Video footage of a chair filmed by a camera is shown in real-time on a display on the left side of the chair. Installed further on the left of the display are four additional displays, in front of each of which a camera is set up and connected via a computer to the adjoining display. The images filmed by each camera are encoded or decoded based on image conversion algorithms. As the images are transmitted to the displays by way of such reversible operation, the footage of the chair appears in several variations that each incorporate uncertain data such as the venue setting and the presence of visitors in it. Displayed at the same time on another display on the right side of the chair is the update history (about 5000 revisions) of the term "chair" in the English edition of Wikipedia.

This work references Joseph KOSUTH's "One and Three Chairs" (1965). By exhibiting a real chair, a photograph of a chair, and a dictionary's definition of a "chair" in what has been regarded as a classic piece of conceptual art, KOSUTH questioned the way a "chair" is defined. By adding to this "encoding" and "decoding" as inseparable aspects of digital media, and furthermore, Wikipedia text that exemplifies the changing format of knowledge in the post-Internet age, the artists conceived their work as a reconfiguration of "One and Three Chairs."

Semitransparent Design Profile
Design team comprised of designers, device developers and programmers, active since 2003. Have been producing numerous web advertisements realized by original design methods interlocking online and real environments since the predawn of the Internet, and won several advertising awards in Japan and abroad. Their installation "no flash photography allowed." was unveiled at ICC in 2008. The group continues to expand their scope of expression, and present their works at exhibitions and festivals around the world.
Past Exhibition / Event