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Get The Clock Back On This Place

この場所に時計を取り戻す



AIR475 2022
ARTIST -IN - RESIDENCE YONAGO

Midori Mitamura x AIR475 Exhibition

"Get The Clock Back On This Place"

Video Installation & Performance

 

Sep.23 - Oct.10. 2022

AIR475 2022 Artist in Residence Exhibitions
 

The exhibition venue used to be a watch and optical store established in the early 20th century in a shopping district in YONAGO city, TOTTORI prefecture. Transforming this old merchant house into a theatrical stage, Midori Mitamura exhibited "Get The Clock Back On This Place ". In the video installation, an old clock left behind in a back room of the building is revived and shown ticking away the time. At the same time, Midori and people presented musical performances as a time signal once an hour.

展示の舞台となったこの場所は、鳥取県・⽶⼦市の商店街で昭和初期より時計・眼鏡の個⼈店を営む町屋の建物でした。この古い町屋を舞台に、三⽥村光⼟⾥は《この場所に時計を取り戻す》と題し、建物の奥に残されていた当時の古い時計を復活させ、時を刻む様⼦を空間に投影する映像インスタレーションを展⽰しました。同時に、時報としての⾳楽を奏でるアートパフォーマンスを毎時、地元の参加者とともに公開しました。

 

 

“Get The Clock Back On This Place” For my artist-in-residency program, I usually create artworks that serve as intermediaries to connect my real life with our memories and time that reside in places. In YONAGO, based on encountering an old clock left in a MACHIYA building which used to be a watch store, I project the images of two clocks in the space and play music to mark the time. In the place where people's daily memories have accumulated, I hope to shed light on the ever-changing town and the fertility of communities as local shopping districts of small retailers. YONAGO prospered as a castle town at a strategic point of transportation where the Sanin Road and the Izumo Highway converge, and developed as a merchant town. When I stepped into a shopping district in YONAGO, I remembered that I was thrilled by the small shopping district in my hometown when I was a child. Shopping districts are gateways to cultures which connect cities and countryside to enrich people's lives. They have served as platforms for encountering other worlds while mixing with the local characteristics of each area. The store owners are also experts in their fields who provide their abundant knowledge to us. However, the shopping district in my hometown that used to be called "Ginza (a luxury shopping town in Tokyo)" has disappeared, and its townscape has totally changed. The bustling shopping streets of the past have disappeared from local areas, and wintry scenes prevail while being unable to resist the changes of time. Also in YONOGO, the 21st century’s pop songs echo in the empty 20th century’s arcades. People are not coming to the stores where people are waiting for them while people are gathering at huge shopping centers where they do not talk to others. In the past few decades, the development of transportations has shortened the distance between the cities and the countryside and took people away from the countryside. And globalization has homogenized industries in the 21st century. Only prices have been concerned, and fine distinctions between each territory have been lost. We can see the same signboards in both big cities and rural areas, and the same products and services are available everywhere. As for me, I have been spending more and more time in Japan instead of overseas for the last two years, and I have been thinking about what towns or stores should be while I stay in both Tokyo and the countryside. It was also a way for me to rethink capitalist societies behind the COVID 19 and current global situation. The exhibition venue, NONAMIYA, was a small retailer of watches and opticals established in the early 20th century. When I went up to the second floor of the building, I found an old alarm clock and a parts box with "SEIKOSHA" printed on it. When I saw them, I thought of the clock tower of WAKO at the Ginza 4th street in Tokyo. The logo of "SEIKO" must have graced the storefronts of watch stores all over Japan. The clock tower, which is a symbol of the city, looks like a golden tower supported by small watch retailers all over Japan. Soon after I arrived in YONAGO, I got to know that the owner of a music store in the shopping arcade can repair flutes, and I was thinking that I should order my flute which I played when I was a junior and senior high school student to be fixed. One day, when I heard the melody that announced the time everyday in the town, fragments of things, people, and conversations I had encountered in YONAGO suddenly began to link like a chain. I was convinced that if the old clock left in the old store would be fixed to tick the time, I want to be a time signal as playing the flute for the first time in 40 years. I would like to project the images of SEIKOSHA’s clock that had been sleeping in this old store in YONAGO, Tottori, and the SEIKO clock that is still working in Ginza, Tokyo to tick the time together at the same place. We bring the clock back to this place where people's memories reside, and we celebrate the brilliance of time as it comes back to life. The clock in YONAGO that has awakened from sleep and the clock in Ginza that has ticked away the time without sleep. Through these two clocks, the connection between the flow of time and places are reflected, and once every hour, music will be played by the people to sound the time, hoping that it will illuminate a new future for the people and the town. September 2022, Midori Mitamura

