Chiba City Arts Triennale 2025 catalogue draft

  

Feb. 2026

Venues; Tsukamoto Chiba No. 3 Building, Tsukamoto Dai-Chiba Building

Sogo Chiba Store, Basement Level – Sencity Garden

Schedule Sep. 19 (Fri) – Nov. 24 (Mon, substitute holiday), 2025

Preparation phase Jun. 2025 / Artwork production with on-site research in Chiba

Jul. – Aug. 2025 / Artwork production and adjustments

Sep. 2025 / Performance and exhibition preparation

Sep. 7, 2025 / Performance at Chiba Port

Sep. 19, 2025 / Exhibition opening at the former hair salon Mizuki

PSYCHOBUILDING® is a project that reexamines concepts such as success, motivation, ambition, and meaning. The artist argues that success forms a symbiotic relationship by attaching itself to individuals and personalities, which, from an economic perspective, functions as a mechanism for extracting labor. It operates as a disguised system of exploitation, incorporating personal attributes such as productivity, talent, 

and beauty in order to function.

Motivation, by contrast, does not rely on external evaluation or material reward; 

it arises internally from one’s own interests and sense of fulfillment.

Ambition, however, is often nothing more than a fantasy grounded in assumptions with no basis in reality. While human choices are shaped by circumstances and give form to a sense of “meaning,” the relationship between choice and meaning is self-referential, tracing an endless loop. Burning incense, drinking coffee, cutting one’s hair—meaning can reside even in such everyday acts. 

One of the exhibition venues selected for this project was a former hair salon located in the basement of a mixed-use building built in 1974 near JR Chiba Station. By utilizing a space that seems to have preserved the atmosphere of the day it was built, the artist assembled the entire environment as an assemblage, prompting viewers to reflect on the meaning of viewing itself.

사이코빌딩®은 성공, 동기 부여, 야망, 의미와 같은 개념을 재조명하는 프로젝트입니다. 작가는 성공이 개인과 인격에 자신을 붙임으로써 공생 관계를 형성하며, 이는 경제적 관점에서 노동을 추출하는 메커니즘으로 기능한다고 주장합니다. 이 프로젝트는 생산성, 재능과 같은 개인적 속성을 통합하여 위장된 착취 시스템으로 운영됩니다,
그리고 기능하기 위해 아름다움.
반면에 동기 부여는 외부 평가나 물질적 보상에 의존하지 않습니다;
그것은 내부적으로 자신의 이익과 성취감에서 비롯됩니다.
그러나 야망은 현실에 근거가 없는 가정에 근거한 환상에 불과한 경우가 많습니다. 

인간의 선택은 상황에 따라 형성되어 '의미'라는 의미를 갖게 되지만, 선택과 의미의 관계는 자기 참조적이며 끝없는 순환을 따라갑니다. 향을 피우고, 커피를 마시고, 머리를 자르는 등 일상적인 행위에서도 의미가 존재할 수 있습니다.
이 프로젝트에 선정된 전시 장소 중 하나는 1974년 JR 치바역 인근에 지어진 복합용도 건물 지하에 위치한 옛 미용실입니다. 작가는 건축 당시의 분위기를 그대로 살린 듯한 공간을 활용해 전체 환경을 하나의 집합체로 모아 관람객들이 관람의 의미를 되새기게 했습니다.

(Takashi Iwasawa / Project Director)

Different States of Being ― Gregory Maass & Nayoungim

Fun Fact: One has to understand that one is not one person. 

There is only the appearance of a self. To be quite precise, we don’t have a self and, in fact, the so-called ‘self’ is a myth, an unmeaning of vacuous character. Self means divided from vacuum (hollow), emptiness, or also known as Śūnyat&, which may describe a state not as great as it "rst seems. Self, individual, and personality: 

These are three concepts that are conjured out of thin air. They are not validated by any research or study.

But how can you feel you?

There seems to be an adaptive scheme, which is called a self-state, a concept

invented and popularized by Philip Bromberg. This “self-state” is a new explanation model in psychology. Every newborn creates self-states.

Self-states are facets of a prism through which light scatters. We (our identities) are collections of self-states. Self-states are internal objects. Self-states, relationships, 

self and thus personality do not stay the same over time.

Most of your trait-domains are unstable, and very few of them, if any, survive life

on. (Like for example my wonted lewd- and laziness.) They are constructed around relationships, they are contextual. Self-states are representations, that is they are illusions of an illusion. The relationship de"nes you. Other people de"ne you. 

So why do you think that you are the same? Why do you feel coherent? 

How come you feel continuous? You don't get up in the morning and be like, I am not the same person today. I will be/ am somebody else today. Let's say Bill Gates, or how about John Waters (sorry both are already taken).

How do healthy people decide which self-state will function? 

We need self-statements with narrative context. So, these self-states altogether could form a pseudo-identity, freely quoting Sam Vaknin, “which includes the self-states, ego-functions, and probes, stimulation, extracting information from the environment and framing it inside one another.”