SHIMURAbros: Berlin-Tokyo Duo Reimagines Filmmaking History Through Material Experiments

Yuka Shimura and Kentaro Shimura, known as SHIMURAbros, create work that oscillates between material sculpture and immaterial dreamscapes. Based in both Berlin and Tokyo, the sibling duo has spent the last decade reconsidering imaging devices within film history. Their 2007 piece X-Ray Train projects CT scans of a locomotive onto twelve liquid crystal film screens, allowing viewers to observe the advancing light mass from any angle. This work was inspired by the Lumière brothers' 1895 film Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat. The artists describe film as a catalyst for their creations, enabling them to explore the equilibrium between light and matter while converting light into substance. Their practice examines how contemporary artists engage with historical objects and develop relationships with the past, creating what Lev Kuleshov termed 'creative geography' where images and spaces become entangled. Recent exhibitions of their work have been held at CCS Bard in Annandale-on-Hudson and NTU Centre for Contemporary Art in Singapore. The duo was featured in ArtReview Asia's Summer 2017 issue as part of the Future Greats series, presented in association with K11 Art Foundation.