INDEX
Reconstructing Sakamoto’s Opera LIFE in an Installation
In the next exhibition room lies a standout installation, LIFE–fluid, invisible, inaudible…, one of the exhibition’s key highlights. Nine floating water tanks release mist, through which images are projected onto the floor. Both the visuals and sounds are randomly generated, creating a constantly evolving experience. While there are five collaborative works by Ryuichi Sakamoto and Shiro Takatani on display, this particular piece marks one of their earliest collaborations. The “mist,” which will recur in their later works, takes on a pivotal role from the very beginning.
The blue sky reflected at your feet becomes unpredictably blurred by the mist, gently swaying with the ripples of water droplets. When images of the sky or trees appear, it feels as though you are gazing at a rain-soaked garden from the opposite side of the ground—strikingly beautiful. At the same time, this piece is a reimagining of Sakamoto’s opera LIFE (1999), and at times, the sounds and visuals used in the opera reappear through the mist.
The piece, with themes such as “war and revolution” and “science and technology,” transforms the entire space into a tense, unsettling environment. The text projected onto the floor becomes unreadable as it is obscured by the mist, and while trying to follow its meaning, it gradually disappears. Curious, I later translated the words captured in a photograph, discovering that they were the names of bird species that went extinct due to human environmental destruction, appearing and fading away in a fleeting scene. Perhaps those who had experienced the opera LIFE would have understood it more deeply… I envy them.