《この場所の時計を取り戻す》 私の滞在制作では、場所に宿る記憶と時間を手がかりに、そこへ等身大の自分を接続するための媒介となる作品をつくっています。米子では、かつての時計店だった町屋の建物と、そこに遺された古い時計との出会いをもとに、空間にふたつの時計の像を投影し、時を刻むための音楽を奏でます。人々の日常の記憶が集積した場所で、変わりゆく町の姿と、商店街というコミュニティの豊かさに光を当てたいと考えます。  米子は山陰道と出雲街道が合流する交通の要衝に城下町として栄え、商人の街として発展しました。米子の商店街に足を踏み入れたとき、生まれ故郷の小さな商店街で心をときめかせた子供時代を思い出しました。  商店街は都会と地方をつなぎ、生活に豊かさを与える文化の入り口です。その土地の特色と混ざり合いながら、他の世界と出会うプラットフォームの役割を果たしてきました。店主はその分野の専門家でもあり、豊富な知識を与えてくれます。しかしながら故郷の「銀座」と呼ばれたその通りから店は消え、まち並みは様変わりしました。地方の商店街はどこも、かつての賑わいが息を潜め、時代の変化に抗えない寒々とした光景が広がっています。米子でも、人のいない昭和のアーケードに令和の歌が鳴り響いています。人が待つ店に人が来ないで、人と話さない大型商業施設に人が集まっています。  この数十年、交通の発達は都会との距離を縮め、地方から人を吸い取ってしまいました。21世紀に入ってグローバル化が産業を画一化すると、高い安いだけが叫ばれ、細かな住み分けは失われました。大都市も地方も同じ看板が並び、同じモノとサービスが手に入ります。 私については、この2年余り海外の代わりに国内での滞在制作が多くなり、東京と地方の両方に身を置きながら、まちとは何か、店とは何かについて日々思いを巡らせていました。それはまさに、コロナ禍や世界情勢を通して、その背景にある資本主義社会とは何だったのかを、見つめ直すことでもありました。  本展の会場となる野波屋は、昭和初期より時計・眼鏡店を営む個人店でした。建物の二階に上がると、古い目覚まし時計と精工舎と印字された当時の部品箱が在りました。それを目にして、私は東京・銀座四丁目の和光の時計塔を思い浮かべました。それは昭和7年に開店したセイコーの前身である服部時計店の宝飾店のビルで、都会のシンボルとして、様変わりする街の中心で変わらず時を刻み続けています。SEIKOの文字は日本中の時計店の店頭で人々の生活を彩ってきたはずです。すると都会の象徴である時計塔も、実は日本中の小さな時計店に支えられてそびえ立つ金字塔のようにも見えて来るのです。  米子に着いてまもなく商店街の楽器店で店主がフルートの修理をすると知り、中・高生時代に吹いていたフルートを調整してもらおうかとぼんやり考えていました。ある日、まちなかで、いつものように昼と夕の時を知らせるメロディを耳にすると、米子で出会ったモノや人や会話の断片が鎖のように繋がり始めました。そして時計店跡の古い時計が復活して時を刻んでくれるなら、私は自らがその時報となって40年ぶりにフルートを奏でようと思いついたのです。  鳥取・米子の時計店で眠っていた精工舎の時計と、東京・銀座で動き続けるセイコーの時計とが、ともに時間を刻む光景をこの場所に投影してみたい。人々の記憶が宿るこの場所に時計を取り戻し、息を吹き返す時間の輝きを皆で讃えたい。眠りから覚めた米子の時計と、眠らずに時を刻んできた銀座の時計。ふたつの時計を通して、それぞれが見守ってきた時代の流れと場所との繋がりを映し出し、人とまちの新たな未来が照らしだされることを祈りながら、一時間に一度、人々の奏でる一曲が時を告げます。

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