The Railway Walk

The Railway Walk
2024
Performance, single channel video, 07’21”

A performance prompted by news of a friend’s death. Walking through the forest with no destination, Yamaguchi came upon a railway track and kept walking, now on the rails. The track permits no straying.  A body walking the rails is led onward in a direction fixed in advance. By contrast, the forest invites wandering. Between these opposing forces, his body presses forward under tension. The anthropologist Tim Ingold argues that, under modernity, people have been moved from wayfaring — proceeding along a path — to transport, carried from point to point. Walking the railway line, Yamaguchi stands on the boundary line between the two. On his own two feet, he is at the same time being carried by something. This doubleness is recorded as a moving image that travels in a single direction.

友人の死の知らせをきっかけに行ったパフォーマンス。山口は目的もなく森を歩くうちに線路を見つけ、そのままその上を歩き始めた。線路は迷うことを許さない。レールの上を歩く身体は、あらかじめ定められた方向へと導かれていく。一方で、森は彷徨いを誘う。この相反する二つの力の間で、山口の身体は緊張を孕みながら前に進む。人類学者ティム・インゴルドは、近代以降、人は道に沿って進む「徒歩旅行」から、点と点を結んで運ばれる「輸送」へと移されてきたと論じている。線路を歩く山口は、その境界線上に立っている。自らの足で歩きながら、同時に何かに運ばれてもいる。この両義性を、一方向に進む映像として記録した。

SCREENINGS

2025 Silent Interference / Turtle chamber project, Taiwan

2024 Hazama Visual Arts Festival / Japanisch-Deutsches Zentrum Berlin, Germany