The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art (APT10) Catalogue

Artists The 10th Asia Pacific Triennial of Contemporary Art 164 You would have gone there to see them by then 2019 (installation view, Ito Residence, Aichi Triennale, Nagoya) / Courtesy: The artist and TARO NASU Michiko Tsuda’s choreographies of space play on the expectations and perceptions of viewers through the careful arrangement of mirrors, frames, prerecorded video and closed- circuit television (CCTV) footage. Tsuda is influenced by a range of sources, including her background in engineering; actors’ movements in the films of Japanese director Yasujirō Ozu; and the avant-garde dance of American Yvonne Rainer. Her works often incorporate live performances, produced in collaboration with professional choreographers and other artists. Nevertheless, installation remains the core of Tsuda’s practice, with viewers of her works ultimately taking on the role of performer. How viewers engaged with Tsuda’s You would have gone there to see them by then 2019 — a subtle yet spellbinding installation in an historic Edo-period residence for the Aichi Triennale — is indicative of the artist’s approach to audience participation. Taking advantage of the sliding screens and indoor–outdoor character of the architecture, Tsuda confused the boundary between adjoining rooms through a combination of mirrors and a screen that displayed CCTV and prerecorded video. Viewers were confronted by their own image seen from behind, which would dissolve into video images of performers in the same space, their lateral movements drawn from the unusual cinematic choreography of Ozu’s classic Tokyo Story (1953). For all the work’s uncanniness, Tsuda constructed a serene atmosphere from the arrangement, enabling relaxed consideration of the novel forms of experience created by screen culture in general. That work was only one particular manifestation of a perceptual technique that Tsuda describes as ‘trialogue’: an interplay of frames, mirrors and screens complicated by a fading between real-time, delayed and occasionally prerecorded footage. These are designed to operate as a kind of feedback loop, where viewer responses to one stimulus — for example, their own reflection, or a video of themselves entering the space 30 seconds earlier — are in turn reflected or recorded by other parts of the apparatus. Apart from its evocative application in You would have gone there to see them by then , Tsuda has also applied the system in spaces ranging from a white-cube gallery space to a high-end fashion boutique in a shopping centre. How Tsuda places her work in a space is based on the uses of a particular location, and the ways in which people respond to architectural cues within large structures. In APT10, she presents two versions of this system. Audiences first encounter it through the triangular arrangement of an empty frame, a mirror and a projection screen in GOMA’s Cinema foyer. This location, inspired by the cinematic sources of Tsuda’s practice, is also a busy thoroughfare close to the Gallery, which creates a more animated mode of viewer engagement and encourages a reading of the work along the lines of a fairground hall of mirrors. In the Gallery’s upper-level River Lounge, on the other hand, Tsuda’s work takes on a more linear arrangement, emphasising the seriality of the frame, mirror and screen structure, and taking advantage of the quieter, more contemplative atmosphere of the space and the view of the river and city beyond. Tsuda’s transpositions attempt to answer the significant question that has faced artists since 2020 of how they address the specificity of a given site while working at an untraversable distance from it, due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. Reuben Keehan Michiko Tsuda Born 1980, Kanagawa, Japan Lives and works in Kanazawa, Japan