At the far end of the enormous Turbine Hall in the Tate Modern is a correspondingly huge metal box: thirty metres long, thirteen metres high and sitting on two-metre stilts. One end of the box is open with a metal ramp leading up to the pitch-black interior. The artwork entitled How It Is by Miroslaw Balka is said to allude to the Holocaust, whereby the huge metal container is akin to the trucks that took the Jews away to the camps of Treblinka or Auschwitz.
Walking up the steel ramp towards the vast dark opening of the box is certainly unsettling. Even the sound and vibrations of footsteps on the metal ramp feels cold. Once you are inside the structure it gets progressively darker as your move further in. People beside you become less discernable and those at more than an arms length away cannot be seen at all. Were it not for the cheerful and exited chatter of most of the visitors the experience would have been decidedly eerie.
I went in with my sister while her boyfriend remained outside taking pictures. Once we had gone in some way and I could no longer make out or hear any people in front of us I stopped so that my sister’s boyfriend could catch up with us. While we waited for him we simply appreciated the odd sensation of being in a dark box. Before long my sister’s boyfriend appeared beside us. I was surprised that he managed to find us so quickly but also glad because I was eager to step into the absolute darkness that lay ahead. As I took a step forward though I came smack up against the back end of the structure. The wall was lined in soft black velvet, which felt nice to touch and was as unexpected as the wall itself. Turning around I was surprised to see how much more brightly lit the box now seemed and how close the entrance actually was. I had expected it to be further away.
For me the experience of walking into the box was comparable to ones journey through life: as you move forward you don’t actually know what is coming next or whom you will bump into. You might link arms with someone and walk beside others but most of the people you see or hear you’ll never know. When you reach the end it comes as a surprise, it’s disappointing, although you knew it was coming all along. Like the unexpected touch of velvet on the box however death is probably comforting. Our lives will also most likely seem like a much quicker journey than we imagined when we look back on them. Even at this point my life seems to have passed by ever so quickly. Lastly, I imagine that our lives in retrospect will seem far simpler than we experienced them to be, just as the box was much brighter looking back towards the entrance where we started out.
Since the box is supported on stilts you can walk underneath it and hear the footsteps of those inside. If the box is symbolic of life then the space under the box could be likened to the netherworld of ghosts perhaps, or the life one leads after we have left this box that we are now in. I don’t believe in life after death mind you, but if there were such a thing I would imagine that it would eclipse life as the Turbine Hall eclipses the box. Perhaps the after-afterlife would be the world outside of the Tate Modern and so on, until such a point that we live a space that is infinite.
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It's that time of the year.
met with my kyushu parents on tuesday evening...went to Haneda airport quickly after work. met them for 10 mins
then returned home HAPPY!
lots of food i ate during the week.
snacks in my drawer at work (souvenirs/snacks from many parts of japan)
crepe cheese mousse from my boss
so yummy 銀鱈 (gindara) fish
walked to ginza from the office in the evening
met with nong chee and we had dinner together at
Kobeya restaurant at Tokyo Station
nong chee came over to sleep at my place.
we had macaron/tea party before bed.
おいしかった！ love the orange one.
Saturday 7th November 2009
after a very relaxing sleep
we had porridge for breakfast and walked to my school...
then to sugamo
walked to school
bought lots of snacks at 7-eleven and had at the playground near school
then continued walking
then we leave Sugamo for Ikebukuro
to sunshine city and shabu shabu dinner
then bought a few can for party (in my bedroom)
we went to bed at around 230AM
had very sound sleep and woke up 10AM this morning
we bought the spring roll and the sesame snacks on the way to the station
(when I walked chee to the station)
bought a few books at the second hand bookshop (690 yen for 3)
more books to add to my collections.
昨日、フィギュアスケート(日本開催のＮＨＫ杯)を夫婦で見ました。
はっきり言って、技術的なことや採点のことは分かりません。
ただ、印象に残る選手が一人いました。
ロシア人、アリョーナ・レオノワ選手です。
本当にフィギュアスケートが好きなんだなって。思わせてくれる笑顔が絶えない選手です。
私の中では、彼女がMVPですが、ロシアで報道されてんのかな。。。3行記事にさえなってなきゃいいんでけど。
.
We watched the NHK Trophy figure skating competition in Japan yesterday.
I don't know about skating techniques and scoring in detail.
But I found a player who made a wonderful impression.
She is "Alena Leonova(Алёна Игоревна Леонова)" who is Russian.
It seems that she loves figure skating from the bottom of her heart and she is a non-stop smiling player.
She is MVP for me but I wonder if Russian media reports her news. How about it?
I hope that her news is important in Russia.
I hope that many countries continue to give her a playing chance.
Oh, and her 19th birthday comes soon. С днем рождения ,Алёна !(Happy Birthday,Alena!)
Well you know that I'm a Kimmie Meissner fan, but she pulled out of the Grand Prix series because of a knee injury, so I'm disappointed. Hopefully she isn't out for the whole season. (x_x);
(↓↓↓)以下クリックして応援よろしくお願いします。 (Please click these blog ranking links!)
So I made a Fat Elvis costume for my friend's kid. It looked kind of awesome. I am expecting a shipment of candy - my tithe, if you will.
