The Obstacle of Communication Originates from the Expectation of Communication

Remark by curator, Feng Bo-yi

Ms. Egami Etsu is a Japanese woman and foreign student who studies in the oil painting department of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. As student in a foreign country, she is engaging in a form of communication between different regions and different cultures. She is also participating in a global phenomenon, that of willing migration in the pursuit of a creative arena for artists. This kind of existence is one of variety, fluidity and uncertainty. This is not simply a movement across physical space, it is engaging a generation of creative ideas and the expression of language, which can provoke thinking about migration and changes to one’s environment. Temporal artistic creation in this context, and the judgment and/or review of said temporal art, cannot be simply defined as derivative from local or traditional cultures. It should be viewed more as a result of understanding, communication and clash between local cultures and foreign cultures. By means of painting, video and mishearing games, the artistic creation of Ms. Egami highlights hidden concepts and the meaning behind communication. She witnesses the changing of times and the conflict of civilizations, and she verifies the phenomenon that verbal communication often leads to larger obstacles and even crisis. With the help of various media, her works display a unique means of expression and narration. Hence, the cultural significance of these works reflect a current reality we face and capture our experience.

As cyber culture increasingly impacts our daily lives, it changes the way we communicate. During the process of communication, we spend more and more energy using images rather than using verbal language. At the same time, artificial intelligence provides the biological and technical conditions needed for users to embrace this method of communication. One example of this is the current generations resistance to reading and their preference to using images or emoticons. This could lead us to no longer acquire information solely by written or spoken language, and make us face, judge and process a large quantity of information through multiple new forms of communication.

The appearance of a new media opens a new way through which we can learn about the world and communicate with others. It also creates new types of human interactions. Cyber language provides a communication conduit for a younger generation. It may have terminated the dominance of verbal language, and may lead to the transformation of the obstacles typically found within verbal communication, allowing individuals the simplicity of directly expressing an idea by image. Will the misunderstanding and mishearing in verbal communication be replaced by emoticons in the cyber language? Will the Tower of Babel fall or not? Or, will “No emoticon, no dialogue!” prevail? If the answer is “yes”, what will art do in a future where previous experience and imagination will be easily surpassed? As a choice of personal artistic creation, no matter by which means or media, it is still an artist’s expression that is rooted in the personal experience and judgment of a living environment. Is this a truth? It may be complicated and it depends upon different artists, or it may not simply be distinguished by a “yes” or “no”. Because the radical change of times happens much more abruptly and subtly than our imagination reaches.

September, 2016

About “ This Is Not a Mis-Hearing Game ”

Language is a means to transmit information, and also an obstacle of information transmitting. Egami Etsu is probing humanity through tracing the origin of language for the purpose of feedback to society. If the failure of Tower of Babel in the Old Testament is attributed to the communicative obstacle between different languages, the mishearing and misunderstanding may lead to more disputes and misfortune. This kind of misfortune may even be misheard and misunderstood again, and thus forms an unresolvable circle.

Egami Etsu's work is a comprehensive one composed by a group of videos of mishearing games displayed on little screens and some videos of social disputes displayed on background walls. From the origin of language, she probes the meaning of communication through these overlapped videos.

A Group of Videos of Mishearing Games displayed on little screens: The little screens hanging on the wall are displaying the videos of mishearing games. The so-called “Mishearing Games” is to

communicate by using a language others do not understand, just interpret the meaning of the voice by intuition. This is “MISHEARING” (E.g. The pronunciation of the word “Yada” is similar to that of duck egg in Mandarin or that of “OK” in Sichuan Hua, a dialect of Sichuan Province, China.). Such kind of random results of mishearing is out of expect and always make an embarrassing effect. If this kind of mishearing happens in real world, it may cause a crisis or tragedy.

A Group of Videos of Social Disputes displayed on background walls: Project the image or video of global disputes to background walls on which the group of little video games are hanged. She chooses 3 groups of such portfolios. 1) Disputes, indicating the relations between disputes and verbal communication. 2) Some places of historic interest and scenic beauty related to these disputes, and probing people’s opinion to these places. 3) Sea. Probing the disputes, changes and mishearing again from the angle of eternal of heaven and earth.

Exhibition Information

Duration: 2016.09.25. – 2016.11.06.

Location: 328-D, Caochangdi, Chaoyang District, 100015 Beijing, China (de Sarthe Project Space)

Courtesy of the artist and de Sarthe Project Space, for further information please visit http://desarthe.com/.