Rolls of photographic paper (110cm in width, 30m, and 20m in length) folded and piled on top of each other. The weight of the top layers crushes the lower layers. Photographic papers hanging from the ceiling block the entrance, and over 600 20cm by 25cm photographic papers cover the floor and walls. There are styrofoam and photographic paper wrapped in wrapping paper on the floor. A camera in the corner takes a photo of the space once an hour. It continues to take pictures for 24 hours. The intense, photo-bombarded space hinders the viewer from looking at the images. It makes the viewer feel anxious, as the experience is akin to being watched by someone.

Accepting restrictions, exhibition spaces as “fascist architecture”

—People have traditionally viewed exhibitions as spaces for people to enjoy art. How did you come up with the no-entry restriction for error CS0246?

Kakeru Okada (Okada): The phrase “error CS0246” is an error code that pops up when you’re programming. This error code shows up whenever you’re building a virtual space via development platforms like Unity and haven’t decided on the name of your virtual space yet. I felt like the uncertainty of the future related to that. That’s why I used it as the title.

Limited visitors, social distancing, reduced business hours, regular ventilation — this is the state of the world today, one we can’t ignore. When I thought about opening an exhibition by considering such restrictions, I realized we could create it outside the actual venue by prohibiting visitors from entering since most of the limitations apply to the indoors.

Photographer-and-artist Hiroko Komatsu has been questioning the narratives behind museums and exhibitions. Inverting these things is at the root of what she does. She thought it was more logical to hold an exhibition that doesn’t let people in because we were going to cover the floor and walls with photos.

Hiroko Komatsu (Komatsu): If the inside doesn’t exist, then the outside doesn’t exist and vice versa. Even with photos, there’s the front and the back. No matter how we display pictures, there will always be two sides. In the sense that photo exhibitions work as long as there are photos in them, we could treat venues as objects. You could even say it’s one form of fascist architecture, as it doesn’t require people to be there. Yes, I created an inside space where people could technically go in, but I can’t help that they have bodyweight and the earth has gravity, which would cause them to step on the photos, inevitably. I thought, “If people are going to think I’m being rebellious by putting the focus on visitors stepping on the photos on the floor, then why not let them see the work from outside?” 

Okada: She questions narratives with the artists, audience, and art institutions in mind. Komatsu-san set up an indoor space covered with photos, but her aim was never to make people step on them. At first glance, it might seem like she’s contradicting herself, but it relates to the exhibition itself.

What has photography been until now? Documenting absence and the surfacing of materiality

—Komatsu-san, you use a lot of space as a motif, such as storage spaces for materials. Even with this exhibition, the photos aren’t the only works on display, as the venue itself is a piece of work. What do you think is the relationship between the act of seeing through taking photos, objects, and space?

Komatsu: There’s no central focus in this exhibition space. We designed it in a way that makes the viewer not know where to look. The sequence of similar-looking photos isn’t in chronological order, which makes the viewer constantly feel like they’ve seen it before. Because they can’t settle their eyes on one thing, their line of sight gets sucked into the following photo at once. It’s like something in between still images and moving images. Videos move linearly and chronologically. But with this exhibition, the onlooker is looking at a surface, so they can’t escape anywhere, and the direction is never clear either. I don’t take pictures of the sky or ground — things that make people think of spaciousness — so a part of me intentionally wants to disorient people.

Regarding whether I shoot objects or space, even if I photograph an object, I’m also isolating a particular space by framing it. So, you can’t separate objects and space. I shoot both and neither at the same time. When I take photos, I use a map as guidance and look for industrial areas that I’ve never been to before. These places are usually barren and deserted. The gray landscape unique to industrial areas makes me feel at home. I’ve only seen Mono-ha (an art movement born in the mid-60s, which used both natural and unnatural materials as a reaction against industrialization) installations through photos. But I sometimes come across objects that resemble Mono-ha whenever I shoot industrial areas.

Okada: People often say the quantity of materials Komatsu-san uses is a trait of her work. I also think the lack of objects is another trait of her photography. With Mono-ha’s photography, objects are artworks, and images of said objects document and prove that. Meanwhile, with Komatsu-san’s photography, the storage spaces for materials can be considered art, but so-called artworks or individual objects aren’t the subjects. Meaning objects [as the subject] are absent in her images.

—Even though Komatsu-san’s exhibition lacks objects, the photos have a palpable sense of materiality. Why is that?

