The Grain of Strands From Some Moments

I prefer to wait rather than to chase.

Although in reality time seems to zip by without me realizing.
When I do notice, it’s left an imprint that doesn’t match with my perception of how much time had gone by.
When an aim is set and it’s constantly on one’s mind, a strained gaze should be incident.
When the eyes are shut, it releases the tension in the shoulders.
At that moment a tiny gap appears in the consciousness. Given the opportunity, something flows into it.
I wait for that. And enjoy the moment as it permeates in the body.

It is neither well defined, nor is it always the same, let alone what one had imagined it to be.
But what had occupied the mind and body up till then is washed away and a new axis can be felt within the center of consciousness. There is such a moment.
Try as you might it can’t be found or be fully seen, but when you least expected it enters through the blink of an eyelid. I wait for that something.

“Wait” might in a sense be a synonym for “pray”. It is the stacking up images little by little, one by one, to continue without rest to connect it to the next even though there’s no certainty, sustained only by a belief. Not to become passive by allowing awareness of the approach falter, but to always be active on a subconscious level, continuously expectant.
The ideal is to just idle along, to not rush, imagine, or obsess.
It’s like continuously providing water and sunlight to a plant that you know nothing about; when it will sprout, or what kind of flower or fruit it will bear.

The act of “spinning,” its nuance, is closest to this personal core of consciousness.
A lot cannot be gained at once but it develops steadily, and has the flexibility to evolve and diversify.

All phenomena aren't static but constantly being affected by each other and changing their shape and form. Depending on the vibration of its elemental molecules it is seen as light, heard as sound, or sensed as smell but once perceived by the senses it all fuses together and settles as emotions and memories.
I believed that these dots of molecules come to form a line, their vibrations becoming amplified, and drift in space-time as threads. Could we not say that to wait is to unconsciously intertwine the threads that we have come across as we idled along with our heartstrings, and that emotions and memories are kinds of textile fabrics that have been spun from them within the expectations of the subconscious.

During the 20-odd years since I graduated from the master course, I have created devices that can be called space-time looms that make use of the earth’s gravity.
But there is no way of knowing beforehand, even if I wanted, what figured design will be woven.
My only wish is for just one strand to have such the grain as if one had scooped up the shadow of the wind on a moonlit night.

As I wish to listen to the sound of the earth turning…


(For solo exhibition時紡－TOKITSUMUGI Spring 2007)