Imagine a futuristic version of the
Stone Age, a transparent dolmen illuminated by ever-shifting
inner lights.
If you can manage that, you’ll have in your mind’s eye
something resembling “Tom Na H-iu II” (2006) by the Japanese
artist Mariko Mori, the most impressive piece in “Rebirth,”
her exhibition at the Royal Academy of Arts.
It is lit from within by hundreds of LED lights in patterns
that fluctuate in response to neutrinos detected at the Kamioka
Observatory, a cosmic ray research unit at the University of
Tokyo (to which the work of art is directly connected).
Sit in front of it for a while, and it begins to take you
over: The experience is soothing, bland yet simultaneously
hypnotic.
Mori’s art is an odd, unclassifiable blend of eastern
mysticism, science fiction and pop culture. She is interested in
Shinto and Buddhism, and in the prehistoric cultures of Japan