Okada: For instance, people studied films in the 20th century by sitting in a dark room and watching a screen. But thanks to the spread of liquid-crystal displays, people could then watch videos anywhere. For the first time, people questioned why they used to sit in a dark theater for two hours. People challenged the medium itself. Similarly, the word photography applies to both old and new media and iPhones and analog cameras. Because of modern technologies like the iPhone, we finally understand what Komatsu-san has been shooting and how we understood photography until this point. I think you can say the word materiality surfaced in your mind as one characteristic of old media.

Komatsu: Photos are both images and materials. People use a particular type of paper that’s thick, prone to curl into itself, and difficult to handle to keep the photos close to what they imagine. They use glass and a matte finish to make the photos flat and frame them for their exhibition. In a way, this method is more blasphemous towards photography, and what I do might be a liberation of photography.

Feeling liberated from unexpected errors and self-consciousness a la labor and working on tasks

—Amid the emergence of new forms in photography, I get the impression that you place importance on formats, specified sizes in industrial goods, and units. This can be seen in how you use the Leica M3, 35mm monochromatic film, and 20m or 30m rolls without cutting them. Could you talk about why you’re particular about these formats while keeping your attitude towards overarching narratives?

Komatsu: Photographs are industrial goods that have specified sizes, and they exist as a foundation. The thickness of the wires and the shape of pushpins you use for exhibitions all have set measurements. I choose the materials I use according to necessary criteria, such as how easy something is to handle and its price. The storage spaces for materials in my photos could be seen as a base that supports a society where sizes are specified. If everything has no limitations, then I can’t assemble anything. A gallery’s walls, size, and structure can’t change shape according to my exhibition setup, right? I can come up with ideas from the set measurements of printing paper and the fact that exhibition spaces can’t move. This is a very freeing thing. I could go to a venue and be like, “Their tacks are like this, so I could do this and that.” If there’s not enough space on the walls, I could put things on the floor. I could also hang the work on a wire.

I calculate the number of photos I need to take and show according to the specifications of a venue. I usually shoot once a week and shoot on over ten rolls of film whenever I can. I print out 100 photos per week. Because I turned this process and everything into a task, it wears me out a lot. That leaves no space for potential fetishization or excessive self-consciousness. It also increases my chances of making mistakes, and that way, I’m able to incorporate errors into my work. I use my entire body, so I channel what I shoot into photos and exhibitions. I think they influence one another.

Okada: If Komatsu-san creates her own format, the viewer could no longer tell how she’s taking a new approach. By using a specified size apt for repetition, such as 89mm by 127mm printing paper or 194mm by 244mm printing paper, you can focus on the side people have overlooked in photography. It’s not a stretch to say she creates errors that open up new fields and the possibilities of photography by using her works as a foundation and laboring on tasks.

Exhibition and books — expanding the medium of art

—Okada-san, aside from planning and curating exhibitions, you also established your own publishing company, Paper Company. Komatsu-san, you also make photo books independently. What do you think about making exhibition spaces and books? What are your thoughts on the relationship between exhibiting and preserving art, which is also the theme of error CS0246?

Komatsu: To begin with, regardless of whether an object is alive or dead, it gradually deteriorates. It eventually decays (ages) and stops functioning (dies). In the end, it disappears. One goal of photography is for museums and public institutions to purchase and collect them. People think chemically treating photos and trying to preserve them eternally are imperative, but is it possible? I feel weird about people saying they can’t preserve the photos on the floor of my exhibition. The rolls of photos are piled on top of one another, and it’s the most damaging way to keep them. It’s the worst condition for preserving them (laughs). Photo books are objects too, but it’s one way to show one’s work. Photo exhibitions and photo books are vastly different things. Including the texture and the act of flipping a page, books are their own format. If a book has many people involved, like a designer and editor, then the designer plays a significant role in being in charge. I think it has an ensemble-like quality to it.

Okada: When you think about the state of preservation in Japan, we barely have institutions that could preserve photos by using chemicals. On top of that, most of the budget of museums goes to administrative costs. Even big museums lack storage units and have stopped collecting photography because they can’t manage the administrative costs. They’re starting to archive photos digitally. Until now, looking at art within exhibition spaces was the most vital thing, and people treated books as mere reports on exhibitions. But I think there’s more to it than documenting an exhibition in a book. There are things you could only do by making a book. Regardless of coronavirus, as long as we equate not going to an exhibition with not seeing it, then we’d be saying the work of artists, who have no choice but to rely on the internet, doesn’t exist; especially in Japan, where East Asia has fewer museums compared to the rest of the world. I believe by making books that aren’t just exhibition reports, such as an exhibition you can “read” or an exhibition in a different form, we can showcase domestic exhibitions to the world.

