Iza Koczanowska – artist and researcher – Berlin / Amsterdam
Arcus Project
Research Residency
in progress
Folding Studies investigates Japanese onsen — geothermal hot springs — as sites where sacred, geological, and economic forces intersect and conflict. Working across eight locations in Japan, the research combines hydrophone recordings made inside the water, LiDAR spatial scans of onsen interiors, and the collection of mineral water and volcanic ash from Sakurajima, producing physical biomaterials and a cymatics installation in which audio recorded within the springs is returned to the water, generating surface patterns the water reads back to itself.
The scans were incomplete — steam density and thermal interference made full spatial records impossible — and this became the method: drawing on the Shintō principle of goshinpi (sacred secrecy), the work treats what resists capture as evidence of what the site withholds from documentation. At the intersection of animistic tradition and the accelerating pressures of tourism, Folding Studies asks what artistic practice can register in the gap between what a place is and what instruments can hold.
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