Black Out
“Black Out” first brings me to contemplate Fantastica versus The Nothing. It then leads me to ponder redacted documents released by alphabet agencies. I then consider how suicide is an act of blacking out oneself from existence, at least in the mortal realm, perhaps not from the astral plane. “Black Out” could be a portal to another dimension. Suddenly, I feel an upbeat jazz rhythm harmonized between Rahsaan Roland Kirk, Miles Davis, and Nina Simone. As Simone’s voice disappears into a whisper it undergoes metamorphosis into Joe Pesci’s voice rattling off his "a mystery wrapped in a riddle inside an enigma" line from the film JFK.
After this initial sputtering, the burnt oil smoke exits my ears and my mind rejoins with my eyes. I study the surface of this screenprint and empathize with the artist as an outsider peering into a void. The only intermediary between me and the artist is this artwork. My viewing ritual is to approach an artwork as a child first meets an ocean, without knowing anything about it, not even its given name.
Registration never occurs because alignment is impossible when an airplane’s radar is unable to verify a runway. The imagination can fabricate a runway, but the DNA could not be a match. In this regard, “Black Out” becomes a vacuum in a way similar to a dolphin losing its sonar capabilities. The prefrontal cortex is the vital area in the brain's hardware where the act of art making originates, somehow the artist is able to reveal lifeforms from an otherwise invisible region, that derived from pure imagination. Shin Kamiya seems to perform as a mystic speaking through art.
I wonder if this print would have come into existence if there had never been an atomic blast in Japan. Hiroshima and Nagasaki come to mind. I walk through ruins filled with hollow paper-thin shells that once housed vibrant beings. I feel my toe touch a strand of black piano keys, unlocking the ghost of Ravel through enharmonic sharps and flats.
The words mean nothing after all is said because the silent mystery of this serigraph is better left to the imagination. My interpretation means very little, but is my honest response to viewing this artwork. The more one attempts to describe it, the farther one gets from its core essence. After all of these thoughts, I now prefer to erase my mind with a full self inflicted lobotomy and think nothing.
Silence is better and more productive than to continue digging this hole of words. Now, I scatter the letters in thankfulness of Shin Kamiya. If no sound existed, not even the ringing in the ears, so that it had to crossover senses to that of the visual realm in order to survive, then perhaps “Black Out” would be its tangible presence.
–J N Miller, Museum Media Specialist