AntiDream #2 Torch Ritual Edit, 2021 

Duration: 28’00’’ 

 

This new video by Koizumi, AntiDream #2, is a sound work which the audience is expected to listen to in the most crowded spot in the cities that one lives. In the work, the mechanical voice abstractly tries to turn the cityscape under the pandemic into authoritarian dystopia. 

 

AntiDream #2 Torch Ritual Edit is an unedited superposition of this sound work and the existing video footages of the Torch Relay for the Tokyo Olympics on the internet. According to a poll, 70 percent of people do not want the Olympic Games to be held during this pandemic, but the Japanese government is desperate for it to go ahead. They are spending $100 million on the Torch Relay, while many people are dying from Coronavirus because of lack of beds in the hospital. There is a contradiction that the uglier the situation around the Olympic becomes, the stronger the work becomes. 

 

We are pleased to be working in partnership with g39 on a series of screenings of films from our shortlisted artists as part of Artes Mundi 9. Presented in the newly built cinema space at the gallery, these will be shown regularly through July, August and September. This program takes place alongside the biennial exhibition at the National Museum Cardiff and Chapter.