Distance 2025

Distance is a handheld optical apparatus that makes a landscape appear farther away and blurred. Bringing the apparatus to the eyes does not deliver the closer, clearer view one might expect from a viewing instrument. The scene remains visible, while its detail seems to withdraw. The relation between the body holding the object and the landscape before it becomes the subject of the encounter.

Matsuura connects this receding view to the difficulty of reaching a past experience. The image offers a visual analogy: something can remain present without becoming fully available to us. In Active Memory, the work considers the difference between having access to a record and returning to the experience it holds. The blur gives that question a particular optical form, encountered by lifting the object and looking through it.