Live Trace

February 27, 2025

On February 27, 2025, Live Trace, a performance by 2024 RU alum Nana Shimomura held at Residency Unlimited, was composed of three elements: the semi-relief artwork Topos Logos #3, a canvas created live during the performance, and a video documenting the creation process of Topos Logos #3. In this performance, reversed footage of the making of Topos Logos #3 was traced by Shimomura using brushes, rubber, and iron, while Rui Hara interpreted the video as a “score” for live performance. The layering of creation, the act of tracing, and the sounds performed in response converged to generate a complex accumulation of traces. This work is part of Shimomura’s ongoing series, The Assumption 1 Second = X cm, which explores the mass consumption of information in the digital age and its relationship to calligraphy. Calligraphy, as an art form, inscribes traces through writing, drawing, carving, and erasure. Here, through the act of tracing, the work reconstructs existing frameworks and seeks new possibilities of expression. All artistic disciplines—painting, music, movement, and sculpture—inscribe the traces of the present, embody the past, and anticipate the future. By presenting the creative process itself as a live experience, Live Trace extends this fundamental nature of art. Shimomura’s tracing of ink and three-dimensional elements, alongside Hara’s sound interpretation, attempts to merge past and present within a single timeline. We do not always perceive time in a single, linear direction. The digital imagery projected in this performance contains both the past and a continuously shifting future, coexisting with the present. By layering live and pre-recorded footage, the work visually integrates an ever-progressing now with a fluid, evolving past, revealing the multidimensional nature of time. Shimomura distills calligraphy to its core essence—reducing it to the fundamental act of manipulating a line—while exposing the intricate interplay between information, action, and time. This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.

Learn more: https://residencyunlimited.org/programs/live-trace-performance-by-nana-shimomura/