toshiaki tomita

It was in the summer of 1997, the place was called Chong wu town, a coastal village in Fujian Province in mainland China. By the time the Chinese government did not support contemporary art, even they suppressing it.
407 is the number of the room where I was staying as a resident artist. The room was located in the building of stone company which was the host of this private residency of art. We, 5 Japanese artists had to be checked several times by security officers coming to the room in the midnights. Through the window of the room 407, I was shooting video, looking into the shallow beach every morning and day.
By the marginal capacity of digital X100 zoom focus, the figures on the shallow beach became silhouettes, I was gazing the silhouettes which focus were always on and off in a certain rhythm. The figures were simplified into male/female, young/old and so on, but the relationships became something significant in movements. I was absorbed in guessing the relationships between figures; That big one and that small one might be a father and a son? And they are passing by. So they aren’t. Then I found a couple drew each other magnetically. The group of small ones must be after school boys, and that big one must be the ringleader of a gang of street urchins. Who is that lonesome white figure reflecting morning sun walking on the wet beach like a mirror, and where he is heading to? Suddenly my ears catch the sound around the room 407. Radio from busy room with a mother scolding kids, horns from the streets, birds sing, kids shout, firecracker exploding…but no sounds from the shallow beach. “Hey!” I call the figures and they never turn to look at me. At the marginal capacity of receptacle, self/other, here/there are blending each other with the harmony of disharmony of unrelated sounds around my room 407.

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