With the subject of "Cosmic Theatre", I intend my work to make people explore the universe of the artificial like I experienced in Tokyo and discover the poetry in science and humanities. These works come from my positive stand for human existence and my interest in Buddhism.
As an example of science side of my interest, I am fascinated by the invention of film and the camera. The passion of chemists is in accord with my desire to liberate the figure from academic pictures.
I believe art is not only something beautiful, nor theoretical and difficult, but it also can be touching. I found a way to express this in film history.
Ultra-terrestrials represent more about my interest in philosophy. I have created these images which are animated with the use of a zoetrope, an optical device from the 19th century, I work through since my discovery of the film history mentioned above.
Ultra comes from the color of Ultra marine, which is the color of universe to me. And also, when extra terrestrials see us from out side of our planet, we are also all extra-terrestrials. We have our culture strange, meanless, or can be incomprehensible.
So that Ultra-terrestrials actually represent human being in the future, that has a part of universe in their selves.
They were born from my curiosity and wonder about human being.
Recently, I developed the optical device futher, adding a light so my ultra-terrestrials are integrated into the eternal landscape. The device projects blue light to two poles, to the past and the future, as a homage to the lost passion of scientists and into the dream of those with sensitive minds.
April 2009 Hitomi KAMMAI
Text modified on 15 February 2012