LONDON -- I am sitting upright in a corner; a 2-meter length of gray, vinyl piping protrudes from each of my ears, extending horizontally along the wall on both sides of my head.

I have entered a strange sound-world: What I am listening to are the fragmented and echo-fringed noises of my surroundings, every cough, murmur and footstep bounced through the narrow cylindrical space, the aural equivalent of a kaleidoscope.

I have become part of an artwork by Yukio Fujimoto, one of the artists whose work makes up "Facts of Life: Contemporary Japanese Art" at London's Hayward Gallery, the largest-ever such exhibition of its kind in Britain.