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00:00The contemporary art world is vibrant and booming as never before. It's a 21st century phenomenon a global industry in its own right . Brilliant ideas. Looks at the artist at the heart of this . They have a unique power to inspire a stunning provoke and shock to push boundaries. Ask new questions and see the world afresh . In this episode Mariko more D with a career spanning nearly three decades. Mariko Mori is now one of the world's best loved artists. The greatest thing about work is that it's not linguistics. It's international visual language . The war is appealing to many people who create their own language and she became definitely a unique artist in their own specializing in large scale sculptures and installations she is an expert in fusing tech and space age imagery with spirituality and nature and taking us on a mystical journey into the future the past and our inner self. Her work brings people into a deep meditation often and led to thinking oneself one's asked what is humans. What is life. What is universe. What is our society these are the fantastic imagery this sort of otherworldly experience plus the harnessing and technology which have proved to be very fascinating for people. Hi I'm American Morning . I'm an artist based in London and New York before becoming an artist. Mariko worked as a fashion model walking the runways of Tokyo while she was a fashion student in the 80s. I used to collaborate with a fashion photographer to produce some images. I've designed costumes and hairstyles and so on like a test shooting and I believe that's the time that I started to learn the vocabulary of creating images. But of course at the time I was I wasn't really intention to make artwork then it was only when she went to art school in London that she decided to build on those early photographs creating a body of work that would launch her career . I was really thinking about the Japanese society. I saw quite a difference especially a women role in Japan at a time in society . I wanted to make some kind of social comment on those issue this futuristic It was one of the first times that you saw a different type of contemporary art coming out of Japan. But he was able to sort of pick on that exoticism that was extremely fascinating to foreign audiences or do I am making a social comment while I was producing this photographs. People did kind of react to this situation. So I photographed too. For example one a subway. I mean the subway and people close to me are completely ignoring me. The people in the back was really standing so you could really see the emotional reaction that's in the Japanese society. They kind of closed where needs they cross and kind of you noticed but are you ignoring the other people in the back. They're really paying attention. So this kind of a strange atmosphere that I wanted to depict. I thought she was touching a very interesting part of urban life or contemporary life but only just in Tokyo. But it's happening everywhere. The kind of unwillingness of the people to recognize her presence and that was quite striking. And that's the kind of indifference that oh the big city is filled Hang Seng. That was one of my friends I'm surprised that wow Japan is producing such a new office with a universal artistic temperament . So this is my office myself and you know culture here. Yes. Hi. He must be beast . ISE fifteen sixteen years protecting us . Mariko grew up in Tokyo although she spent some of her childhood in the United States. Her Japanese upbringing has never left her and thus had a lasting impact on her art . I started to do a taste of lemonade practice at three but really turned to me that using all the sixth sense that you can express ideas and sharing ideas. The teeth and everything that was very powerful and really gave me good think about how I can utilize all the media to produce artwork . In the late 90s Mariko shifted her attention to designing experiences and began investigating ways of creating art that can engage all the senses from 1998 her work took a new direction. One of her key pieces is wave UFO in which she realized a new visual language that would become her signature style. She has developed the language of just classic and reflect a specific dimension of the Japanese culture in between a fantasy world and a futuristic world and scientific world and religious world. It's very specific on what you claim audience warmth and unique I kind of remove my body existence in a work. In other words I started to produce work more architecture work. I wanted to more talk about a deeper consciousness of mind ladder than the social kind of commentary work. Way before I fear is that more successful work I have ever to reach out to many different origins from a different culture before way before I use a Buddhist iconography in the world such as Temple and in a way the image of the Buddhist iconography kind of removes the people from different cultures seems but you have for it's kind of a universal. So it's easier to kind of be access. I wanted to introduce the idea of oneness I included audience to come inside work an experience together when she started creating the total environment. That's when I felt something really special happening here. So you like you enter into not simply a room and look at things hanging on the wall. You're entering a completely alien universe. So it's total immersion. You swallowed up by it. I think that's a pretty pretty spectacular way of engaging is is Mariko Mori is just one of a handful of female Japanese artists making it big in the international artwork. Today she works out of a studio in Manhattan a second home next to London . I love New York very much. I think it's one of the unique things in the wall that many different people different kinds of culture are mixed but we're still living together. I think it's a role model of how worried should be. And it seems with Mariko everything is a unifying white. Even her clothes always took place with her saying having her. While Mariko is one of Japan's most successful artists being called a Japanese artist is a label she prefers to avoid. People don't recognize her as a Japanese artist even though she is creating and touching very fundamental Japanese elements and subject matter. She is first of all a very successful international artist I'm not really fitting I myself as Japanese artist since I've been living outside of Japan more than 20 years. I still practice tea ceremony. Culturally I would like to keep the connection. I think I depends if the Japanese people think I'm Japanese at this maybe for his head but his defense you know. I think some people think his arms open is that I. It's it's up to how you decide . I guess I I used to like very much. Astro Boy and any mention from TV that especially quite futuristic and I remember praying out my room making a terroristic kind of for new water. We had any kind of Photoshop part or receiving some new water. Technology was quite important element in my work because certain idea were really require certain technologies to produce. So sometime I probably to be an engineer and engineer developed new technology in order to produce the work. But I believe this is like you know human history. We've been using technology to extend our vocabulary and also extend our mind of the possibility. One of the most astounding pieces is Tom Donohue Mariko collaborated with Tokyo's leading space observatory based on the type of particle the observatory detected in space. The sculpture changes colour in real time . I saw it for the first time in London. And really I stayed there almost an hour. It's a single piece but it just continued to emit different