Kako Ueda

Just remembering the days when I used to do works that are so labor intensive...

I think I will do some cutouts in the books for the bookshelf piece, which will be photographed for the website of the exhibition....in this way the viewers are able to preview the content in the books before coming to the exhibition, which will hopefully encourage them to take out the book....

we shall see.

"Seeing the Seen"

Thanks to Kimmy Fung, Alex Robbie and Annie Song!



Appearance is only one aspect of an object. Surrounded by so much information and so many objects, we tend to assume we know much more about things based on just appearance. Almost everything we use in our everyday lives has been manufactured or manipulated through human or natural processes - a history we often neglect once the finished product is in our hands.

My thesis is an exploration of the relationship between visibility and the invisibility of a work; how to challenge the audience's patience, fear, and observatory skills by confronting them with an opportunity to witness another aspect of the work at hand. Only after the outer layer is breached can the audience experience the work as a whole and cause the link between image and substance to gradually unravel.

Tomorrow is the deadline

for the text:
here is what I have so far:

The appearance is only a partial aspect of an object. Surrounded by so much information and objects around us, we tend to assume that we know more about objects, based on their appearances. Almost everything we use in our everyday lives have been manufactured or manipulated through human or natural processes, which we tend to neglect once they are in our hands.

My thesis is an exploration of the relationship between the visibility and the invisibility of a work, and how to challenge the audience's patience, fear and observatory skills, confronting them with an opportunity to witness another aspect of the work. Only when the outside layer is broken the audience is able to experience the whole work, as they have seen the seen, the unseen and the dynamic between them.

So much more work to do!

Critique Last Week

Long time no see.

We had a midterm critique last week. We only have 6 weeks left until the final presentation. Boo.

I got good critique. I think all the feedbacks were positive and I was quite surprised. I felt like I hadn't spent enough time into my works but yeah, I guess time is not the only thing that counts.

All others were presenting more complete, very time consuming works...perhaps it's time to shift my works towards more complete looking projects...well, I tried to and that's why I had tried to make different versions of the tape video and the bookshelf, but I feel like the original versions were better.


The images seen above are of another version of the bookshelf. I built the shelves myself to fit the size of the book better than the IKEA shelves that were used in the previous test. I think visually this is more simple and makes sense to the project, but it loses the interesting aspect of an alternative way of using an already existing object - the shelf.
I'm still not sure if this concept of "alternative..." should be added into the piece, because I feel like it's another statement that I am not intending to address in the exhibition.

Are the IKEA shelves losing the simplicity within work and adding an unnecessary factor
to the piece?

Another question to think about.


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I tried the video piece with both blue wall (and this project was really spontaneous..I saw a blue wall, I was wearing a shirt that was the same color and I happened to be holding two rolls of tape)

I don't like the tape that is hanging from my back at the beginning, because you as an audience can expect what actually happens later in the film. In the second and third run I created a little room with black walls...I like the bumping into the wall part, but perhaps that is also kind of unnecessary....just a blue wall, which is really big, is good enough. "Already existing material" idea again, but if that idea is common in two of the works I it might work better.

I will only do another filming of this for sure, I don't want to be taped ever again.


The wallpaper piece will be investigated further, and new works will be created next week.

OFF TO BERLIN!