FLIGHT GRAF's video: THE GATE The former Nara prison festival 2018

THE GATE Role Music,Concept,Art direction,design and animation Credits Lazer programming : Ryo Chigira(SIGNIF) Animation : Shoichi Kita Event producer : Projection Mapping Association of Japan(PMAJ) The former Nara prison festival 2018 The Gate is the art work presented on the former Nara Prison ( and then the Nara Juvenile Prison). It was the last installation projected on the buildings used as a prison. Narrating Habiland system, the former Nara Prison buildings radiate in all directions from the lookout tower as the hub. This art work was projected onto the center lookout tower which commands a sweeping view of all the detention houses. Considering the building is in a special purpose as “a prison”, we choose to use abstracted images rather than direct references. To etch the structure of the building, there is a scene projecting lazer beam onto a 80 meter hall of a detention house. The beam deflects and is pregnant with blurry chase. Though it can be suggestive of the test of its time and changes of its history and the punitive suffering, it still points in one direction and conceives a silver lining. The former Nara Prison was completed in 1908. It was one of “the five major prisons in Meiji Era” designed by Yamashita Keijiro. This prison is the only one extant as it used to be. Because of the problem of its durability, it was designated among the cultural assets and closed on 31st of March in 2017. And there is a plan that it will be rebuilt as a hotel in 2020.