“Leaving a Vacuum in which Compasses and our Internal Navigation Systems Fail to Work” will be a video and photographic project, incorporating elements of storytelling and performance, by UK-based artist duo Kevin Gaffney & Sally-Anne Kelly. Our starting point for research and development is the rich histories and folklore specific to the ancient Japanese forests. We are interested in the forests as spaces where the subtle exchange between reality, reconstruction and mythological imagination can take place.

「コンパスやナビゲーション・システムが誤作動する真空を離脱する」
「コンパスやナビゲーション・システムが誤作動する真空を離脱する」は、ビデオと写真から成るプロジェクトであり、UK在住のアーティストデュオKevin Gaffney & Sally-Anne Kellyによる物語の語りとパフォーマンスの要素を組み入れている。我々の探求の出発点は古代日本の森特有の豊かな歴史と民話である。我々は現実、再構築、復興と神話のイマジネーションの間に不思議な交流が起こる場所である森に関心がある。

企画内容
Proposed Configuration of art work: video work with audio & photographs. Can be exhibited as an installation/exhibition, as a publication, online and projected in public spaces.

Concept:
Our practice is a hybridization of text/narrative, photography, performance and video. We respond to a space, or a moment, and write a piece of prose/text about it, which we then begin to research in photographs and performance before creating a video that is a satellite to the original story. This process is often accelerated by new experiences and encounters. For example, our final project at the Royal College of Art & Central St Martins (a film titled The Unnameable) took shape when Kevin began to live in an abandoned nursery for disabled children- the new, surreal, environment fed our imaginations and we began to intervene with the space: altering it with sculpture, lights and performance.

For the Sapporo Pre-Biennale we propose to continue our work as an artist duo to create work that responds to Hokkaido's unique environment. We plan on developing a series of photographs and video/performance works. Our starting point for research and development is surrounding the mythologies of the ancient Japanese forests. Ever since we visited Japan in 2010, we have been fascinated with popular folklore stories about people disappearing into the forests of Japan. At the base of Fuji-San, one man told us that in ancient forests like these, the north and south magnetic poles cancel each other out, leaving a vacuum in which compasses and our internal navigation systems fail to work. As such, people get lost forever. He told me that the cancelling out of the magnetic force causes strange occurrences in the air and wind, which people perceive as being ghosts. After exploring the medieval forest in Nara, I noticed that Hayao Miyazaki's film "Princess Mononoke" (aka. Mononoke-hime) explored many of these superstitions of popular imagination. Also set in medieval times, the main characters are led through the forests by fairy-like ghosts. The motif of the forest also appeared in Kenji Mizoguchi's film "Ugetsu Monogatari" in 1953. Scenes of supernatural occurrences in the forest and its surrounding lakes haunt the film, and eventually a ghostly woman steals Genjuro's heart away from his wife. This subtle exchange between reality, reconstruction and mythological imagination- present in both Miyazaki and Mizoguchis' works- is something we aspire to with our film works, and the film we wish to make in Hokkaido.

With these references in mind, we aim to explore the environment of Sapporo and Hokkaido and create a response in the form of a story, a video and a series of photographs. We will perform in the video and photographs as characters we will create the costume and movement for. The story will be written in the vein of our past stories (please see previous stories in enclosed information), and we are currently inspired by Waka and Honka-Dori poetry from Medieval Japan. Kevin has just completed a course at the Imperial College, London, in beginner's Japanese. We hope we will also be able to explore the literature of Japan surrounding the forests and mythologies. We are in content with a research MA Student who is in exchange between Osaka University and the Royal College of Art, Tsuchida Kosuke, who will help us with the historical references and with the translation of the story into Japanese.

We are particularly interested in investigating Wakkanai and the national parks, including the Daisetsuzan National Park.We created some work in the national forest of Finland in 2010 (photographs enclosed in image folder). We imagine our proposal will begin with writing a story about our experience of the environment, inventing characters unique to Hokkaido, and then creating the photographs and video. We intend our Japanese influences to fuse with our hybridized practice to create a visually sumptuous work with many layers of interpretation for both Eastern and Western audiences that visit the biennale.