Shiro Masuyama

In Borderline, Masuyama exhibits Crossing the Border and Moving, two works that combine performative acts and their manifestation as documentation through object and video. Both works address the notion of travel and physical/non-physical borders.

Masuyama found himself at Schiphol Airport at final security check before boarding a plane, when he became interested in a small gap between the top of a glass wall and the ceiling; a design feature that visually and physically determines the space beyond as forbidden, unless undergoing a rigorous systematic inspection. Thinking about the aspects of border control, Masuyama mischievously returned to the security checkpoint and repeated the childlike gesture of aiming an ordinary rubber band with his fingers firing it at the gap between the glass and the ceiling. Without attracting the attention of the border guards, the bands that landed on the other side testified to a quiet transgression; a breaking of the border. Video documentation of this act, along with the rebel rubber band on display becomes ‘Crossing the Border’.

In Moving, Masuyama addresses his curiosity surrounding processes of mobilisation and the unknown spaces traversed between real and metaphoric borders. His intent is attempting to accurately record and document modern conditions of transit and transference. Through a process of experimentation Masuyama invented a ‘moving’ box containing a hidden camera in order to investigate a journey through the various stages of a postal delivery system. For Borderline, he produced a video document that transcribes the passage of a ‘moving’ box from Vienna to Krems in 2008, and also lets the viewers encounter the ‘moving box’ as a sculpture.