Drawing on Space: Shibuya
Koji Shiroshita & Mifuku
Artist Collective ｜Japan
OTHER PERSPECTIVE
DETAILS OF THE WORK
"Drawing on Space" is a project that uses VR equipment as a medium to create drawings, treating space itself as a support.
In the history of art, painting originated as murals and later gained material independence through the form of tableau, which liberated it from specific locations. This shift allowed paintings to become movable objects, establishing the foundation for their current role as commodities in a system of ownership and trade.
Drawing on Space: Shibuya seeks to paradoxically grant digital drawings—characterized by their lack of physical mass and ability to appear anywhere—a sense of physicality by imposing the site-specific constraints of a particular location. This approach aims to redefine the digital drawing as a tangible entity within the realm of painting.
The 3D data of the drawings created in various locations around Shibuya incorporate textures and environmental sounds collected through research on the specific sites. By doing so, the drawings acquire the memory of the location and traces of time as their own matière.
When these drawings are re-placed and exhibited in the spaces where they were created, Drawing on Space transforms into site-dependent paintings, forging new relationships between the artworks, the spaces, and the viewers.
Ideal method and location of the experience
This series consists of six works, each ideally experienced at its respective location. However, it is also possible to experience the works in alternative locations while recalling the memories and contexts associated with these sites.
Shibuya Parco
https://spatial-layer.styly.cc/content/e03d0293-720c-405f-9a09-3f05a37b3970
Dogenzaka
https://spatial-layer.styly.cc/content/9fbdac52-9cf9-41d0-b0a9-c066efdf8ab4
Hachiko Square
https://spatial-layer.styly.cc/content/2e404088-5311-4ac4-bd3e-f55e8222526b
Shibuya Station Front (Hachiko Family)
https://spatial-layer.styly.cc/content/10f3ecf6-97e4-447e-90f3-04df60684994
Shibuya Station
https://spatial-layer.styly.cc/content/44d503b7-b09d-47fc-bedd-89d758a91b93
Shibuya Crossing
https://spatial-layer.styly.cc/content/87384fd9-4e81-4466-8c1e-5f9134835758
CREATOR PROFILE
Koji Shiroshita & Mifuku
Artist Collective ｜Japan
An artist collective based in Kyoto, dedicated to pioneering the future of visual art through the fusion of art and technology.
Koji Shiroshita consistently investigates the ""essence of painting"" through series such as Completely Untitled, which employs the classical mediums of pen and Chinese ink to construct intricate compositions, and PICTURE, which interrogates the boundaries between painting and photography.
Mifuku, by contrast, engages in connecting traditional artistic contexts with XR technologies, as exemplified by Given: Marcel Duchamp, a work that reinterprets Duchamp from a VR perspective.
In their joint project, Drawing on Space, Shiroshita adopts VR as a medium, utilizing space itself as a canvas to introduce new physicality and dimensionality to the traditionally two-dimensional act of drawing. These spatial explorations are subsequently recontextualized by Mifuku into immersive XR installations, offering a multi-layered critique and expansion of visual art paradigms.
Koji Shiroshita: https://koji-shiroshita.com
Mifuku: https://mifuku.work
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This work is a highly significant piece that *updates* the origins of art—cave paintings—through the concept of spatial computing. It extends the lineage of prehistoric imagery found in Altamira and Lascaux to the contemporary mural culture of graffiti, transforming it from a surface standing within the environment into an urban-scale spatial experience—literally making it a work of *spatial computing*.
What is particularly noteworthy is its proposal for *how* and *where* the experience takes place. While the ideal way to engage with this work is to experience it in the exact locations where it was created, it also allows for an alternative approach: *experiencing it in different places while recalling the memories and contexts tied to each original location*. In other words, it not only treats the drawn imagery as part of the artwork but also turns *space itself* into an evolving artistic frame.
This is, in essence, a proposal for a kind of magic—one that ascends beyond the traditional concept of *owning* an artwork, which has long been defined by the tableau.NEWVIEW AWARDS 2024 Jury President
Naohiro Ukawa
Genzai(Just now) Artist / Host of DOMMUNE
FEATURING WORKS
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A group of new cultural experience works created together with artists who can share the realistic feeling of the same era.
