Yamanote Line · 2010

video animation  ·  4'05''  ·  HD projection

 

 

This animation was created on occasion of Link:intern»TO-BE – Tokyo+Berlin Communication Art 2010« at Freies Museum Berlin – for this exhibition Dana Widawski worked up impressions from her four-week trip to Tokyo in summer 2009 (see also Link:internBusiness Break at Sumida River).

The animation reminds to a musical clock where the same scenery apparently recurs three times – accentuated by the original sound of the Tokyo city railway. Uniformly dressed ‹businessmen› appear successively from the underground, accumulate to a mass movement and disappear again. One man stands out: has he fallen asleep, overtired – or is he just brooding about a different route?

Yamanote Line is an ironic reference to a uniform everyday work routine, to a society that relies on unlimited growth while trying to bring people into line for efficiency increase for this purpose.