Ports, Air, For, Music

“induce calm and a space to think" while remaining "as ignorable as it is interesting"　　‐Brian Eno. “Heaven is heaven, earth is earth, mountains are mountains, water is water, monks are monks and lay people are lay people”　‐Dogen The work is this work, and you are you standing in front of this work. When you gaze at the stars in the distance, or at the mountains, though they are but stars and mountains, I feel the soundscape and flavour that I have felt somewhere. I suddenly and inexplicably think about the people, things and things that I pass by. But that something is no longer nearby. Every one of them is a blur, even when I stare at them. When I breathe softly, that's all I feel like I'm with it. In this exhibition, (PORTS, AIR, FOR, MUSIC)”, the viewer, the participating artists, and the artworks become tourists, floating and travelling between meaning and meaninglessness, meaninglessness and meaning. The exhibition is preceded by an encounter between the participating artist and curator Andrea Istvan Franzini and Aoi Michimae from { }(cacco). Last year, in August 2023, in Milan, Italy. Two people (artists), separated by a distant horizon, met by chance in common (art), looked at each other eye to eye and talked. The landscapes we see are based on a series of coincidences that are quite inevitable, and the meaningless "we" follows the circle of production and consumption, as if it has meaning. The exhibition is thus composed of four words extracted aimlessly from their conversation - “PORTS”, “AIR”, “FOR”, and “MUSIC” - and a chain of meaningless meanings that are linked from this group of words. In short, the exhibition shows a unique state of mutual understanding in an activity (communication) that looks absurd from the outside. However, what differentiates this from the norm is the presence of a 'bug-like' nature that can occur in the communication between two people. Andrea speaks English with an Italian accent, and Michimae has some linguistic ability but is far from being a native speaker. Almost all of their conversations consist of short prose or a few words with each other, and end with ”you know?".The "minor misinterpretations" that arise in this context are what I call "bug-like".In a normal exhibition, great care is taken to ensure that this does not happen, and the communication is multi-layered and even datamined into several media. But they do not do it. In the unconscious category, in the common language of art, they form and shape a common linguistic field. In extremely short phrases, without discussing the details. This form of communication is also connected to each artist and work in this exhibition. Both Marco Strappato's and Aoi Michimae's works talk about the flat world created by the acceleration of distribution in the modern age with an ambient subjectivity that dares to use the image and present a "utopia as a false image" with a smile on its face. The works appeal to us with an ambient subjectivity that smiles and offers us "utopia as a false image". Andrea Istvan Franzini and Shuto Mizukami also speak of private fiction in such a flat society in a more poetic and floating language. Nataliya Chernakova narrates a tautological chain of meaningless language in a more basic way and with her hands, such as putting paint on canvas, Robin Waart cuts out a dedication to someone somewhere and places it in the air to highlight the floating nature of its linguistic action. The exhibition is aimless, accidental, and inevitable, and each artist and work also moves between meaning and meaninglessness, between visible matter and essence, in different techniques and media. This act of each and the relationship that is created by each of them leaning on each other can help us to understand the present in which we live, me, I, and the things in which I live. Together, we seek, hope for, and reject meaning in the face of meaninglessness, and we live our lives. The fact that we have arranged our works in this way, in the form of an exhibition, and that you are here, may be a miracle that came about through the eye of a needle. Bon voyage !!