ELECTROPOLIS

This artwork covers a wall in the first-floor elevator hall of Dogo Hakuro, about two meters wide and 3.3 meters high, with several hundred electronic circuit boards. It was inspired by discarded boards from old computers and household appliances that we came across at a scrap dealer. Now on permanent display, it embodies the hotel's concept: industrial pop meets a hot-spring hotel with art. Working with the ironworks we also partnered with on INSIDE OUT, we made it together, quite literally with our own hands, from composition through installation.

In the recycling trade, discarded circuit boards containing gold and rare metals are known as "urban mines." That phrase, which we learned from the dealer who supplied the boards, and the image of a city that came to mind the moment we saw them piled up haphazardly, became the starting point for the piece. Seen from above, a board crowded with chips and connectors looks like buildings, streets, and city blocks. We spray-painted the boards in gunmetal and metallic blue to heighten their depth, mounted them on plywood panels, and lined the panels across the wall. What emerged is a landscape reminiscent of the Machine City that Neo finally reaches near the end of the Matrix series.

A mechanized metropolis that seems to grow and spread on its own, with no human hand involved: in a world where the threat of AI is no longer dismissed as pure fantasy, it can even look faintly apocalyptic... though perhaps that is saying too much.