Video Shakkei

Drawing from the Japanese practice of shakkei, or ‘borrowed landscape’, we engage with a number of sites in Japan - from ancient Shinto spaces of ritual in Ise to the futuristic Umeda Sky building in Osaka - to perform a series of sequenced actions or ‘live drawings.’ These actions are recorded simultaneously from differing points of view using high definition video as well as recently developed embedded miniature video camera technology.

Edited together in series of filmic composites modeled on the multi-scaled architectural drawing, the recordings relate architectural space to performed event, and this to narrative sequence. The result is a hyper-digitized, absurdly choreographed and poetically rendered image of place.

The exhibition related to Video Shakkei culminated a six-week residency at The Project Space, part of The Centre for Drawing at University of the Arts London. Video composites documenting seven performances are assembled together with sound, objects, drawings and text to create an environment opening the features of 'our' Japan to a viewer's enactment and interpretation.