Takafumi Ide

Long Island, NY
Residency: October-November 2007

Artist Statement
My conceptual and aesthetic concerns are inspired by specific sites. By spending time in the allotted location, I envision activating the space. I transform my visualization from the space into my installation. The materials often dictate my idea. I incorporate small fragile objects such as branches, gold leaf, hand made paper, lights, tiny shards of metal, and electronic circuitry. The harmony that exists between the small objects offers a sense of solemnity. All of my recent work has been suspended from the ceiling. The hanging structures give a sense of instability, which rightly describes my anxiety of the future. At the same time, the combination of fragility and floating objects is as fleeting as a web between branches, inferring ephemeral life like that of a mayfly. I want my audience to experience the work with such feelings. Sound is essential to my work; I construct spaces with a combination of voice and created auditory effects. A blinking light, synchronized electrically with the harmonized sound, communicates with the viewer while casting a shadow of the structure. Composite modules of repeated sound, small objects, and shadow propagate my message. The viewer is stimulated by the psychological and physiological effect of my work on the senses.

About the Artist
Takafumi Ide is an interdisciplinary media artist specializing in installation with sound and light. He received his B.A. in graphic design from Tama Art University in Tokyo in 1989. He has worked for more than ten years as a graphic designer and an illustrator in Japan. He received his M.F.A. in studio art from Stony Brook University where he was awarded a Maurice M. Goldberger & Mariam H. Goldberger Fine Arts Scholarship for his final year in 2007. He has exhibited at Project07 at the Carriage House in the Islip Art Museum in East Islip, NY, ISE Cultural Foundation Gallery and other in New York City as well as Japan. "threshold," which he created at Sculpture Space in 2007, has been lending from April 2008 to May 2010 in the Arts Across Campus program in Onondaga Community College, Syracuse, NY. He is currently teaching at Stony Brook University, NY as a lecturer for Spring 2008.