Tabaimo’s animations are spooky and spectacular. For the Japanese art star’s latest installation, Yudangami (or Careless Hair), a circular room hung with black drapes plunges you into near total darkness. It’s like being in a cave, or inside someone’s head, a sensation confirmed by the swinging curtain of hair in the cartoon projected on a curved wall. The ebony fringe takes up the entire screen, curling up like a scroll of ocean from a traditional woodblock print or swishing from side to side to a dreamily hectic soundtrack. The music moves from games arcade tunes, some retro sci-fi bleeps and Scooby-Doo haunted house jingles, to static scratches, electric chords and the subliminal chatter of a crowd.
Scissors cut the hair while hands and disembodied arms break through the fringe. If this is a window on the world, it is a strange one. Rather than looking out through the eyes of someone hiding like Cousin Itt behind their too-long hair, we get impressionistic flashes: flowers grow; a lamp hanging from an ear lights a table and two chairs, set for a date; two giant fingers entwine playfully in the water beating from an erect showerhead. Finally a heart is seen pulsating on a couch, its centre marked with beautiful blue and orange veins, while in the background a brain falls off a table.
Inspired by a minor character, a woman of dubious morals, from Ashida Yuichi’s novel Akunin Yudangami makes for a surreal critique of life in urban Japan. Romance seems brief, heart and mind are left stranded, and a sense of disconnection and unease rule. Its unsettling images linger long after the curtain of hair has fallen.
Yudangami is included in Tabaimo’s exhibition, Boundary Layer, at London’s Parasol Unit, until August 6.
