Kotaro Abe (JP), Yasuaki Kakehi (JP)
THU September 4 - MON 8 2014, 10 AM - 9 PM
Akademisches Gymnasium, 2nd floor, Chemistry Lab, Room 202
unsettled succinctly describes the mood prevailing in Japan in the wake of the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear catastrophe. Since then, some Japanese people won’t eat fish or seafood for fear of radioactive contamination; others are constantly measuring the radioactivity in their immediate environment; still others steadfastly refuse to abandon their houses in the no-go zones. People lack a consensus and a shared conception of how to manage the nuclear crisis.
Bulb, Camera and Clock
Abe and Kakehi confront this state of tense uncertainty in three works subsumed under the title unsettled. In them, they attempt to capture the essence of radioactivity by connecting a Geiger counter to objects that then react whenever radioactivity is measured.
In the case of existence, it’s a bulb that blinks every time enough radiation is detected; in spread, a camera’s shutter is released when a certain level of radiation is exceeded; and in transitions, a clock’s hands move only when sufficient radioactivity is present.