Hello.
Hi.
Hii.
So how’s it going?
Good, you know
What?
Better today.
Mm-hmm.
Good.
Great.
So I want to ask you some questions about "The Lovers."
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Now some of the equipment was purchased by Canon for you.
Yes.
So will you have the laser disc players?
Yes.
And you will have the projectors?
Yes.
And you will have the slide players?
Yes.
Ok.
So, there still is a chance you would have to do it for nine meters, not ten.
Mm-hmm.
So that would take you how long to install, including the modification?
Yes.
You know, we're not clear how much you have to reprogram.
Ten meters is just we've done it, so we are sure about it.
Right.
But doing it in nine meters, it's possible, but you know, it's something we are not sure of.
Okay.
I wanted to ask you some questions about the content itself.
Do you consider the viewer or the participant to be a voyeur, not a lover?
Pardon?
Is the viewer more a voyeur, more someone who looks?
More what?
It's a French word.
Voyeur.
Means what?
It means the viewer is really someone who is looking, not someone who is a lover also.
I can't get the question.
OK.
With the word, "lovers," what kind of lovers are you...
It's very...
It should be broad.I mean...
Once I thought...
I considered the title, "The Lovers," as a title, I was thinking that the sense of the
word, "lovers," is becoming more and more exclusive in recent days.
Mm-hmm.
I mean, maybe in America too, but especially in Japan, there are two persons, a man and
a woman, get together and get married, and make their home.
And those go one more preserved, conservative, and they make their own home and their own
happiness.
And they become, you know, don't care about the outside of their home.
Mm-hmm.
Of course, "The Lovers" is a very positive term, but nowadays it becomes...
For me it became a very negative term to me, but it's considered as a positive term.
And I thought we can be in a way more promiscuous, you know, being lovers with many things.
And it doesn't have to be with a person.
It can be with other matter or something
Mm-hmm.
And then with the piece, because the lovers are quite alone, so there's...
I don't know if "alienation" is the right word.
Um.
Because they're separate.
Yes.
And they're going to come together very briefly.
But even when they're together, they're very alone.
Mm-hmm.
Hmm, maybe that's my impression.
Uh-hmm.
My perspective.
Ah, uh-hmm.
Yeah.
I think, yeah, that part is most sensitive as an emotional person for me. ...to those
images are transparent and when they get together, they can see through to each other.
And they never make one figure, you know.
It's see-through and transparent, and it's projected from different projectors.
Mm-hmm.
And there is a possibility for them to separate again and meet again, because they are independent.
Yeah.
And then of course, for the ordinary person, they won't know that one character is you.
That's not a big deal, is it?
I mean, it's not a self-portrait.
Or do you…
I don’t know
Because when I talk to Bill Viola or Gary Hill, often they're in the piece too.
Mm-hmm.
Both talk it in different ways.
Bill will talk about that's the way he works.
Of course, he is his most readily available subject, but he is in the process, in the
making.
It is him.
And Gary talks about it in a little different way, but...
What am I trying to say?
Yeah.
I think in that way we are very parallel, because many artists don't want, you know,
the figures of themselves in a piece.
They want to make a certain distance from the object that they make.
I'm quite interested in projecting myself and seeing it from the distance, as an artist.
Like if I'm the painter and I paint myself, self-portrait, you know, the brush and my
hand is directly connecting, and what I paint is what I think, direct, very direct.
I mean, through technology I expect something, something that I've never seen.
But it's something unclear to me.
That's why I want to deal with something like that.
And if I don't put myself in it, the technology becomes more toys, or something like that.
You know I if i put myself in image then the technology can get inside me.
If i put myself in image i become more myself, so you know in that way technology can become
kind of a circuit to explore myself .
Uh-hmm, good.
You said some good things.
So, so I can go away and write more.