Aural
Gazing
Recent Japanese Audio Vision
Curated
programme for Experimenta's VANISHING POINT exhibition,
Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne, 2005
Programme
Introduction
The
Gaze seems to have become such a cinematic thing. Courtesy
of psycho-analytic theory that peered backwards into Hollywood’s
dark hall of mirrors, the gaze was perceived as a contemporary
socialised being: gendered, politicised, mediarised, implicated.
The Looker, the Looked and the Act of Looking became unnecessarily
mandated by a reductivist ocular pursuit of meaning.
In
Japanese media – not to mention art history –
the imaging that depicts, reveals and enshrines the Gaze
is of an entirely disconnected nature and culture. Two formal
traits distinguish it from the Anglo-American ‘looking’.
Firstly, the gaze is as much a statement about one’s
location – one’s immersive, sensorial and psychological
space – as it is about one’s perspective of
things/people/spirits in that space. What is ‘seen’
is not a lack or impairment, but a refraction of one’s
grounded perspective. Secondly, audio-visual aspects and
issues are wholly incorporated in the articulation and presentation
of such statements of space. What is ‘heard’
is heightened, modulated by and fused with the tactile substance
of visual surfaces and forms.
Aural
Gazing forwards a scoop of recent Japanese video art predicated
on how audiovisuality is embedded in instances of gazing.
By no means a definitive selection, Aural Gazing invites
the audience to consider how music/image and location/sound
are formed in a range of contemplative works. Collectively,
they propose a holistic sense of ‘being enviromentalised’
through the act of depicting, rendering and sounding. No
stories unfold here. In place, a series of synaesthetic
reveries and overloads by solo and collaborative artists.
From nuanced breaths of ambient effects to bombastic quakes
of shuddering frequencies. From shimmering midday sun on
a Spanish beach to algorithmic chaos released through processing
Tokyo’s cityscape. Aural Gazing celebrates how ‘being
somewhere’ – no matter how beautifully ‘natural’
or how hysterically ‘plastic’ – supersedes
mere acts of looking.
Programme
schedule
1.
Fonotiac “t-tter” 2005 6’00”
(Image
- Haruma Kikuchi; Music - Takatoshi Fujino)
2.
Hiraki Sawa “Dwelling” 2002 9’20”
(Image
& Sound - Hiraki Sawa)
3.
Albireo “Ecliptic Clouds” 2004 6’45”
(Image - Junji Koyanagi; Music - Masayuki Kodou)
4.
Rosemary Dean “The Pining Tree” 2004 9’35”
(Image - Aiko Asanuma; Animation - Tetsuro Shimauchi; Script
- Rosemary Dean; Music - Philip Brophy; Sound - Jennifer
Sochackyj)
5.
RH + ST “Joy” 2005 10’00”
(Image Shiro Takatani; Music Rei Harakami)
6.
Kyupi Kyupi “Doktor Yamato” 2002 2’20”
& 7. Kyupi Kyupi “Buttocktica” 2002 2’45”
(Image & Music - Yoshimasa Ishibashi; Performers - Kimura
Mazuka, Wakeshima Mami & Koichi Emura)
8.
Saeko Takagi “The Colour of Empty Sky” 2005
7’00” (Image Saeko Takagi; Animation Masakatsu
Takagi; Music - UA)
Programme synopses
1.
Fonotiac - “untitled”
As the Japanese urb becomes so congested one sees through
its density to navigate one’s travels, “Untitled”
reminds one of precisely how wonderfully foreboding that
density is. Algorithmically distilled then expanded into
a quasi-chaotic rush of architecture and musical fragments,
the city is reconfigured into a sensorial maze. There might
be buildings and flutes in there somewhere – but like
the city itself, you’ll never know its true contents.
2.
Hiraki Sawa - “Dwelling”
Japan’s isolationist history hangs heavy over those
who desire to travel and escape Japan’s psychological
borders. “Dwelling” portrays a non-space that
equates the desire to travel with the de-zoned nothingness
of airport lounges. Like thoughts unfurling into smoky curls
of desire, jumbo jets lazily trace horizontal lines across
the domestic space. In numbing concert with these visual
reveries, the soft drone of planes engines lull one into
dreaming simultaneously of leaving and returning.
3.
Albireo - “Ecliptic Clouds”
“Untitled” is Tokyo’s ‘bustling
metropolis’ as perceived via the commonplace suburban
environment of backstreets, parks, sidewalks and overground
train lines. Its night is devoid of people, creating an
internal subjective view of repetitive journeys and aimless
returns to the same architectural motifs and details. With
camera-work seemingly propelled by the score’s frenetic
harmonic patterning, the city becomes a shell of hurtling
momentum and empty echoes.