—I want to get deeper into the matter of diverse forms of exhibitions. In your books, you credit the people who installed the artworks. Could you talk about why you place importance on those who install the work when you curate shows?

Okada: No matter how good your materials or blueprints are, you can’t build a house without builders, right? You can’t have an exhibition unless someone physically puts it together. Concerning actualizing exhibitions, installers should be the most important people. Compared to other countries, where different institutions properly support curators, artists, installers, and those who handle chemical properties, people tend to treat artists as the most important ones in Japan. Installers are at the bottom of the hierarchy, and most of the time, curators leave that part up to a third-party company.
Photography and moving images have developed alongside technology, so we shouldn’t understand that field in a manual-like manner. We need to understand what cameras shoot on a more detailed, constructive scale. Or else we risk losing sight of the work and the artists’ intent. Within the field of video media, which operates on the assumption that other people will experience it, you might understand the artist or their work based on literature. But I think it’s impossible to curate video media solely based on research. I want to value the role installers play, to understand the artist’s intent and what they’re saying.

Komatsu: I think there are many reasons for this, such as the difference in budget or having various tasks to work on, but in Japan, many curators can write essays but won’t come down to the venue to help. Curators that can do everything like coming up with a plan, constructing, and publishing are rare. While the exhibition is ongoing, the rolled-up printing paper keeps on being crushed by its weight, and the humidity causes the plywood on the floor and walls to curl, which causes the pushpins to fall; the inside continues to change. Okada-san came up with the idea to document the space by taking one photo each hour from a fixed point. I feel like he’s the type of curator who could assign new values to art, values the artist hadn’t intended.

Look, see, watch- Why and what do we see? Investigating the meaning of the exhibition

—Conventionally, people have accepted exhibitions as things people see. With error CS0246, the audience is an added value, not an absolute necessity. How do you think shows and the experience of enjoying art are going to change in the future?

Komatsu: It was already changing slowly before coronavirus. People ask themselves, “Are we really, truly looking at something?” What’s vital isn’t the number of visitors. My work can be understood as something that’s directed towards and raises questions against the current system of Japanese museums. What visitors feel and how that connects to their life and society at large — I think these things will be more crucial.

Okada: This is more about cognitive science, but it’s about whether the act of looking, seeing, and watching is passive or active. In recent years, how the audience understands these things have been changing. Moreover, because of coronavirus, going to exhibitions has become a life-risking act, to put it extremely. Thinking about why we go to exhibitions has become a prerequisite. Art that exists for art’s sake, photography that exists for photography’s sake. Many people can’t commit to art, and they see it as an inside joke. I think it’s about time we change how we view exhibitions and art as a means of self-expression, something artists must take on by themselves, and how viewers can go to gallery exhibitions for free and without risking anything. Exhibitions can change the state of society and the way we think; they’re beneficial for society. I have no desire to advocate for edgy or novel art, but I think about how artists can effectively connect their work to society. I think about how to rebuild this system, which lacks in functionalities of exhibition spaces and so on. I believe we can still create more books, events, new experiences, and shapes of art.

Photographer Hiroko Komatsu’s words, “People don’t have to see it,” made me think. I went into the interview under the assumption that photos were something to be seen. The 600 pictures and rolls of printing paper overwhelmed me. I could barely make out fragments of landscape photos being crushed by its weight. The more I tried to see, the less I could, and my knees felt weak. Simultaneously, I pictured thousands of images I subconsciously take in every day, which made me feel dizzy. By creating a space where people can’t see, she makes people ponder on the act of seeing itself. error CS0246 incorporates errors in a society where the future is still unclear, and it reveals the meaning of the exhibition. Before I left, I asked if errors took place with error CS0246. She told me, “Despite us restricting people from entering, the reception was better than we expected. Having something beyond our expectations means is a creative thing, and that there’s room for analysis. I hope to make more errors in the future.” Post-exhibition, the book, Jikochudokukeihatsu, published by Kakeru Okada’s publishing company, Paper Company, will be available on their website. NADiff a/p/a/r/t will be available for purchase at their physical store. Keep an eye out for the new direction of exhibitions led by this up-and-coming curator.

