the blank to overcome

Part of the “blank” project that the artist has been creating since 2011, the blank to overcome utilizes air pumps, power supply control circuitry, water, solution, glycerin, ethanol and electricity to produce bubbles in the air. The theme of “blanks” denotes a space for an unsolved “inquir y” through the perspective of art, a “scale” impossible to comprehend and that is constantly changing. For the artist, the impression that an incident was “empty” changes in time into a “blank”. the blank to overcome embodies this contemporary condition that is always changing through bubbles. It offers diverse perspectives for thinking about the post-3.11 present: How the bubbles are always shifting as a giant cluster, almost without mass or structure, and the facing up to this; and the framework since modernity that has prescribed society, and the “involved” or the “other”. From this work debate will surely emerge.

The artist has wrestled with all kinds of materials, trying somehow to control them in order to realize what he is visualizing. For example, with a “bubble”, a material that carries a blank, how should you go about generating it? And how to construct the whole of the work? Deciding from an infinite number of combinations on the one methodmost approximate to what is envisioned, he then perfects his work. What is important in this process is not simply to indulge in the novelty of materials and techniques when coming into contact with new ones, but to construct a whole with an objective perspective. MIHARA Soichiro’s the blank to overcome is a superb artwork inwhich you sense this approach to producing work. And this is an incredibly important element for media artists in general, who frequently deal with new materials. (TAKATANI Shiro)