Ultra–Black Sun [2009]
Sculpting Plasma
In 2009, for the solo exhibition at Toyota Municipal Museum of Art, Kenji Yanobe started to make an “unprecedented ultra sculpture” worthy of the name of Ultra Project. For this project, he tried to make purely aesthetic and unprecedented sculpture based on his recent style. He has created his own stories from his experiences at the former site of Expo ’70 in Osaka and the ruins of Chernobyl, and the stories became the basis his works of sculpture. In the point that he got an inspiration from the idea of innovative scientist, Ultra—Black Sun resembles with his debut work Tanking Machine, a tank filled with a physiological solution of sodium chloride in which one floats in a state of deprived sensory functions therefore being able to enter a state of meditation. His interest has changed from the earlier work, which was based on a theme of “expansion of body”. He made this work as an homage to Isolation Machine, invented by a neuroscientist John C. Lilly.
Ultra—Black Sun is an homage to Tesla Coil invented by Nikola Tesla, whom Yanobe had been greatly influenced from. Nikola Tesla was an electrical scientist and an inventor from Austrian Empire (present Republic of Croatia) and after he worked under Edison, he disputed with Edison about the system of generating and transmitting electricity. In contrast with Edison who advocated direct current (DC), Tesla advocated alternative current(AC) and won the competition for building a hydroelectric power plant of Niagara Fall. He made the basis of electricity system but he is less well known than Edison and had long been regarded as a mad scientist from his peculiar behavior.
Tesla Coil is a tuned transformer, which generates high frequency and high voltage. Originally, it was invented as a method of transmitting electricity but its function was uneconomical for implementation. However, the coil generates a strong discharge phenomenon, plasma. Plasma is one of the four fundamental states of matter (the others being solid, liquid, and gas). Heating a gas may ionize its molecules or atoms, thus turning it into plasma, which contains charged particles. The magical forms and colors of plasma have attracted various people including artists.
With the help of Mitsuhide Yakushiji, a leading researcher and maker of Tesla Coil, Yanobe made a huge Tesla coil. He tried to make a sculpture with the four fundamental states of matter, plasma. In cosmic space, plasma appears as a fixed sun such as sun and on earth, plasma appear as lightning. Plasma display and nuclear fusion are artificial plasma.
Thus, Tesla Coil is related with artificial sun, such as Atomic Bomb and nuclear fusion. Yanobe got a hint from a geodesic dome and made two huge spheres with corten steel panels and put sharp black horns radially on the spheres. He jointed the spheres to make a ball and installed a huge Tesla Coil inside the ball. The plasma discharged from the coil is seen through holes on the ball.
The Tesla Coil generated lightning and thunder and Ultra—Black Sun gave the audience impressions of fear and reverence. Black Sun is also the name of mysterious pattern drawn on the back of Tower of the Sun (1970) by Taro Okamoto. Yanobe succeeded in expressing the beauty and danger of plasma in symbolic way.
