Toru Tanno

An exploration of vision as lying between reality and memory

One of my primary focuses has been the fact that objects in reality must always pass through perception before they are committed to memory. As long as we view the world from that perspective, it will be impossible to reach a consensus with regard to how certain objects appear. That is because perception is a function of the body, dependent on the organs (ie, separate from congenital or environmental factors. Working from that assumption, it follows that agreement at a communication level can only be obtained using the power of words and symbols, but I will refrain from discussing that topic further).

Vision, height, eye color… the inter-individual relationship between these elements determines gaps in perception that lead finally to differences in memory, boundaries between people that cannot be overcome. My memory does not record at lengths of one tenth, one hundredth or one thousandth. In terms of moments, it likely includes subdivisions as long as one-third. By beginning from the hypothesis that memory is a packaging of these continuous frames of visual information with other various data, including sounds and smells, I am able to arrive at a form of vision that generates unknown landscapes using realistic mechanisms. It is then that my subjects reach their completion. – Toru Tanno –