[jico.]

 

“We only have a rough idea when we play. At each performance, we change the order of films, the content of the text, and the sound we make,” Lee says.
Leah: Also, my old projector brings us fun accidents and sometimes produces unexpected effects. For once, we choose performance as a way of conveying our ideas to give the audience the freedom of catching the meaning by themselves. Neither we do story telling, nor do we play a movie with a story. It’s more abstract, like poetry or Haiku.
What did you discover accidentally then?

 

Leah says: “…I got an idea of the ‘faded glory’ or ‘faded beauty’ from the doll, and this ’sounds-like Hollywood’ Las Vegas picture derives from my memory.”
Leah: There is a scene where two black-and-white images are shown together, one of a doll and the other is a picture of Las Vegas. They weren’t intended to be together at first. However, I’m attracted to something that has a completely different character within… ambiguity, I would say. I like something lovely but scary, or something sad but fun… that kind of thing. Dolls are usually lovely and to be treated with care, aren’t they? But the one I found on a street in New York was so miserable, and I couldn’t help taking a picture of it. Afterwards, I somehow thought of putting this picture next to the Las Vegas picture. That’s because I got an idea of the faded glory or faded beauty from the doll, and this sounds-like Hollywood Las Vegas picture derives from my memory.

 

“There was a walking man just before me, and that was when the images of the man and of the shoes’ owner tied together in my head!” says Leah.
So the doll and Las Vegas somehow connected in your head?
Leah: At that point, yes. For example, the images of shoes and Lee’s poem called Richard were put together in the same way. These shoes were neatly left on a step of a street, and I wondered: Why on earth did the owner leave these shoes like this? What happened to him? As I took the picture, I was imagining many stories about the shoes. Then, there was a walking man just before me, and that was when the images of the man and of the shoes’ owner tied together in my head!
Lee: My poem Richard is about my university friend whom I haven’t seen for a long time. We overlapped this poem onto the images of the shoes and the walking man, and guess what? The man became Richard to us.

 

“Why on earth did the owner leave these shoes like this? What happened to him?”
Leah: Even between completely different things there is a synergy or connection. And, it is up to you to find out about it. If you put this broken fire engine photo next to the shoe photo, you’ll see another story. Lee and I found this fire engine when we were driving in the countryside. Who in the world brought this truck to such a place, and how? we thought. Comparing these two photos, I see some connection, like a pair of shoes and a pair of tires, right?