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UNKNOWN Series — Concept

Takashi Takamura

 

I. The Motivation for Creation — Technology and Life

Contemporary technology is evolving at a speed that was once difficult even to imagine. Artificial intelligence, electronic technology, nanotechnology, and other technologies created by human beings are entering an era in which they can autonomously make judgments, respond, and reproduce.

Beyond this development, might there eventually emerge entirely new forms of “microscopic life” unlike anything that human beings have ever called “life”?

As I contemplated both the possibilities and expectations of such a future, as well as the uncontrollable dangers and unknown potential hidden within it, I was guided by an inner impulse to create and gave form to the “UNKNOWN Series.”

Although far too small to be fully perceived by the naked eye, these life forms may nevertheless gradually and inevitably infiltrate the world. The forms of the UNKNOWN Series are their enlarged and visualized representations, allowing human beings to recognize and observe what would otherwise remain beyond our perception.

For me, this work is not simply an attempt to incorporate electronic technology into ceramics. It is an attempt to imagine and give form to life forms that do not yet exist in this world by bringing together earth, an ancient primordial material, and electronics, a presence of the modern age. I use clay not as a vessel, but as a medium through which unknown life forms may come into being.

I call this concept “Bio-Electronic Ceramics.”

 

 

II. The Fusion of Organic and Inorganic — The Structure of Life

The forms of the UNKNOWN Series take on organic shapes reminiscent of vines growing in bead-like, segmented formations.

At their center is a “core,” conceived as the source of life.

A small circuit board containing a microcontroller is embedded within the core, from which numerous jumper wires extend outward.

These wires are intentionally exposed to the outside.

They are not merely electronic circuits; they are intended to evoke blood vessels and nerves running through the interior of a living organism.

Fired ceramics are materials born from earth and fire.

By embedding an artificial “brain” in the form of a circuit board and electronic circuitry within these organic forms, I bring the two together.

In this fusion, I see the boundaries between organic and inorganic, nature and artificiality, the past and the future, coming together.

Furthermore, subtle lights reminiscent of a beating heart are placed throughout the forms, with additional lights at the tips of tentacle-like structures.

These lights slowly pulse and fade through PWM (Pulse Width Modulation).

Rather than blinking at a fixed, simple rhythm, their changing brightness creates a sense of life, as if the forms were breathing and their hearts were beating.

The electric current flowing through the interior of the forms, together with the light and sound it generates, creates the sensation that nerves are spread throughout the entire work and that something is active within.

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III. Light and Sound — The “Breath” and “Voice” of Unknown Life

In the UNKNOWN Series, electronics are not merely functional.

Electric current becomes a signal flowing through the interior of the life form, while light becomes a response of that life.

And sound becomes the “voice” that the life form sends out into the world.

The electronic circuitry incorporated into the work causes the lights to slowly pulse and fade, while generating sound.

Through seeing and hearing these phenomena, the viewer may come to experience the ceramic form before them not simply as an object, but as something within which an unknown activity is taking place.

In this, I see one aspect of the essence of life: “behavior.”

It appears to be alive.

It seems to respond.

Yet it is impossible to know whether it is truly alive, a machine, or something that is neither.

That is precisely why I named this body of work “UNKNOWN.”

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IV. Earth, Fire, and Electronics — The Fusion of Different Times

The outer surfaces of the forms are covered with a deep Oribe glaze.

Through repeated oxidation and reduction firings, followed by a prolonged firing process lasting more than 120 hours, this mysterious, deep green emerges.

In this color, I often sense a primordial presence of life, reminiscent at times of plants or minerals.

Some of the forms are decorated with iron painting, which develops a deep reddish tone after firing.

This evokes blood or energy flowing within a life form, or perhaps the heat generated from within.

However, iron painting is not used on UNKNOWN Series No. 1.

Earth contains the immense timescale of the planet itself—tens of millions, even hundreds of millions of years.

Electronic signals, by contrast, change within extremely brief moments.

I find meaning in allowing the immense time embodied in earth and fire to coexist within a single form with the instantaneous time of electronics.

In this coexistence, I place my own sense of the mystery of time within life.

 

 

V. Bio-Electronic Ceramics — A New Possibility for Ceramics

I do not regard ceramics simply as a technique for making vessels.

By bringing together earth, fire, and glaze—materials and techniques that have existed since ancient times—with contemporary electronic technology, I believe that ceramics still contain unexplored possibilities and new territories.

However, electronic technology itself is not my objective.

Electronics are one means of expressing unknown life.

Clay creates the form, while electronics give movement to what lies within.

Light becomes the response of life, and sound becomes its voice.

When these elements come together, a new kind of presence emerges—something different from a mere ceramic object.

I call this field “Bio-Electronic Ceramics.”

This is not simply a combination of ceramics and computer technology.

It is a form of ceramics through which the encounter between earth and electronics allows us to reconsider what life is, what an artificial object is, and what kinds of beings may emerge in the future.

 

 

VI. Toward an Unknown Future

The electronic technology I currently use is still at an early stage, centered primarily on small microcontroller boards without operating systems.

I myself am by no means an expert in electronics or computers.

Yet I see in this not a limitation, but rather a possibility.

Rather than first mastering advanced technology and then creating works, I enter the unknown realm of electronics through my sensibility as a ceramic artist, experimenting through trial and error as I create new forms of existence.

That process itself is an essential part of my creative practice.

From this point forward, technologies such as computers, artificial intelligence, robotics, and life sciences will continue to evolve dramatically.

As they do, the boundary between what human beings create and what we call life may become even more ambiguous than it is today.

Rather than attempting to predict that future, I want to imagine, through clay, the “unknown life” that may emerge within it.

And I hope that younger generations of creators will cross the boundaries between established materials and disciplines and create new forms of expression.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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