北島敬三/「PORTRAITS＋PLACES 」
KITAJIMA Kizo/ PORTRAITS＋PLACES
▲ CD-ROMとDVDによるプロジェクション。展示初日のみ行われた。
「PORTRAITS」は1992年に始められ、なお継続中のシリーズです。 約200以上の人々を毎年1回（あるいは2回）まったく同じ条件下で繰り返し撮
影 しています。
「PLACES」は、1989から撮影されている都市風景のシリーズです。
今回は、DVD-mobieによる上映という時間体験的なメディアを使って、両シリーズの 写真群を合体、再編し、新たな差異を起動させることを目指します。
I used to take snapshots of people in cities as strolling around in many cities.
It was, however, the beginning of 1980s when I came to feel certain enormous
power which would rapidly transform the cities in the world. The transformation
I felt was as if 'cities' where people had lived were disappeared and people
who had coexisted with cities were isolated from them. In the end of 1980s,
I stopped snapshots on the street to start two of the new series, 'PORTRAITS'
and 'PLACES'
PORTRAITS
'PORTRAITS' is an ongoing series started in 1992. I have continued taking
portraits of more than 200 people every year (once or twice/year) under exactly
the same conditions. As the portraits are taken under the fixed conditions,
such as the same lighting, composition, and cloths, they show clearly a very
slight difference on the face of the same person caused by difference of ages,
physical or emotional conditions. I try to question here the identifying function
of the human face, and to capture the face as a place where various differentiations
appear.
PLACES
'PLACES' is a series of city landscapes I have taken since 1989. It is difficult
to specify the cities in these photographs because of their similarity, although
they were taken in diverse cities in the world. I tried to abstract the power
of anonymous place, such as homogeneity and repetitions in city landscapes,
rather than originality and peculiarity of each city. Uncharacteristic and
ambiguous places are chosen for the recent works of this series, which makes
the portraits of cities even more inactive.