Invisible Ninja Sculptures for the Blind

“Tapping his cane in front of him, the old blind man enters the room. In the centre of the room, unseen by the old man, stands a figure swathed in black who holds a long bamboo staff. The old man advances, tenuously at first, swinging his cane before him as he steps towards the dark, silent figure. Suddenly, in the instant between one footfall and the next, the black-clad man springs forward and, flicking his staff deftly around his body, checks the old man’s cane with a speed and precision that almost defies belief. The two stand there for a moment – the black figure statuesque in his stillness: the old man looking slightly puzzled…”

At once the most esoteric and physically demanding form of performance art ever conceived, Invisible Ninja Sculpture is practiced only by an elite few. Simultaneously training intensively in arts both martial and aesthetic, the masters of this particular discipline spend years honing their unique skills.

After perhaps decades spent perfecting their sculpting skills, each adherent eventually produces a single piece which they consider to be their masterpiece, the very pinnacle of their art. When this point is reached, the artefact is re-created time and time again in different scales, materials and using different techniques.

Meanwhile, in parallel with this exacting regime, the sculptors also undertake a punishing regimen of martial arts training, focussing in particular on staff fighting. With an emphasis on blocking rather than attacking.

Finally, after years of effort and preparation, these two disciplines come together in a dynamic yet contemplative art form. By this time, the sculptor literally knows his masterpiece inside-out – every curve, every plane, every tiny feature of his work is ingrained in his memory as solidly as stone. And, thanks to his ninja-like staff-swinging skills, he is able to breathe life into his creation in a very unique way.

“The old man lifts his cane from the sculptor’s staff and taps it into the air slightly to the right. Again the sculptor’s staff swiftly whispers through the air, stopping dead mere millimetres before it would have crashed into the blind man’s cane. Slowly the old man walks around the room, feeling his way with his stick, sometimes swinging through empty air, but, with greater and greater frequency, finding the sculptor’s staff.

The artist himself moves around the old man in utter silence with the suppleness of a dancer. At times he catches the old man’s stick with his own, and, through careful manipulation, causes the cane to describe a specific curve as the two slide against each other.

Eventually, without ever being conscious of the presence of the sculptor, the blind man gradually builds up a picture in his head of the artist’s insubstantial masterwork. Through these fleeting contacts the sculptor passes his vision into the imagination of the other – whilst to the sighted spectator, all that’s happening is a strangely unbalanced kind of stick-to-stick combat…”

Yatta.