Oratorio for EX-Communication

This work was presented in a group exhibition in which we participated as O,1,2nine (TARKY Toshima + Masayuki Yoshida). We exhibited a video installation titled Oratorio for EX-Communication, consisting of two CRT TVs that alternately displayed animation, live-action footage, and text, and a small monitor that displayed text only.

“EX-communication,” as used here, does not mean ordinary conversation or communication. Rather, it refers to things that lie slightly outside (EX) what is usually called communication: yawning, coughing, blinking, secrets, or one's relationship with a dog, for example. The work explores this ambiguous territory through bodily acts such as yawning, which do not amount to a complete absence of communication but may or may not count as communication depending on the context. Needless to say, this physicality and ambiguity are directly connected to “laughter,” a central theme in TARKY Toshima's artistic practice.

A version combining the videos from the two main monitors into a single screen is available through the YouTube link. In a sense, the two videos have been forcibly squeezed together. Toshima apparently, and quite unilaterally, takes pride in the result as interesting in its own right.

A sketch comedy performance was also held on the final day. This, too, explored motifs that are not usually central to ordinary communication, such as falsetto and string telephones.

A note on the term “EX-Communication”

The title uses “EX” to suggest something that lies outside ordinary communication. The term does not describe a complete absence of communication, but rather a zone in which it becomes uncertain whether something counts as communication at all. Bodily gestures, involuntary sounds, secrets, and relationships with animals can all occupy this ambiguous zone, depending on the context.

The hyphen in “EX-Communication” helps bring out this intended meaning. The term should not be read simply as the ordinary English word “excommunication,” which usually refers to expulsion from a religious community.