light from within. And it is to me almost like birth of a human being at the same time. It is the birth of the universe. I don't know what it is but it's totally a new experience I think her performance really revolves around her ability to create a total environment. Well I know that you know some people have felt that the technology overrides anything else that she might be trying to achieve. And I wouldn't say that that's probably a fair degree of truth to that. On the other hand I think her use of technology this is again you know it's another tool that an artist would use. We live in the modern world. We use the things the resources around us. So. So I don't see that as a negative aspect. In March of this year Mariko continued her interest in space and the universe with a new series of sculptures called cyclic scape the exhibition cyclic step were based on the idea of cyclic model of the universe by a professor signed her from Princeton University . I was very inspired by the idea that this theory of physics showing that every universe has kind of a kind of followed cyclic model of life cycle which is very interesting . This string theory suggests existence of a more a universe and parallel universe in no way is that a sculpture already present in universe. So we have five sculptures here. So it's kind of fiery universe. It's not talking about physicality of the universe but it's kind of energy from. It's coming back to the same spot a game like an endless cycle of the life of the universe. It's really beautiful and it's so shiny and beautiful and looks like floating. Yeah I like it . This kind of circulation idea of a universe. It's something similar to our Buddhist philosophy of circulation of the life . There's the reverse. So therefore I was quite intrigued by it I was impressed. Didn't expect to see this kind of forums. The natural materials all of a sudden become this forgetting forms and they carry a life and light and they almost become moving all of the sculptures have been painted with a specially developed blend of holographic and fluorescent paint which changes color depending on where you stand. These are very playful and you play with your perceptions. Once I started turning around and I couldn't stop because I liked what it was doing to my eyes. It's like your eye moves in two different directions at the same times. While the reception to this exhibition looks positive Morocco's trademark of using pure and simple forms has also polarised critics in the past. I think that the earlier work people loved the novelty of it and I think the later work. What is some of the people feel like the forums that she is using. Ah well we've seen them before kind of thing but I have to say and not in defense of the work but what she is asked during the later work is novelty. It is actually a coming home. So it's sort of like it. It's akin to maturity if you will. It's like a teenager going out and partying and having a great time and being a bit outlandish. And then as they get older they're like oh you know what. It's nice to have a walk in the garden. I always challenge myself for not repeating myself in the ring and doing a different media using the new technologies or presenting new ideas. And so if you hate it I you're sad. But you know I think work yourself also has its own life. I think any artwork you see reflection of your mind depends on who you are. When you see the work. People who enjoy it interpret it quite differently. That's quite interesting about it is is in 2010 Mariko kickstarted an ambitious plan to take her art out to museums and into nature under her own non-profit organization . Mariko is planning to build a series of permanent monuments around the world one country. The idea is to honor nature to tradition from remote assistance. We are always honouring nature and producing some monuments. So I thought that was important for contemporary society to kind of acknowledge the importance of nature and once again to be connected to nature . The first of a series is primal rhythm on Japan's Jaco Island a key piece installation consisting of the sun pillar and the moon stone. So I've kind of visited Marco Island and then I discovered such a beauty landscape but it's also under the sea . Oh the beautiful coral is healthy and pristine. I was just so shocked and I never seen anything like it. And I really really feel it's it's a read a treasure ise that so many people don't know how beautiful it is. And when I look at it you know we also had some that was so we must be viewed prettier. No way . The sun pillow was installed in 2011. The Moonstone will join it in 2020 embedded with technology that will allow it to change colour according to the tide. If the sand pit itself a layered acrylic and its material used for aquariums so is a salt water in its system and someday its system the structure design of that in the last thousand years. When the winter solstice sun goes down the sun Peter casts shadow onto David Obey where the moonstone will be floating. It's kind of like a marriage between sun and moon and it's kind of like a symbolic of the rebirth in Japanese art in particular there's a very strong tie to nature and the challenge I think for an artist like Murray is to bring this nature together with modern technology. She's been able to bring those two important yet almost seemingly diametrically opposed points of view. That is really where important slides. Currently LA Rico is working on a second installation ring to be installed next year on a waterfall in Rio Brazil. Like most of her works ring is a team effort to ring with the old of the waterfall and it will be kind of the unification of the five rings of Olympic. As you know that it will be a game in 2016. You really like to kind of bring attention to the Oneness Consciousness that we are all one and sharing that one planet. So this being its oneness ring uniting the humanity of the world . So this is a more model. So when the light is hitting it's kind of this color menu change . You see the difference like kind of more . The great thing about artwork is that it's not linguistics . It's international visual language that could reach you . Anybody in the world. Know we have many different kind of people and a different culture and so on but we all came from Africa originally there and 90 percent of DNA that we are sharing say every Friday that we all came from the same origin . So in a way we are all the same and we owe a kind of connected . Art is something that challenges people encourages and sometimes they even make people cry or angry wary Americans work make people angry. Her work brings people into a deep meditation often and led to thinking oneself. What is us what is humans . What is life. What is universe. What is our society. And that is the fundamental key element constituting a great art. My wish is that the power of art. It's really expanding. I know I see it quite well. When I deliver in our work and animal faces leads in out to the look of people like that some for one sorry is that one fisherman I met at the sight of some theatre. I was taking picture and then he said I can take you there. And then I went on to his boat and he was showing me to some fear and he was very proud to show me and how great it is and you know he said you have to see when sound comes down I really explain it. So I realized OK it's the power of art is really reaching out to many people and so it speaks it to just close it inside the museum . So I fear in the future is that art can make a connection to many different people you know. And if it come in full of it . And you know that's a kind of help .

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Brilliant Ideas: Mariko Mori | Episode 05