This mechanical installation uses a self-made printing device that mimics the structure of an inkjet printer to draw images of various animated characters obtained from the Internet onto wooden panels. A steel-frame XY-plotter is operated by computer control, and an actuator connected to a spray can is activated to spray acrylic paint.
The painted images show déjà vu features in color and shape, but the crude DIY operating mechanism, the blurring of the spray can's spray volume, the distance from the support, and other analog factors result in an output image with poor reproduction accuracy. The image, transformed as if it were an abstract painting with information loss, escapes the establishment of similarity and dependability with the original image.
In this work, the method of "secondary creation," an act of expression in which an existing work is used to create a new derivative work, is performed unobtrusively in an automated process. The way existing data is appropriated and converted, and then presented as a new creation reminds us of the nature of digital data, where information is consumed in a secondary manner. The images "reinterpreted" by physical structures without human intervention raise questions about the boundary between the original and the copy, and between what is creative and what is not.
Excerpts from the introduction to solo exhibition "Ghost Painter" at Art House Oyabe, Toyama, Japan.
This text was translated with DeepL.com.
