Lot 1539: NORIKO YAMAGUCHI

NORIKO YAMAGUCHI
(B. 1983)
KEITAI GIRL SUIT 3 (old model); KEITAI GIRL SUIT 4 (silver); & KEITAI GIRL SUIT 5 (white and red)
three mixed media suits with electronic components, each accompanied with backpack and original suitcase
each suit: 40 x 30 x 160 cm. (15 3/4 x 11 3/4 x 63 in.) (3)
each suitcase: 53 x 28 x 80 cm. (20 7/8 x 11 x 31 1/2 in.) (3)
Executed in 2003-2009; & 2008-2009 (3)

Tokyo, Japan, Mori Arts Center, ARTISTS BY ARTISTS, 22-31 August 2003.
Osaka, Japan, Osaka Contemporary Art Center, Contemporary Art Contest, 19 January 2004.
Kyoto, Japan, Kyoto University of Art and Design, Kyoto Art Annual, 6 April 2004.
Boston, USA, UNRAVEL, SIGGRAPH, Keitai Girls dancing ParaPara, 31 July 2006.
Paris, France, Carrousel de Louvre, Keitai Girl Marching- Paris Photo 2008, 18 November 2008.
Kyoto, Japan, Galleria LUCE, Keitai Girl IMEKURA Show, 22 August 2009.

Eric Shiner (ed.), 'Project in the making Yamaguchi Noriko is under our skin' in Art Asia Pacific Magazine, Winter issue no. 47, ArtAsiaPacific Publishing, New York, USA, 2006 (illustrated, unpaged). Yumi Yamaguchi, Kodansha International Limited, Warriors of Art, A Guide to Contemporary Japanese Artists, Tokyo, Japan, 2007 (illustrated, pp. 160-161).
Gloria K. Fiero (ed.), McGraw-Hill, Globalism: Information, Communication, and the Digital Revolution, Landmarks in Humanities, USA, 2008 (illustrated, fig. 15.1, p. 446).
Une Masataka (ed.), 'Keitai Girl' in Vu MAG #2, Paris, France, 2008 (illustrated, cover).
Fabriano Fabbri (ed.), Lo zen e il manga Arte contemporanea giapponese, Bruno Mondadori, Milan, Italy, 2009 (illustrated, pp. 224 & 313).
Yukako Sawada (ed.), 'reviews' in BT, Bijutsu Shuppan-sha Limited, Tokyo, Japan, September 2009 (illustrated, p. 201).
Mio Ishikiri (ed.), 'Taipei' in BT, Bijutsu Shuppan-sha Limited, Tokyo, Japan, September 2009 (illustrated, p. 127).

Noriko Yamaguchi's Keitai Girl (Lot 1539) is directly correlated to her upbringing in the late 20th Century where technological phenomenon and feminism took center stage in global concerns. In Japan, perhaps those issues are most prominent, in addition to the brewing of hyper sexualized otaku and kawaii culture in the under belly of Japan. Embracing such issues in the most primary method, Yamaguchi transforms her own body into a keitai (mobile phone), becoming the new model that we lust over month to month, yearning to touch and explore. Each unique suit is composed of hundreds of phone pads that emit light and ring tones when touched, while the headphones slowly move like activated antenna, stimulating both the viewer and the transformative artist herself, turning Noriko Yamaguchi into an artificial human and emotional 'product'.

The momentary interaction with the suit poignantly echoes today's thinning barrier between here and anywhere, whereby anything is attainable through the internet and satellite technology. Yamaguchi stipulates how technology is paradoxically restrictive as talking through phones, no matter now close to real time and instant, offensively limits human-to-human interaction. To demonstrate this, in one particular performance in an underground Japanese club, individuals were approached for a one-to-one dance performance, heightening the awareness of each other through the artificial keitai skin. The viewer is forced to question whether he or she is more entranced by the metallic hi-tech exterior or the human being within, or rather are they one and the same? The message is simple yet perhaps most powerful of her contemporaries as it is the artist herself that is truly the contemporary work. Through her performances and innovative suits, Yamaguchi brings forth relative global concerns in an immediate, tactile and comprehensible manner to her audience, thus reinstating her importance in the new generation of contemporary artists.