For Tetsuya Umeda「　 　」: Attractors and the spirits of place

From here, his specific sensitivity (or “attractor,” to use my term) may arise, and most notable to me is his rather peculiar interest in what may be called the “backyard” aspect of the site. The work that I directly experienced was floor 0, a large-scale installation that occupied the whole basement of the old ex-municipal building of Omiya City in Saitama, north of Tokyo (3). Such a place—the basement of an old building—is certainly imbued with a kind of esoteric atmosphere. Using the merit of such a pre-existing atmosphere to its greatest advantage, Umeda added a gamut of artistic devices into each room—some for surrealistic tricks and others for added attraction like in an amusement park—to create his distinctive Umeda-world. I was exceptionally lucky to be able to monopolize his artistic park, as the preceding group of visitors had gone out just before I did.

I found, while reading about his earlier stage work, Internship, which he performed at KAAT Kanagawa Arts Theatre in 2018, that his choice of a place like the basement was not accidental but intended. This is an esoteric stage work where the theater’s technical elements became the center of the performance. It was first performed in 2016 in Korea; the artist noted that he conceived the idea when he witnessed the maintenance work of the stage machinery during his first visit to the theater (4).
These types of space and machinery, which I called “backyard” above, are specific spaces of mystery for outsiders. One of the major attractions of conducting ethnographic research on contemporary institutions is that it provides a rationale for sneaking into such organizational backyards, which are largely invisible from the outside. In fact, the physical act of stepping into such a place is challenging. For instance, the entrance to the emergency medical center that I visited does not open automatically; it opens only when someone steps on a small pedal hidden on the wall close to the floor beside the door. Without this specific knowledge, a visitor would stand aimlessly in front of the door, like Joseph K in Kafka’s novel The Trial.

The doctors’ waiting room was behind the main space of the emergency center, where I heard plenty of doctor chatter inaudible to those outside. Occasionally, I witnessed those doctors jumping out of the room upon hearing screaming from the medical monitors, informing them of the rapidly worsening condition of a patient, a scene vaguely reminiscent of the documentary films of Frederick Wiseman (5).

Umeda’s most perceptible strength lies in his use of multiple tools and techniques to domesticate the power politics of the sites; such techniques may spring from a certain specific attractor, such as his talent of improvisational music or his interest in the ethnomusicological practices of tribes like the Ami and the Bunun in Taiwan (8). Another attractor is constructing mechanical gadgets in a manner reminiscent of the artworks of Peter Fischli and David Weiss (9). Umeda himself is probably not very conscious of which attractor may start to work on the spot where he will initiate a new work. In an interview, he disclosed that he did not work toward a goal when creating artwork because otherwise he would soon be bored (10). This observation is understandable as a normal process of creative activity freely pursued.
The reason his work is occasionally described “hard to comprehend” is likely that it is an almost accidental outcome of the struggle between the various powers that reside in him and in a specific site that he visits. No artist can possibly recognize the kind of power that resides in a site without visiting it in person. Then, the emergence of one’s own power may synchronize or antagonize with the magic of the site, developing from the workings of the artist’s multiple personal attractors vis-à-vis the power on the spot. That being so, spectators of the artwork are invited and even entitled to perceive and to imagine the struggle of these diverse powers arising both from the very site and the artist. This is exactly the source of joy for visitors to such site-specific artworks as those of Tetsuya Umeda.

Notes
(1) Interview: Tetsuya Umeda—Thinking only on the small voices and time on the spot (The following sources are all in Japanese)
https://paperc.info/on-site/2001_tetsuya-umeda
(2) Interview
https://inbeppu.com/2020/interview/
(3) Floor 0, Tetsuya Umeda
https://art-sightama.jp/jp/project/uFoQmG1C/
(4) There is nothing special in making an artwork
https://yokohama-sozokaiwai.jp/person/16950.html
(5) Masato Fukushima (2022) Ecology of Learning: Risk, Experiment, and High Reliability, Chikuma-bunko.
(6) Masato Fukushima (2022) “An Invitation to Infrastructural Aesthetics”
https://www.moderntimes.tv/articles/20220530-01infrastructure/
（7）In Java, there are quite a few different spirits beyond the spirit of place above. Yasuhiro Morinaga and Masato Fukushima (2019) “Satan, Sounds and Desire: A pretalk on Setan Jawa by Garin Nugroho.”
https://asiawa.jpf.go.jp/culture/features/f-ah-setanjawa-morinaga-fukushima/
(8) To Reflect on the Present and To Look for the Origin of It.
https://bijutsutecho.com/magazine/interview/21185
(9) Robert Fleck, Beate Söntgen, Arthur C. Danto (2005) Peter Fischli, David Weiss, Phaidon
(10) See (4)