■error CS0246
This exhibition was curated by Kakeru Okada. It investigated exhibitions post-coronavirus, the possibilities of creativity, and dealing with aspects he hadn’t before. It showed from January 7th to February 23rd, 2021 at Alt_Medium, featuring Osamu Kanemura, Hiroko Komatsu, and Yu Shinoda. This interview was about the first installment of Hiroko Komatsu’s solo exhibition, Jikochudokukeihatsu, where visitors were prohibited from entering (if visitors wished to enter the venue, they had to reserve in advance and pay a fee of 3,000 yen).

■Exhibition History Vol. 1 by Hiroko Komatsu, published by Paper Company (300 signed copies) Hiroko Komatsu has been creating art based on materiality, a topic often overlooked by photographers. This photo book is a compilation of seven of Komatsu’s exhibitions (including Jikochudokukeihatsu) from her first solo exhibition in 2019, Titanium’s Heart, to Parallel Ruler, which was open in July 2012. It’s a statement on her exhibitions, which boasts an overwhelming amount of materials. It also includes personal photos, documentation, diagrams of exhibitions, DMs, and such. It is a comprehensive look into Hiroko Komatsu’s body of work while illuminating her works from a different angle.

■Past exhibitions
November 2009, Titanium’s Heart, Gallery Yamaguchi, Tokyo, Japan 
November 2010, Speedometer Gallery Q, Tokyo, Japan
July 2011, Organic Contexture of Capital, Gallery Q, Tokyo, Japan
November 2011, Expansion Slot, Toki Art Space, Tokyo, Japan 
November 2011, Suicide Diathesis, Yokohama Civic Gallery Azamino, Kanagawa, Japan
February 2012, Son nom de Broiler Space dans Calcutta désert, Citizen’s Gallery, Meguro Museum of Art, Tokyo, Japan 
July 2012, Parallel Ruler, Gallery Q, Tokyo, Japan 

Author: Hiroko Komatsu, Editor: Kakeru Okada, 
Contributor: Gen Umezu Designer: Daichi Aijima

■Jikochudokukeihatsu by Hiroko Komatsu, published by Paper Company (300 signed copies)
This photo book is a documentation of Jikochudokukeihatsu, Hiroko Komatsu’s solo exhibition, which is the first series of error CS0246, a serial exhibition by Hiroko Komatsu, Osamu Kanemura, and Yu Shinoda. This exhibition was held during the emergency announcement period, so entry into the venue was prohibited. Visitors appreciated the show from outside, through a window. The audience could watch things like the rolls of photographic paper changing shape over time. It explored the contradictory relationship between exhibiting and preserving art. It was a “no entry” exhibition and a space to preserve photos at the same time. Alongside the pictures of the show taken by Hiroko Komatsu and Yu Shinoda, the book includes photos taken by a camera that was installed in the space.

Author: Hiroko Komatsu, Editor: Kakeru Okada, Contributors: Yuri Mitsuda, Hiroko Komatsu, Kakeru Okada, Translator: Peiai Sun, Designer: Daichi Aijima

Kakeru Okada was born in Tochigi prefecture in 1989. He graduated from the College of Image Arts and Sciences, Ritsumeikan University, in 2012. In 2015, he graduated from the Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts. Some notable exhibitions he planned are Osamu Kanemura’s Copyright Liberation Front (The White, Tokyo, 2020), HakHyun Kim and Osamu Sakuma/Rodande’s imshow (kanzan gallery, Tokyo, 2020), Yusuke Endo, Shingo Kanagawa, and Osamu Kanemura’s imshow (kanzan gallery, Tokyo, 2020), Iwasaki Hiromasa and Yu Shinoda’s imshow (Alt_Medium, Tokyo, 2019), and Medias (Yokohama Civic Gallery Azamino, Kanagawa, 2019). Also, alongside planning exhibitions and curating them, he founded the publishing firm Paper Company. He sells and makes compilations of photos, photo books.
https://kakeru-okada.com/

Hiroko Komatsu is a photographer born in Kanagawa prefecture in 1969. She received the 43rd Kimura Ihei Award. From 2010 to 2011, she held a solo exhibition monthly at the independent gallery, Broiler Space. Her recent exhibitions include DECODE / Events & Materials, The Work of Art in the Age of Post-Industrial Society (group exhibition, The Museum of Modern Art, Saitama, 2019), Mirror Behind Hole – Photography into Sculpture Vol.4(solo exhibition, gallery aM, Tokyo, 2017, curated by Yuri Mitsuda), The Power of Images (group exhibition, MAST, Italy, 2017), and so on. Her public collections: MAST (Italy), Tate Modern (The U.K.).
http://komatsu-hiroko.com/

