Maya Masuda

“Yurayura- patapata nyoronyoro machines” is a site-specific work, which explores the idea of “temporal machines” formed between the environment and human hands. As the work has organic substances inside the circuit, it adopts the process of oxidation and corrosion inside the machine. Hereby, the work is put under the time-based change, which makes the machine fluid, unstable, and constantly heading to corruption. In addition, as some parts of the circuit begin to dissolve in water through time, the machine appears and disappears repetitively via the behaviour of the viewers. Further, the moisture of the work soaks into the wall and even the surrounding objects are taken into the inside of the machine. By exploring a temporal machine that corresponds with the environment and the artist, I further speculate the possibilities of alternative new-media representation.

Not all the words born inside one body are spoken. At the same time, not all the words given to one body are heard. As in the case of Dissociative Disorder (DD), there are multiple speakers inside a single person. In addition, in some cases of autism the person can cut off the surrounding conversations and detach them as noises when concentrating. Out of nowhere, a mouth narrates things that are unexpected, ears arbitrarily close themselves, and one never knows who is talking and for what.

Inside the work, “mouth” (two of the sculptures), which is an FM transmitter, there continues a fitful energization on the top of the pedestals (*1). Although each one is in charge of male and female voices respectively, they are organized as if a single mouth has been decomposed: as if what used to be a single speaker has been torn into two (*2). Therefore, only the fragments of narrative are spoken from “mouth”. Also, “ear”: an FM receiver wandering precariously with his organs untidily exposed, can only catch words from the closest transmitter due to the characteristic of the FM transmission system. In the end, it is the “hole” on the wall, where the words, once having been spoken from “mouth” and partially received by “ear”, are delivered.

In this work, the artist explores the materiality of objects, humans, and digital architecture such as NFT through the traces left by heat.

The artist first copied a test drawing on a piece of steel onto her own back. She then proceeds to sell the ownership of this work as NFT using the PoW model. The steel drawn with welding tools, the NFT operating with a PoW system that dissipates a large amount of electric heat, and the skin burned with a soldering iron all share the same energy of heat, albeit on different scales. Ownership of the drawing will be sold on NFT, but as the contract states, the token will only be valid as long as both the trace on the skin and the PoW system is present. The heat will eventually be lost, and the cold material will eventually deteriorate. Through this work, the artist attempts to juxtapose organic/inorganic materials and web systems (which seem to have no material body) from the perspective of materiality and to highlight the temporal play between them.

Special thanks to Steven He, Mary Pedicini, Seongeun Lee, and Rong Bao.