Manustructure

Production in manufacturing is inherently an engineering endeavor that pursues efficiency and precision. Yet within it lies an unconscious rhythm and order woven by the repetitive movements of machines and the gestures of craftspeople—a structured beauty.

Manustructure is a work that illuminates machines operating in factories and casts their shadows onto a support surface, thereby rendering visible the structure of the production system itself. What is projected is not the physical substance of the machines, but the silhouette of the apparatus that continuously generates parts. The forms are abstracted, and the concrete existence of machinery emerges as an aesthetic structure—that is, as a system.

As an artist, NIINOMI has proposed the concept of "System as Art," demonstrating an attitude that beauty arises not from individual entities but from relationships and structures. In this work, pictorial composition and poetic rhythm are discovered within the complex, non-human movements created by autonomously operating machines.

Here, light serves as the medium that makes the system visible, and shadow becomes its "product." By illuminating the repeated act of manufacturing, what manifests is not function but beauty. This work poses questions at the boundary between industry and art, and represents an attempt to discover the structure of beauty within the act of making itself.

The riveting machine, the subject of this work. Manufactured by Yoshikawa Ironworks Co., Ltd., the venue for the exhibition.

At the exhibition venue, Yoshikawa Ironworks Co., Ltd., this work shine light upon the riveting machines they manufacture, framing the shadows they cast to make their beautiful structure emerge like a painting.

A blank canvas reflecting the structure.

A metallic frame depicting machinery.

I find beauty in the presence of factory machinery that continues to operate as part of the manufacturing process.

Materials:

Aluminium frame, fabric, LED bulb

Materials used / Company name:

Riveting machine / Yoshikawa Ironworks Co., Ltd.