Simon Fujiwara: Empathy I

For his first solo exhibition, artist Simon Fujiwara draws inspiration from his personal experience of sites of popular leisure, from mass historical tourist attractions such as Neuschwanstein Castle to theme parks such as Disneyland Paris. The result is an original and immersive installation, titled Empathy I, which immerse viewers into a simulated experience of the real world, rather than a fantasy or historical one, obtained through the assembling of simulated found footage and first person perspective camerawork.

The immersive situation creates an intimate interaction between visitors’ bodies and the images, through motion simulators. The duration of the work becomes a function of the human body’s biological constraints. The artist’s goal is to shift the focus from the image to the body, in a setting as the contemporary society, in which production and consumption of images happens through accelerated dynamics and the fetishization of the individual experience has increased.