Pop Zen Manifesto: by Keikichi Honna

My interest in mathematical science and being bilingual have made me question the function of language. Even though recorded words or written texts do not change their physical appearances; their meaning always contains a certain amount of ambiguity, uncertainty, and undecidability. Those fuzzy boundaries of words depend on each individual's experiences, as such each word brings me images and concepts which are uniquely my own.

Zen Buddhism focuses on irrationality and illogicality to achieve integrity of existence and experience of reality. However, even though one can achieve enlightenment, there is no vocabulary to describe it. So, no one can tell if he or she really did it, but guess and belief...

as a co-founder of Pop Zen, I stick to rationality and logic to the bone. In other words, I focus on humor, sarcasm, and irony, all of which reveal a huge gap between letter and spirit. Thus, we have been experiencing the limitation of human knowledge every day. Interestingly, this kind of dilemma (ambiguity, uncertainty, and undecidability) can be found in the history of modern physics and mathematics. Then, my work, as visual analogy and pun, can be my own accelerator, in which I observe the effects of collision of different things, concepts, and images.

This exhibition is sponsored by OSU Department of Art, Department of Physics, the College of the Arts, the College of Math and Physical Sciences, and Pop Zen Institute.

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