Seen: Tokyo Debugger 2019
Who: Shinya Arimoto / website
Where: Totem Pole Photo Gallery, Shinjuku
When: July 21 - August 2, 2020. Open 12 - 7pm, closed Mondays
Shinya Arimoto’s brilliantly titled “Tokyo Debugger” series is a collection of photographs taken in the wooded mountains west of Tokyo- a series of portraits of its natural denizens that, when wildly illuminated by his flash (and enlarged to 16x20 prints), assume a greater, more bizarre presence than one would think possible. There’s something about how the reflection of the ring his flash in these creatures’ eyes gives them a mysterious, unifying character- a spirit that’s closer to animism than biology.
Alone, these macro bug-portraits would be interesting enough but on his visits to these hills Arimoto also photographs the landscape itself- one often altered by man through mining and industry. In the shift in scale one finds reverberations of the insects’ micro-worlds in images of rusted construction equipment, scarred hills, and decrepit concrete structures in overgrown weeds. A Western viewer might try to interpret an ecological message- but looking carefully, there is none.
There is no “Good” or “Evil” in Arimoto’s work- not towards society nor individuals. Whether of rough-sleepers in Shinjuku or strip-mined hills, his work is unconcerned with set morals or predictable messages. He demonstrates a “fairness” (realness?) towards the world that focuses on what’s there rather than how it ought to be. His selection of “what’s there”, when printed and strung together, results in an impressive and individual view of the world- a bigger picture.
In this way, Tokyo Debugger is a continuation of Arimoto’s interest in how the camera bridges reality with photography- a line of interest in things as they are- and how photography affects/respects them- that can clearly be traced from the late 1990s on the plains of Tibet to the streets of Shinjuku and out into the forests of Okutama.
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I keep thinking this is a “new” series but Arimoto has been exhibiting work from it since 2013. There was another show in 2014 at Totem Pole and a larger remix of the work at the Ginza Nikon Salon in 2015.
Also- keep in mind, all of these photos were taken with a Rolleiflex or Bronica SQ-B with Zenzanon-PS 110mm f4.5 lens and macro ring flash.