[Audio Guide]
This iron bar was detached using a burner at a temperature of 1,380℃. As it was removed using extreme heat, as the heat dissipates the iron bar undergoes multiple, spasm-like movements that give it a gentle curve. This curve reveals the traces of the artist’s process. Such a process of cutting metal through melting, however, does not create the same kind of bodily response as, for example, cutting a tree with a saw. The artist has said, “Heat cutting is not like the positive feeling you get when physically cutting through something, it is more like severing a nerve. In a manner of speaking, it goes together with our fear of our own death. It doesn’t change however many times you cut. It’s just how it is. However much you do it, it’s the same. These things just go side-by-side.” Without any bodily response, the state of tension must continue. Such a unique means of production was developed by Muraoka himself.
