Humanature
Part of the appeal of the Fuji Rock experience is the way the site itself has been altered in a way that dovetails with the sensory-heightening function of the music. The trick, of course, it not to alter things in a way that hurts the environment or gets in the way of the festival's operation. The boardwalk that snakes through the forest from the White Stage to the Orange Court is a perfect example. Great care has been exerted to make sure no vegetation is displaced or harmed; while at the same time the structure itself allows the people who use it a proximity to Naeba's natural beauty that is unique in quality.
With this concept in mind, Australian environmental artist Craig Walsh has been invited to install a work he calls Humanature at various locations on the festival grounds. Using animation and special lighting, the installations transform plants and trees into giant portraits after dark. Because plants and trees can often mimic in outline the shape of the human body or head, these natural objects take on the properties of holograms when human forms are projected against them in a certain way.
"As my work has constantly been concerned with individual and collective perceptions of environment and the effects environment has on our condition," Walsh writes in his statement for the project, "the human head superimposed over a variety of surfaces has been a powerful metaphor to provoke the viewer into considering their personnel relationship to an object, site or space. The juxtaposition of the face with specific built and natural environments clearly states the influence our environment has on the human condition. This work aims at forcing the viewer into reassessing and questioning our current condition."
Walsh will be assisted in his endeavor by Japanese actor Noriaki Okubo, who will presumably lend his own form to at least one the four projections that are being planned.
