A panorama camera is installed in the center of the room. This camera is able to capture its entire surrounding by shooting images reflected by the hemispherical mirror. The shot images are transformed into cylindrical shapes using computer software and projected onto the walls in real time. Furthermore, in another cylinder that appears on and off, pre-recorded footage of the artist himself is also mapped in the same way.

The camera lens is pointed towards the photographic subject as a surrogate for our line of vision, but in the case of a panorama lens that can shoot a range of 360 degrees, there is no such thin as being "behind the camera." That is to say, people are made to be the photographic objects at the same time as they are the viewers and are transformed into the viewed. In this regard the panorama camera can be said to have properties that are very close to those of mirrors, but unlike with mirrors, the line of sight is not directly in front of the lens. Furthermore, because computer image processing technology is used in this work to reproduce the images, the viewer can see from the outside panoramas in which their own image has been captured and a structure created in which the relationship between the subject and the object is superimposed in multiple layers.
Amongst the work the artist is reading aloud the Adolfo BIOY CASARES novel "The Invention of Morel," which inspired the work. This recorded image not only clearly manifests the artist's presence but also evokes the issues concerning the real-time nature of post-photograph media and of recording and replaying time.

FUJIHATA Masaki Profile

FUJIHATA Masaki has since the 1980s created numerous works that explore the relationship between art and science using various approaches, and he is gaining attention both in Japan and overseas as a trailblazer in the field of media art. His main artistic works include "Beyond Pages," and "Field-Works," and his numerous written works include "Art and Computer," and "Fukanzen na Genjitsu (Incomplete Reality)." Currently he is a Professor at the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts.
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