YAMBARU ART FESTIVAL
2022-2023

Shota Yamauchi

Requiem

This film is a video work based on "The Bremen Town Musicians."
Each of the four monitors in the film shows a donkey (dragon), a dog, a cat, and a chicken, all of which appear in "The Bremen Town Musicians."
Four PCs were simultaneously connected to "skype" and "Face rig" virtual avatar software and set up to film in various house rooms.
At the beginning of the video, the characters are shown on the full screen, giving the impression that four people are talking to each other, but, in fact, there are only two speakers. It is clear from the camera mode change in the middle of the video that two people are playing the characters while moving around the room.
The two speakers try to move around as quickly as possible to play their roles and make the conversation go smoothly.
Why are they talking through the calling software even though they are in the same space? And why are they playing the roles of two people instead of four?
I find both reality and fiction in the images in this contradictory double structure.
The Bremen Musicians is a story about animals that have been used as livestock for many years and have grown old, and they go to Bremen (Utopia) in search of a second life.
I chose this story as my subject because I thought I could compare myself, as an artist, to the animals that have escaped from human society and are seeking their own utopia.
In the final scene, I intentionally created howling (resonance) by gathering all the computers in one room, and the Bremen musicians I created played "noise music."

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  Shota Yamauchi

  PROFILE

  Born in 1992 in Gifu Prefecture, she currently lives and works in Kanagawa Prefecture. Graduated from Kanazawa College of Art, Department of Sculpture in 2014 and completed the Graduate School of Film and New Media in 2016 at Tokyo University of the Arts. Major solo exhibitions include "Second Texture (Feel)" GalleryTOH (Tokyo, 2021), "Ballet Mécanique" RICOH ART GALLERY (Tokyo, 2022), and "Love and Humor" EUKARYOTE (Tokyo, 2022). Major group exhibitions include "Roppongi Crossing 2019 Exhibition: Connecting" Mori Art Museum (Tokyo, 2019), "D.T. Suzuki: Life=Zen=Art" Watari-Um Museum (Tokyo, 2022), "Reborn Art Festival 2021-22" (Miyagi, 2022), " Ars Electronica Festival 2022" (Linz, Austria, 2022). Major awards include "TERRADA ART AWARD 2021," Takahiro Kaneshima Award, Audience Award, and "the 25th Japan Media Arts Festival," Excellence Award in Art Division.