“Enshrined, in Memoriam”
The piece interrogates the idea of place versus space in the context of the western politicized notion of memorial overlayed with the idea of sacrality. What is worth remembering in these public spaces and where are the lines between public and private. In the context of Japan public space is few and far between, thus we decided to use a field recording of the politically contentious Yasukuni shrine (靖国神社). This shrine commemorates the Japanese war dead, including some convicted war criminals. When we think about political memorials of the dead in the western context, Soviet war memorials such as that at Treptow park come to mind. What are the purposes of these spaces and what behaviors are reinforced by going to these places? We try to challenge assumptions by building a resonating object out of found materials from the streets of Berlin, a city where the public private divide is inverse to that of a place like Tokyo, public space is everywhere here, trash “memorials” fill the streets and in the looming shadow of climate catastrophe the idea of re-use seems important. Therefore, we make our own memorial, to commemorate the idea of embodiment in the shadow of fascism and climate collapse.
"Poets and painters like ruins, dictators like monuments." (Edensor 2005)
Enshrined, in Memoriam is a sound installation designed for public spaces, confronting the layered meanings of memorials in contemporary society. Featuring a glass box framed in metal and equipped with dual transducer microphones placed at the top and bottom, the installation evokes a striking sense of delusional transparency.
Through its materials and form, the installation critiques the aesthetics of corporate environments and the "cheap architecture" tied to capitalism. It draws attention to spaces drained of romanticism, spiritualism, and so-called "unpractical" sentiments, reimagining memorials as a site for reflection amidst the burden of office workloads and the sterile emptiness of modern structures.
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