Talk: Eiji Watanabe (Artist) × Eiji Watanabe (Neuroscientist), “We Two are Tacticians”対談渡辺英司 × 渡辺英治「ふたりは策士」
ModeratorSatsuki Yamamoto (curator)
The only occasion during the exhibition on which the two stood in the same place and talked. The full video is on the official Art Obulist YouTube channel; an abridged transcript is in the catalogue, pp.36–45. The talk is in Japanese, and the chapters and excerpts below are draft translations.
Event Data基本データ
- Date and time
- Saturday, November 22, 2025, 14:00–15:30
- Venue
- Rest Building, Okura Park
- Speakers
- Eiji Watanabe (artist), Eiji Watanabe (scientist)
- Moderator
- Satsuki Yamamoto (curator)
- Admission
- Free
- Participants
- About 50
Chapters and Excerpts内容の章立てと抜粋
The chapter numbers follow the transcript in the catalogue (video timestamps to come). Excerpts appear under their chapters. Long passages are cut with (…). The artist is on the left (blue), the scientist on the right (vermilion), the moderator in the middle (green). The English is a draft translation.
- 01
A “strange face” found in an image search
About ten years ago, a search for “eijiwatanabe” returned optical illusions and an unfamiliar face among the results
- 02
Two hours at the first meeting
“I’m Eiji Watanabe,” on the ground floor of the institute. They talk themselves out. This is only their fourth meeting
- 03
An exhibition made without meeting
Not even during the installation. The only joint work is the “Funhouse.”
- ArtistSo this is only about the fourth time we’ve met.
- ScientistWe haven’t met since the installation began, and I haven’t seen his works. I did my part and he did his. The one thing you could call a joint work is the “Funhouse,” where balls roll uphill: my proposal, built by him. And I never saw it being made either. We worked completely independently, and only at the opening did we each grasp the whole of the other’s display.
- 04
Toilet paper, left and right
Art on the left, science on the right: the same material, read two ways.
Left, ⑮ “Toilet Tissue” (made by the artist); right, ⑯ “Ebbinghaus Illusion” (presented by the scientist)Photo: Kenji Aoki - ScientistThere’s a strange thing over here: toilet paper. On the left, if you keep unrolling the toilet paper, it turns (folded) into tissue paper.
- Artist“Toilet Tissue Paper.”
- ScientistRight, and that one is an artwork. The one on the right: as you unroll the toilet paper, the roll gets smaller and at the same time the hole in the middle starts to look bigger. The same tissue paper, but this one is an optical illusion. So the right is science and the left is art. The same material. (…) But when I looked at all the works on the art side and saw that fish piece (“Sea of Eden”), I thought, could it be? Maybe there is some place where the roots coincide. After that I started adding a few pieces of my own.
- 05
Climbing the mountain from both sides
Climb high enough in another field and the same view opens. A nod at the summit, then past each other.
- ArtistIt’s like climbing a mountain from opposite ends, from places with nothing in common, and at the very top meeting for a moment and passing each other.
- ScientistYes, yes, meeting for an instant, like that. That’s what it feels like.
- ArtistNot that we stop to confirm, “that’s it.” Each of us has come there on our own, so it’s parallel.
- ScientistA little nod, that sort of thing.
- ArtistWe don’t intersect. We don’t intersect, but we reach the same summit, pass each other, and go down the other side. That’s the feeling.
- YamamotoAnd from the summit on, each of you goes down to the foot alone again.
- ArtistParallel, right now, means we face the same way and simply never meet. In a sense, parallel means being together forever, as far as direction goes.
- 06
A colorful world on waking
An answer from the question box matches the artist’s experience of having “understood”
- 07
Doppelgängers and possible worlds
The same name, nearly the same age. Turn the screw a little and they might have swapped places
- 08
Science bound to truth, art free
Science is bound to its aims and to honesty. “My papers smell of me”
It seems my papers smell strongly of me. So they may turn out to be somewhat artistic papers.
- 09
Can an illusion become an artwork?
Actually spinning part of the rotating-snakes illusion. Drawing the Müller-Lyer illusion so that both lines look equal
- 10
“‘What is X?’ is what X is”
Turning the question into the answer. Dōgen, the purposeful body, the contradictions education produces.
- ScientistTo this day, when someone asks me “What is art?” I can’t answer. As for “What is science?”, this time a child asked, “Why do you try to know what you don’t know?” (…) That one I can answer. Art I still can’t.
- ArtistThat’s the structure of the question. Take painting: “What is painting?” has been asked for centuries. (…) It’s simple: “‘What is painting?’ is what painting is.” You just turn the question into a statement.
- ScientistThen maybe I should make all my question-box answers that.
- 11
A decision in the third grade
The artist, praised for a drawing; the neuroscientist, declaring “I’ll be the one who does the research”
- 12
The anthropic principle and the observer
The existence of the universe and its observer. A tree falling in an empty forest. Not shunning AI
