Air, Revisited: "The Art of Air" and "Grinding Powder"

2024/07/25

The "Soichiro Mihara: Recipes for the Art of Air" exhibition is currently being held at the Keio Museum Commons (KeMCo) until August 3. Soichiro Mihara is an artist who translates physical phenomena and natural systems—such as sound, bubbles, radiation, rainbows, microorganisms, moss, airflow, soil, water, and electrons—into art through open technology. He categorizes his works into the properties of air: "vibration, respiration, and particles," and refers to the collective whole as "The Art of Air." Furthermore, he has conceived the creation of "recipes" as a mechanism to share the imagination underlying his work with others and to indicate his intentions as an artist. These recipes include information such as work overviews, the phenomena handled, functional diagrams, circuit diagrams, component lists and parts, and production procedures. In this exhibition, the first edition of these recipes is released, allowing visitors to experience the artist's thinking—which finds updates and cycles in the nature of the works—while presenting "The Art of Air" in a cohesive form.

The new work "Grinding Powder" belongs to the "particles" category. At the same time, it is an important tool for creating the recipes. During the COVID-19 pandemic, while living with masks, Mihara reaffirmed that "scent" consists of "particles" floating in the air, and since then, he has been advancing the pulverization of substances. He hacked existing tools that enable crushing according to the size and hardness of materials—such as ball mills, coffee mills, and stone mortars—to assemble his own automated device for grinding powder. In fact, the recipes are printed with DIY ink made from the powdered components of the works they describe, literally representing the "color of the work." "Grinding Powder," which is a room-wide installation, consists of a thermo-hygrometer that visually indicates the state of the air, a small mill for scent performances along with materials before grinding, and a self-made device that realizes ink pigments and their fine pulverization. Through this composition, the installation exudes the presence of the artist's practice surrounding powder and air.

In addition to this, works are deployed throughout the first to third floors of the building, taking advantage of its structure. The relationship between the works and the environment, and the visualization and sonification of the systems within, change from moment to moment and never remain the same. We hope you will visit KeMCo this summer and experience the various types of air, perhaps taking two or three laps around the exhibition.

(Shiho Hasegawa, Staff Member, Keio Museum Commons)