Japanese Version

ROOM "SUN"

UBIQUITOUS SITE , NAGI'S RYOANJI , HEART

NAGI'S RYOANJI

Nagi's Ryoanji upon entering the small, bright room, one immediately feels strange. The room is floating in light that issues from underfoot. In the center is thick black cylinder stretching at an angle from the floor to the ceiling. It absorbs the light, seems to be an embodiment of darkness. A maze is painted in black lines on a yellow ground on the floor. It is reversed on the ceiling, yellow lines on a black ground. The maze is a favorite motif of Arakawa/Gins, and reversibility is one of their key concepts. Both floor and ceiling swell out at the center. There is something invisible, which they refer to as the blank (where emptiness is equivalent to the physical body), swirling sensation. Still. the body feels welcome here in a strange new way.















The corners of the white walls do not seem to meet at right angles, and the horizontal perspective of the room is skewed. There is a strange sense that the body is floating, but since the weight rests on the feet, the vertical axis at the fulcrum point where they make contact with the floor surface seems somehow to retain an ordinary memory of the body. However, one's balance is upset from below.

On one wall are snap shots of portrait taken by people living in Nagi. This is a thoughtful gesture by Arakawa/Gins. Peace of mind and insecurity. Pleasure and unpleasantness. Something is out of balance with something else.
What creates the gap?

This is a prologue for what is to come.

The ominous, slanting black cylinder. Walking around behind it, one finds an entrance and a spiral staircase to the next floor. It is so narrow that only one person can pass through it at a time. The center post of the spiral staircase is at an angle, and one must ascend the yellow stairs carefully as if entering the womb. Toward the top of the stairway, it seems that there are several steps missing. But feeling tentatively with your feet, you find that the stairs are painted black so it only looks as if there is nothing there. It is just barely possible to reassure yourself by thinking that this is meant to make you pay attention with your whole body. There is a convex mirror above you that distorts your reflection as well as your sense of distance and ascending and descending. Then you emerge from the stairway and enter a puzzling room.