merokozuuuumi (2000)
single channel video and sound installation

A work featuring three different physical functions - the artist's right arm is that of a cameraman, the left hand belongs to an unwieldy character based on the artist himself and who is carrying out a performance, while the left leg uses a guitar to tap out a disquieting sound. In this almost hermetic space composed of the artist's body, the character faces the microphone and continues to hysterically scream his name. Eventually, the nature of the work is revealed...

This work reflects my time in London, when my friends, unused to pronouncing Japanese names, would call me not "Koizumi Meiro" or "Meiro Koizumi," but "Merokozuuuumi." I wanted to find a way through to an abstract image that flickers at the edge of awareness, and so I went face-to-face with the monitor as I felt like it. The work represents my thoughts about moving images at the time. It's a battle scene in which I'm searching for my identity, unfolding in the small theater that's in fact, my physical body.