistic projects beyond their variety. May the fog allow us to pay homage to the “ Snow Museum. Ukichiro Nakaya » (Greenland Glacial Moraine GardenFog-Environment 1994 in Japan, p. 208), or that the fog works extend research deployed in video or, previously, in painting (Clouds1960-1961), here and there, it is always a question of highlighting processes of regeneration and decomposition, of demystifying by showing the material conditions while re-enchanting the visible through the effects produced, of making sensitive to the ecological specificity of environments. Nakaya filmed at length (in a video: Soji-ji1979) the practice of reciting sutras by monks in a Zen Temple. In the monograph, she explains having been attentive to the fact that, contrary to what is practiced in a choir of Western voices, each monk recites according to his own breath. ; as a result, even if the syllables are slightly shifted, the flow of collective recitation is never interrupted, which corresponds to the etymology, “ sutra » meaning “ thread » in Sanskrit. An article by Pierre-Damien Huyghe makes a suggestive connection, suggesting that there is in this practice of recitation “ a collective fog » produced by singularities ; the fog could be “ a way of offering a plastic equivalent of atonality and dissonance » because it requires the activation of perceptions more than the recognition of a form in “ an experience without a guide or orthosis » (pp. 91-92).
An editorial success
We must salute the high quality of the editorial design and implementation. In addition to a rich iconography, the edition includes two DVD delivered with the book. They certainly accompany it, but are not reduced to a source of additional documentation and constitute an independent tool. The first contains two videos (Statics of an Egg from 1973 and Soji-ji from 1979) ; the second is a DVD-Rom which delivers rare archival documents (artist’s drawings or “ sheet music ), digital simulations but above all various entries on the works. Among those most anticipated – entries by dates, by titles, themes, categories – let us highlight the very successful initiative of two more technical entries: the number of nozzles used per fog sculpture, the code of the weather station. The creative process is therefore highlighted in this database which can be arranged in multiple ways and which is also designed to be able to be updated. As with the other titles in the Anarchive collection, it is a question of presenting the work of an artist from various archives in a historical and critical perspective, but also of inventing each time a form of original creation.
It is particularly successful in this DVDwhere a digital fog designed by DoubleNegatives Architecture reacts to the movement of the cursor, moves, dissipates to provide access to data. From globality to detail, from detail to globality, this edition is therefore remarkable.