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Tokyo, Japan – WAITINGROOM is pleased to announce a solo exhibition by exonemo “CONNECT THE RANDOM DOTS” through Oct.16th to Nov.14th, 2021. Exonemo is a New York-based artist unit formed in 1996 by Kensuke Sembo and Yae Akaiwa. For 25 years, they have been leading media art field in Japan, starting to present their works on the Internet, which was just beginning to spread at the time, and then moving back and forth between the Internet and real space with their unique sense of humor in various activities. This will be their second solo exhibition at our gallery, and will consist of new works on the theme of “randomness”. They produced a book inspired by the “connect-the-dots” method used in children’s education, and display the pages of the books with their hand drawings in the exhibition space. In addition, they will sell the right to become the owner of each page as NFT, and also open a website where the information of the page owners can be viewed after the exhibition duration. Through the exhibition and website, they will attempt to question “value” and “ownership” from various angles.
The exhibited works (excluding one) will be sold by lottery on the special website of the exhibition.
The ownership of each page of the book “CONNECT THE RANDOM DOTS” will be sold as NFT. Anyone can apply to purchase any page of their choice, but only those randomly selected after the exhibition will be able to make the final purchase. Since buyers are selected completely randomly by the computer system, it is possible to apply to multiple pages to increase your chances of purchase. Please note that we will not show the numbers of entries for each page or who has entered. For further details, please visit the special website below. If you have any questions or inquiries about the project or purchase order, please contact us at info@waitingroom.jp
Special website : https://connect-the-random-dots.ooo
*The site will be open from 12PM, Oct.16th, 2021 (Japan Time)
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The book《CONNECT THE RANDOM DOTS》2021
About the artist, exonemo
The Japanese artist unit by Kensuke Sembo and Yae Akaiwa formed in 1996 on the internet. Starting in 2000, they started their activities in an actual space, presenting installation work, performenace and event organize. Their experimental projects are typically humorous and innovative explorations of the paradoxes of digital and analog computer networked and actual environments in our lives. In 2006, they won the Golden Nica for Net Vision category at Prix Ars Electronica. In 2012, they formed Internet Secret Society named “IDPW” and have been organizing “Internet Yami-Ichi” in both Japan and abroad since then. They live and work in New York since 2015. At their solo exhibition “EXONEMO UN-DEAD-LINK [Reconnecting to Internet Art]” held in 2020 (Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Tokyo), they were awarded the 2020 (71st) Art Encouragement Prize for New Artists by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. Their recent exhibitions include a group exhibition “I am here by WAITINGROOM” (2021, CADAN Yurakucho, Tokyo), a group exhibition “Aichi Triennale 2019” (2019, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, Aichi), a group exhibition “Reincarnation of Media Art” (2018, YCAM, Yamaguchi), group exhibition “Hello World: For the Post-Human Age” (2018, Art Tower Mito, Ibaraki) and many others. In 2021, they were selected as the third artist for the Obayashi Foundation’s grant program “Visions of the City – Obayashi Foundation Research Program”.
《CONNECT THE RANDOM DOTS (drawing #16)》2021
ARTIST STATEMENT
I feel something like karma in the randomness.
We didn’t choose where we were born, when we were born, what we look like, our gender, or even our personality. Sometimes we hate these randomly determined parameters, but often we stick to them and cherish them more than the characteristics we acquire later in life. It can be said that life is about giving meaning to such a randomly determined self.
“CONNECT THE RANDOM DOTS” was inspired by the “connect-the-dots” activities often seen in children’s picture books, where children draw pictures by connecting dots in order. In this book, the positions of the dots are randomly generated by the computer, and even if you connect the lines in order, no meaningful shape is drawn. The result would be the same no matter who drew it. What is the meaning of an act to obtain a random result based on a random origin? I feel that it is in these elusive acts that we can find a perspective on art and the meaning of human existence that is beyond rationality.
Also, as part of this project, ownership of each page of the book will be for purchase. The data will be NFT tokenized and recorded in a blockchain, and the owners will be visible to each other as a small community. The idea is to draw a line that connects the randomly collected collectors. This project is also an attempt to create a connection that will continue after the exhibition.
exonemo 2021
A form of “value” created by connecting the dots
Since around March 2021, NFT has been a major topic of conversation in the art world. NFT is creating a new trend in the art world by making it possible to prove the uniqueness of digital data. The artist duo exonemo, whose activities flexibly move between the network world and the real world, presented their first NFT work in April 2021, and in August, they attempted to exhibit their NFT work in real space.
In this exhibition, which is organized around a new work on the theme of “randomness”, the right to be the owner of the pages of a book created by artists will be sold as NFT. What is the value of the fact that artists themselves draw the lines in the game of “connect-the-dots”, in which the same image appears no matter who draws the lines, and what does it mean to purchase the right to be the owner of the pages of a book ?
Whenever a new technology such as NFT appears, we gradually become accustomed to it as if we were caught in the middle of it, and form a new sense of value that has never existed before. The values that we take for granted today may have been formed by randomly existing dots and people that were connected by chance. This exhibition will be an attempt to lightly question “value” and “possession” with exonemo’s unique humor.
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ART WEEK TOKYO
We will be participating in a four-day art event that will take us on a bus tour of galleries and museums in Tokyo.
WAITINGROOM will be participating on bus route D.
Date: 11/4 Thu. – 11/7 Sun. 2021
Detai: https://www.artweektokyo.com
