A World Where Everything Is Rolled by Contact Points

A ruler is a tool for measuring length. You might think, "Why state the obvious now?" And that is true. There is an object, there is a subject who measures, and the tool is activated to perform its function. Everyone knows what a ruler is. However, perhaps not many people have looked at a ruler very closely. Why not try observing a ruler you have on hand? The surface placed down when measuring or drawing lines is flat, and graduations are engraved on the top surface. These graduations are used to measure length. The graduations are engraved with distinct markings so that divisions of 1 mm, 5 mm, and 10 mm (1 cm) can be understood.

On a narrow stainless steel ruler, the numbers are distributed on both sides. The shapes, bent at right angles, are combined to create movement. A gesture emerges, as if one hand is raised and the other lowered. Yet, it is a ruler. Its job is to measure. But here, it does not measure. What is important here is the contact point of the graduations. You can see that the same numbers meet—250 mm and 250 mm. Where the graduations meet is the contact point, and everything around it is moved—a relationship is created. In rulers combined in opposite directions, naturally, 200 mm (50 mm before) and 300 mm (50 mm ahead) overlap. This is a coincidental overlap/relationship, not a contact point. Eleven works combining rulers are arranged on the floor. In each, a relationship triggered by a contact point unfolds. Instead of a subject measuring something, the contact point indicated by the ruler creates a relationship, leading to space and lines in the surroundings. Do not underestimate it as just a ruler. There are graduations, there are contact points, and everything starts from there. The artist described it as a world where I, the subject, do not move things, but rather a world where I am moved: "a world where everything is rolled by contact points."

Motohiro Tomii has deeply observed ready-made products, liberating them from their functions to show new ways of seeing. What unfolds here is a new way of looking at the ready-made product—the ruler—while at the same time fully accepting its nature as a ruler and allowing it to fulfill its role in a different form. Welcome to a world rolled by contact points, to see what forms these eleven combined rulers take (Keio University Art Center (KUAC), "SHOW-CASE PROJECT Extra-2: Motohiro Tomii - Convenience of Contact Points" Exhibition, October 14 – December 19, 2025).

(Yoko Watanabe, Professor, Keio University Art Center (KUAC))