Torii

By Marie-Julie Bourgeois – An air passage (2011-2013)

A torii is a traditional Japanese gate most commonly found at the entrance of or within a Shinto shrine, where it symbolically marks the transition from the profane to the sacred. The function of a torii is to mark the entrance to a sacred space. For this reason, the road leading to a Shinto shrine is almost always straddled by one or more torii, which are therefore the easiest way to distinguish a shrine from a Buddhist temple. Some torii can be juxtaposed like a tunnel. The Walkthrough metal detectors used in the airports are hijacked from their purpose and arranged in the continuation to form a workable space crossing by the public. These “doors” symbolize the crossing towards to a foreign country, the cross over “x” borders. Each person activates the walk through detector, some of them are more or less sensitive, going through the electromagnetic field the passage becomes sound, spiritual and suspect.

Credits

Sound composition: Roland Cahen
Computer engineering: Alexandre Saunier
Partners: Arcadi, VISIOM, EnsadLab, SIANA, with the support of Centquatre – Paris

Horizon Matriciel exhibition as part of SIANA bennial in Evry