Hata Satoshi: Intention and substance

Hata said, “We humans got convenience and material wealth from mass production and consumption after the industrial revolution while experiencing drastically progressive problems such as environmental and energy issues due to the destruction of nature and mass disposal, as well as economic disparity derived from financial systems. If we continue to exploit the limited resources of the earth, humans will eventually lose everything. It is time to stop and shift from the social system of mass production and consumption to the circulation system of resources and to the age of circulating even human thought.”

The work of Hata at the Aichi Triennale 2016 was a device employing water, which is indispensable for all animals and plants on the earth, to highlight the above-mentioned contemporary problems and depict physical circulation.

Water, a distribution pump and a halogen projector were used to represent a beautiful phenomenon in which water circulates from a liquid to a gas and from a gas to a liquid. The power-hungry halogen lamp symbolized the contradiction and danger of the contemporary social system. Susukino, which is the venue for this exhibition and one of Japan’s three major entertainment districts, is a place full of all kinds of human desires and an area that became a foundation for the modernization of Sapporo for such human desires. Hata plans to release planar, solid and installation works in Susukino with the concept of circulation and change.