4.
Rosemary Dean - “The Pining Tree”
Evoking whispers of half-remembered folklore of those trapped
by the dimensional borders of their surroundings, “The
Pining Tree” narrates a haunting tale of moving over
to the Other side. Interred in her solitary domicile, a
woman seems fated to become one with the tree outside her
apartment. It beckons her, entrances her, enraptures her.
Her humming, tactile space seems pregnant, awaiting this
transformation.
5.
RH + ST - “Joy”
In the summer heat haze of a beautiful beach unimaginable
in Japan, “Joy” jettisons us to Spain. Partially
a Eurovision tourist dream, the beach is presented in multi-screen
format evoking the traditional painted screens used to evoke
the outside landscape within the home environment. The camera
idly pans left and right, replicating the distracted gaze
of one relaxing at the beach, while the score dances in
organic complex swirls.
6.
Kyupi Kyupi - “Doktor Yamato”
7. Kyupi Kyupi - “Buttocktica”
Moving from exterior landscaping to interiorised ‘medi-scapes’,
“Doktor Yamato” and “Buttocktica”
create phantom erotic spaces where feminised bodies merge
robot and doll into figurines of unbridled desire. Bluntly
soft-porn yet comfortable with their self-objectification,
these mannequins of lust display their sexuality with icy
precision. To a score simulating programmed karaoke backing,
they gyrate offensively and beautifully.
8.
Saeko Takagi - “The Colour of Empty Sky”
In a sea of sound and panoramas of pigments, “The
Colour of Empty Sky” imagines all that might be possibly
perceived in the heaven’s daytime expanse. To a song-score
floating with ethereal charm, the changing landscape evokes
the whimsy of picturing colours upon the sky’s empty
canvas. Motion becomes colourful as music becomes pastoral.
Voice soars on the wings of brushstrokes.
Artist profiles
Fonotiac
(Tokyo)
Collaborative duo of Haruma Kikuchi (image) and Takatoshi
Fujino (sound) formed while working at Musashino Art University.
Jointly experimenting in live contexts with digital manipulation
of audio and vision, their work is sometimes documented
into single-screen videos. Together with Albireo they form
the live mixed-media performance unit Pico Pico Stomachs.
Hiraki
Sawa (London)
Originally from Ishikawa, Hiraki Sawa completed graduate
studies at University of East London and University College
in London. His work has generally explored connections between
his homeland and his cultural displacement while studying
and making his video installations. His international exhibitions
have included Tokyo, New York and Birmingham.
Albireo
(Tokyo)
Collaborative duo of Masayuki Kodou (image) and Junji Koyanagi
(sound) formed while working at Musashino Art University.
Jointly developing their audiovisual ventures, their work
focuses on lyrical explorations of spatial environments.
Together with Fonotiac they form the live mixed-media performance
unit Pico Pico Stomachs.
Rosemary
Dean (Tokyo)
Originally from Melbourne, Rosemary Dean completed her MA
at Media Arts, RMIT University. Her work specialises in
poetic documentary mediations on environments and their
tonal evocation. Working equally in audio and video, her
recent work sees her in the role of director working with
a widening range of artistic practices.
RH
+ ST (Kyoto)
Collaborative project between Shiro Takatani (image) and
Rei Harakami (music). Takatani is an original member of
theatre group Dumb Type, devising the visual presentation
of their performances. Harakami records for Sublime records.
Recent presentations of their joint work have been at Sonar,
Barcelona and Liquid Room, Tokyo.
Kyupi
Kyupi (Kyoto)
Under the directorship of Yoshimasa Ishibashi, Kyupi Kyupi
have created a distinctive mutation between performance
art and wild cabaret for many years. Eschewing most recourses
to subtlety and good taste for libidinal media spectacles,
their work has been widely performed and screened internationally
in both arts festivals and museum exhibitions.
Saeko
Takagi (Kyoto)
Saeko Takagi’s luminescent water colour paintings
have typified her work to date. These works have been exhibited
in Japan and New York. Her recent move into animation has
extended this practice, initially with a commissioned video
clip for recording artist UA and recently with her own collaborative
work with animator/musician Masakatsu Takagi.
Thanks:
All the artists; Yasuko Furuichi (Japan Foundation); Yoko
Takatani (Dumb Type); Shihoko Iida (Tokyo Opera City Gallery);
Sari Hayashiguchi (Epiphany Works); Christophe Charles (Musashino
Art University); Tetsuro Shimauchi; Sublime Records; Speedstar
Records.
