Katsuki Nogami

Artist born in 1992 in Nagaoka City, Niigata Prefecture. A member of the Topological Media Lab at Concordia University in Montreal. Studied with Olafur Eliasson at the Berlin University of the Arts. Graduated from Musashino Art University. Agency for Cultural Affairs Media Arts Festival 19th Rookie Award, Ars Electronica Sound Art Division, Student CG Contest 20th Grand Prix, ifva21th silver award. Asian Digital Art Award 2015 Excellence Award, FILE, WRO, Scopitone and other overseas media art festivals. Involved in various media including VICE artists, WIRED and DesignBoom, costumes, 100 filmmakers, Forbes U30, etc. Produced many MVs and commercials such as group_inou.

This work is a letter which is rewritten Email SPAM by handwriting. Email SPAM is an act to deceive you to buy or pay something. In this work, I wanted to deceive the audience through a conversion from online to offline. In first exhibition, I write 20 various handwritten letters. I just trace a mass of handwritten font. A handwritten sign, Face ID, fingertip, voice, name of Facebook, all ID can be copied now. This work also implies about who is human, what is human ID, and also connects identity. Visitors can buy a spam letter, then I’ll post it to your address after the exhibition. Visitors can trace spam text with your own handwritten letter. Visitors can make new spam text and put it in the mail box, then I’ll post it with others. I also exhibit handwritten letters that audience traced. They don’t put their name, only various handwritten letters make it warm humanity spam. It will be more anonymous work gradually. This tracing is imitation of Syakyo(写経) which is an ancient Buddhist activity. We transcript sutras of word-by-word in order to reflect on ourselves, or to attain mental well-being by mindfully tracing the sacred scriptures. And then our heart will be anattā (Buddhist word, means no-self). Audience provides their handwritten letters to me to become anonymous like anattā.

This work is started from my old experience. When I was 14, I was always trolling blogs of people I did not consider as friends. They were friends in only class room. But I hated them online. There was a disconnect between my real emotions towards them and manner offline. This anonymous communication with people is what has caused my some anxiety. It was the start of my double life. From that experience, I started thinking about my identity. I think new contemporary art is how to make nothing, how I let people to make something without my trace.

I traced many handwritten fonts with light box. I collected my mail folders, famous spam mails, sites that collected spam mails, spam collected from the audience at the exhibition. I put a notepaper on the trace table and traced various handwritten fonts.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/12YhuBda_012hxZkmjt0kI4CclKMODNM0/view