Daisuke Morishita’s Dance with Blanks (2019)
“Dance on the Horizon” by Yuki Moriuchi (Philosopher)
No matter how close we get, why does the horizon remain so far away?
This distance can be considered as a cognitive distance or a distance between “a subject that views an object” and “an object that is viewed.” Morishita’s work consciously takes out this distance and present it to us. Viewers break down the distance from their inside, and they are inspired to realize the instant sparkling fire when the distance crumbles away. In other words, this process can be considered as a device that causes a “phenomenological reduction,” which is the true essence of his work.
A phenomenological reduction is a concept proposed by E. Husserl. One puts one’s thoughts in a parenthesis (epoché), and then faces the object once again.
Suppose that we look at a “blank” in a certain photograph, and recognize it as an “round” object. However, if we intend to express this blank without using the word “round,” we are confused about how to handle such encounter.
He brings out the unknown as something sparkling, something astonishing, or something fresh.
He expresses such joy directly. His works are full of devices that discourage viewers from judging “existing values.” These devices may be torn darkness, large droplets, the distant foggy horizon, blurred shadow or intense lines of light.
When facing them, viewers are forced to change all of the existing perceptions (for example, we lose our languages,) and become “empty subjects” who just face them without knowing how to understand. A pure and empty sense of self is created when one’s judgment stops.
In spite of being an unidentified person, an empty entity called “me” remains to be an agent (whose judgment is suspended), and faces a “blank,” which is created by breaking down the ready-made ideas and judgement of value, and continues to dance with new sparkle and surprise. A playful performance, which is shown by a variety of blank, eliminates the distance about to the horizon, the distance that lies between the subject and the object, at once. The epistemological distance disappears at this point, that is to say, it is the shining moment when a subject and an object reach for each other’s hands.
His approach is brilliant because each turn of a page evokes the joy of phenomenological chemical reaction between viewers and his works.