Superb box with 96 page book and CD with the soundtrack of the installation of sculpture, sound and light by Russell Mills and David Sylvian at The Temporary Museum on Tokyo Bay, Japan (29.9.90 – 12.10.90).
The box is designed by Russell Mills.
Excellent pictures by The Douglas Brothers.
Very rare item (esp. mint).
CD tracklist:
1. The Beekeeper’s Apprentice (Sylvian/Perry)
2. Epiphany (Sylvian)
The Japanese version of the Ember Glance box is very rare with an additional sticker on the cover and an extra inlay with amazing Russell Mills prints (not found in the book). The inlay can be folded to create a piece of art in itself. The reverse is completely printed in Japanese. It is understood to be the liner notes from the book translated by Akiko Shimizu.
From the book:
Russell Mills statement
“Ember Glance: The Permanence of Memory’ examines the ideas of space, time and memory. We hoped, using sound, light and objects (found, made and manipulated) detached from their normal contexts and set in a theatrical space free of the usual associations, to suggest that memory in its richest sense should be central to our daily lives.
Memory is triggered by small events, minute particulars rather than the general, the wonder of the commonplace rather than the epic. Our unconscious absorption of tiny fragments of stimuli – colours, sounds, smells, tactile impressions, atmospheres, snatches of conversation and half-glimpsed exchanges – feeds the imagination.
In memory, as in music, poetry and film, nothing is fixed. Time flows in any direction. Spatial and temporal time are fused: the past coexists with the present. the instant with the eternal, fantasy with reality. Memory knows no edges or boundaries, either physical or chronological. It provides continuity, giving shape to the known and substance to the speculative unknown. It is a filter for energies that connect us to our individual roots.’
David Sylvian statement
“The quality of art is that it makes people who are otherwise always looking outward, turn inward.” The Dalai Lama
‘The road that leads to the development of higher levels of consciousness is reached, at least in part, through a process of self-questioning – the quality of these questions being in some ways more important than the answers. I believe that one of the main functions of art in society lies in its capacity to bring about subtle shifts of perception, possibly influencing the quality of the questions we ask as a result. The shift from conscious, outward projection, in which all events are viewed as external to the self, to a conscious, inwardly connected and more unified response is vitally important. It is through such a reorientation that real and sustainable change can begin to come about, in the individual and, consequently, in society.
These ideas have informed my work in music for a number of years now. My initial fascination with this project lay in the challenge involved in attempting to create, in three dimensions, a piece eloquent and potent enough to allow such an experience to take place.’
The book contains the following endorsement from legendary Japanese musician Toru Takemitsu:
‘This installation by Russell Mills and David Sylvian is filled with the power of poetry and evocation. Enclosed within it are both the stillness of eternity and the fury of instant conflagration. At one level, the installation is an imposing medieval cathedral; at another, it is a desolate, burnt-out ruin, abandoned by men who have failed to understand its ancient mysteries.
Light spills from cracks in the walls of layered memory and drifts through space like a flaming vessel.
The whole process takes place in near darkness. Life and death are transcended to animate the changes in the pressure of time.
What will people call it?
This nameless pathway that leads to a “world sensation”.
“Eternity evaporates like night’s dawning
It trickles away like water.”
Shuzo Takiguchi’
Some gallery images of the publication are from www.russellmills.com.
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