A Report: Light Work #6 In Soil at Tetem in Enschede

Tuesday, November 16th, 2010 9:23 am

At the end of the summer of 2010, Sonic Acts presented Yoko Seyama’s Light Work #6 In Soil at Tetem in Enschede (formerly known as Medialab Enschede).

Sonic Acts was asked by Wilja Jurg of Tetem to curate the last exhibition in the temporary buildings of Tetem (Tetem 2). Preferably it would be an exhibition which could connect to both Enschede’s 2010 Gogbot Festival – with the theme of Singularity – and to the Urban Explorer exhibition, which would take place at the same time as our exhibition.

The venue (a rough industrial building), the location (at the end of Enschede’s ‘culture-mile’ and at border of the Roombeek-area) and the fact that the exhibition would coincide with Gogbot, presented us with the perfect opportunity to show Yoko Seyama’s Light Work #6 In Soil again. We reasoned that such a rather ‘magical’ and dreamy work would connect (and maybe contrast) in an interesting and imaginative way with the Gogbot festival, and present a very introspective experience of urban life – to be found in a completely darkened industrial space, at the edge of the city centre. Moreover the available space for the installation was larger than the space that In Soil had at NIMk, which we thought would benefit the work.

In Soil is inspired by the life of the cicadas, whose chirping can be heard everywhere during the summer in countries with a warm climate, also in the Japanese city in which Yoko Seyama grew up. The light-and-sound installation In Soil is not only an imaginative reworking of this presence of nature in the city in the first place it is a ‘mediation’ of what happens when a cicada – which has been living blind underground – appears above the ground and begins to see.

To build up Yoko Seyama’s installation at Tetem was ‘just about doable’ timewise and financially (read: ‘impossible unless you stretch the concept of what is possible’). But we went for it. Thanks to the very hard work of both the artist, the people assisting her and the crew of Tetem, the installation was finished on the day of the opening.

In many respects the exhibition was a success. In Soil worked well in the wider space, and spectators often stayed for an extensive time inside the installation, marvelling at the 3D-illusion of colored light. Even in the week before the ‘opening-moment’ about 150 visitors came to have a look, which is rare for such a venue. The ‘opening’ – which coincided with the opening of the Urban Explorers exhibition – attracted a large crowd, and, to our and Tetem’s delight, the exhibition was featured several times on local television.

But then bad luck struck. The day after the opening, burglars, probably made attentive at the exhibition by the media coverage, took their chance and broke into the building. All of Tetem’s equipment was stolen and the entrance heavily damaged. By sheer luck the burglars had not touched any of Yoko Seyama’s hand-built electronics. The exhibition had to close down because it was impossible to fix the entrance, meaning that the building would have had to be guarded 24 hours per day, which was simply too expensive. Yoko Seyama’s work was taken down, leaving only the wooden box inside which it was installed. It was decided to open the exhibition again during the Gogbot-festival as many people would come to visit Enschede to see new media arts. In the week following the burglary, Enschede also received its share of the heaviest rains ever in the Netherlands: the exhibition space flooded partly, damaging some of the wood of the installation.

Nevertheless, the box was repaired and partly painted anew, and the work installed again for the Gogbot Festival. During this weekend many visitors came to see it. One can only imagine how many people would have come to visit, had the exhibition been open, especially following the media coverage…

More in Dutch on the website of Tetem