KOYAMA TAISUKE

Tokyo — a city of cyclic metabolism, sustained by its never-ending scrap and build. In 2018 Koyama launched his personal project, PHASE TRANS, through which he has continued to unfold works from his database of photographs capturing the ever-changing city by the employment of several varying methods. For this occasion, he presents three series from the project: REVIVE, BORDER, and INTERFACE.

As the name suggests, REVIVE is a series of resurrected images. The images, resulting from the use of a data recovery software to restore deliberately deleted photographs from his hard disk, feature composition, noise, and discoloration, which cannot be consciously emulated — they are portraits of data articulated by programming language. The fissure that results from this process of deletion and renewal coincides with the irreversible appearance of the city. BORDER features close-up photographs of the facade of temporary construction enclosures, safety nets, and other materials covering redevelopment sites. Koyama post-processes the captured image as monochrome, transforming them into abstract flows of patterns. In INTERFACE, he projects photographs taken in Tokyo onto the surface of the fragments of construction blocks found in Tokyo and recaptures the resulting sight. The images of the city comprised of various building materials, split by the unevenness and cracks of the projected surface, serve as metaphors for the interruption and noise occurring within the city.

These experimental undertakings by Koyama visualize the discrepancy and contradiction between the appearance of the city seen through today’s digital technology and media environment and the objective reality of the city.