A.A.Murakami's The Moon Underwater

1. SPSpeaker0:00

   [gentle music] We are A.A.Murakami, and we are launching a new installation called The Moon Underwater at the Mori Art Museum in central Tokyo.

2. SPSpeaker0:22

   The Moon Underwater is the most technically ambitious project we've attempted to date. We work with fleeting states of matter, so where you meet the work isn't through technology interfaces like screens or projections, but in fact it's through bubbles and fog rings and plasma.

3. SPSpeaker0:49

   For this piece, we were inspired by the Japanese tradition of moon viewing, which is the appreciation of the moon and how it is considered to be the most beautiful when it's seen in reflection in water. So we wanted to create this kind of nocturnal garden to capture this feeling.

4. SPSpeaker1:13

   What people don't see is actually behind the surface. We need the systems to operate autonomously, but entropy still creeps in. Systems will run smoothly until they encounter the unpredictable. And so we're able to really work with Claude to become the technician that we leave behind. We see it like a garden, and you're not really aware of the gardener that's silently keeping this whole harmony working. When you start talking to Claude, you see the world in a completely different way. Claude's read every science paper [laughs] that is about bubbles, or it seems that way. And so we can talk to Claude about, like, why are the bubbles bouncing on water? Why aren't they just joining the water? And then once we understand the kind of physics and the chemistry behind that, we're able to kind of just go much further with the work and much deeper because it's like having an expert there on hand in the studio. So it very much feels like a team member in that sense.

5. SPSpeaker2:27

   In the end, The Moon Underwater is about impermanence, a reminder that nothing lasts forever. This is technology returning to the realm of nature, alive, fleeting, and full of mystery, an art of disappearing that makes us feel more present while it lasts. [gentle music]

Episode duration: 3:02