Takashi Horisaki

Metabolic Morphology, 2014
Collaboration with Nina Horisaki-Christens
Latex, pigment, cheesecloth, wire, vacuum-formed plastic, sensors, speakers, mac mini, and assorted other materials
Dimensions variable
Installed at Recess (Soho) and Gramercy Park (Calder Foundation)

3 Minute Sample from 15 Minute Interactive Performance

Performed by Julia Oldham and Takahiro Morooka

Inspired by Soho’s signature architectural form – the cast iron building – the main component of Metabolic Morphology took the form of a semi-modular installation of cast colored latex and vacuum-formed plastic elements that were rearranged and expanded upon over the course of the project. These forms derived their basic aesthetics from casts of sections of actual buildings in Soho, including Recess’s own space. The painted vacuum-formed plastic and fabric-like latex casts were then be draped, stretched, suspended and otherwise manipulated within an irregular grid-like wire structure. When the arrangement of the plastic and latex components were altered, sensors within the grid triggered sound recordings detailing the histories of the neighborhood by its inhabitants, tying together the physical and narrative records of this urban space.

Metabolic Morphology takes as its conceptual basis both an awareness of the complex nature of urban development in Tokyo and New York, and the specific history of the Soho neighborhood, where ideas of modular architectural components seem particularly apt given the trajectory that cast-iron buildings set for architecture. Allowing the entire facade of a structure to be cast quickly and at lower cost than ornamental stone constructions, cast iron paved the way for more radical forms of pre-fabricated and modular architectures in the decades that followed. At the same time, this Soho was also intimately associated with evolving concepts of modernism through its artistic inhabitants, including prominent minimalist artists, whose work speaks to such modernist component-based aesthetics, taking them to their universalizing extreme, and Fluxus artists who sought a more open ended collaborative aesthetic. Drawing from these local histories, the artists seek to explore an urban aesthetic that melds modernist simplification with the heterogeneity of reality, hybridizing simple interchangeable geometries with unique ornamental details in an organic fashion.

Ultimately Horisaki and Horisaki-Christens would like to acknowledge the physicality of our urban environment, recognizing the tension it contains in balancing history with the drive toward technological innovation, and organizational structure with the uncoordinated forces of development.

Metabolic Morphology at Recess included performances by Julia Oldham and Takahiro Morooka, as well as a slide lecture entitled “Chinatown Boheme” by Ryan Wong. Metabolic Morphology at Gramercy Park was performed by Jaeeun Lee and Takahiro Morooka.

The development of this project was supported by the Sessions Program at Recess and the Harvestworks New Works Residency Program. Additional support was provided by the Japan Foundation.