GU KENRYOU

This work employs the method Gu calls, “digital weaving,” where a single image is created out of multiple photographs. Repeating the process of deleting and suspending each pixel of each image on the photo editing software over tens of thousands of times, and piling the resulting data onto each other, the final image gives an appearance reminiscent of a textile piece.

Born in Kyoto, raised in Shanghai, and learning photography in Kyoto, Gu has worked on the series Utopia, in which he overlaps four different locations to create a non-existent scenery. One day on his visit to Tokyo, he went up the TOKYO SKYTREE and noticed how its observatory is cut off from all external stimuli, such as the wind or sound, except visual. Gu was inspired to set observatories of skyscrapers within urban settings as the stage of this series after experiencing this sensation of being unable to tell whether he was looking at the real scenery of Tokyo or a high definition screen of it.

This image is a superimposition of four photographs captured from four directions of the observation deck of the Mori Tower at Roppongi Hills, 218 meters above ground level. The browser allows viewers to navigate a single big image as well as its 100 discrete parts.