Document:Q11155

Koki Tanaka presents three short videos, which were produced in New York during a residency in 2004. Rhythmic, looping, short sequences define Tanaka’s work. For example, in one of the videos in City/Observer, "From Tortilla Chips to a Pancake," he captures the process of how tortilla chips turn into a pancake, becoming burnt and then discarded from a theatrically dark apartment into the sunny outdoors. He captures trivial scenes from everyday life, and then turns these fragments of footage into edited dramas.
At times, he turns his video to a street corner and captures events that unfold at random in the public domain. "Caviar to Pigeons" was filmed in Chelsea and reveals how a flock of pigeons react to caviar; and in "All about All the Nights," he compiles footage of trash flickering and fluttering in the wind at night in the empty streets of New York
As an observer himself, Tanaka cuts apart everyday scenes and extracts adventitious narratives, which appear to be carefully-scripted short movies.
- Yukie Kamiya