Photography Yu Shinoda

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The post error CS0246, an exhibition on what and why we look, see, and watch appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

I came across the plain-looking Shinkou Building in a small alley off the main street, two minutes away from Mitsukoshi station, Tokyo. The vacant property is going to be demolished two years from now. It also happens to be the venue for an art fair called Gallery of Taboo. Once you go to the third floor, a room covered in white punch carpet will greet you. This unusual space is where artworks artists display their work; one could regard the structure as a housing unit or a series of apartments.

The person hosting the exhibition is Shunichi Oda, the photographer who published Night Order, a photo book documenting Tokyo at night after the government made an emergency announcement last year. Why did he invite eight artists and work with locals to host an art fair- right when the government made another emergency announcement? I spoke to Oda and art director Koji Shiouchi (CATTLEYA TOKYO), who Oda teamed up with, to learn about how Gallery of Taboo came to be.

Connecting to society; spreading the idea of “for others”

—You published your photo book, Night Order, while we experienced our first emergency announcement last year. Can you talk about what instigated this art fair amid our second state of emergency this year?

Shunichi Oda (Oda): Around the time the government declared its first emergency announcement, I kept on asking myself if I could do anything as a photographer. I went out into the city, compelled to document the situation, and I spotted this bar I would visit a lot. The owner had made an impressive financial sacrifice by closing it temporarily. The desolate sight of shut-down bars hit me hard. But thanks to restaurants and bars making a sacrifice by shutting their doors, a different kind of calm and beauty were beginning to appear at night. I felt like that was what I should shoot and created Night Order. As someone who treats photography as a serious craft, I’m still embarrassed to show photos I take outside of work; it feels like I’m naked and exposing my inner self. Pictures I take for work are for business, in contrast to photos I take for art, which is for myself. I realized there’s a type of photography that’s not for business or myself but for others. I had this epiphany after I did what I could, even though it was a small act. I published the photo book alongside coupons for restaurants that I frequented often. Acts of kindness for people around you eventually lead to acts of kindness for society. I thought spreading the idea of “for others” could translate to photography for society. That inspired the conceptualization of Gallery of Taboo.

—How did your discovery of photography for society connect to the concept of Gallery of Taboo?

Oda: Looking down on society from a pedestal and saying, “This is the problem” in broad strokes is inappropriate and phony. Also, I grew up as a problem child, and I had this feeling that I was a minority, somewhere in the back of my head. Naturally, the notion of social norms and respectability never sat right with me. I wanted to convey my honest feelings towards society through photography because I portray my truth that way. I had this anticipation of going beyond the limits of my mind by making a project and collective. While I was entertaining this thought, this person suggested I hold an exhibition. I pondered on what I should do to connect with society and what questions I should tackle. And I ultimately arrived at the theme: Gallery of Taboo.

Brainwashing caused by the need to connect and the pressure to conform — updating the OS/heart

—Could you expand on what you mean by respectability not sitting right with you?

Oda: This is just my opinion: I feel like the internet has made it easier for people to connect, but it also has equalized values everywhere because of peer pressure. There are more rules now — telling people what’s permissible and what’s not — and I feel like we’re heading into a more restrictive world. On top of that, we’re overwhelmed with the sheer amount of information. We have a situation where more people download knowledge instead of searching for wisdom and understanding it. I think this is comparable to the brainwashing of the masses. For instance, in Japan, people regard marijuana as something illegal and therefore dangerous. But if you look at the States, it’s seen as a product that people enjoy and is legal in some states. Alcohol was illegal in America from the 1920s to the 1930s, but now it’s become something many people like and consume. If you think long-term, values and social norms change according to the times. These things are relative. I wanted to question norms and think proactively.

Koji Shiouchi (Shiouchi): Without deviating from Oda-san’s ideas, my concept as a creative director is to touch people’s hearts/OS. I think of the vacant property as the hardware and the eight artists as the software. I want visitors to access their senses once again since the emergency announcement made them numb. I hope they could look at their frozen OS and update it. The key visual for this is the traffic lights. Like how “what’s socially acceptable” changes according to the era, the Japanese understanding of “ao” (blue) equating to “correct” has shifted too. In Japanese, green things have traditionally been deemed blue, such as “aoyasai” (green vegetables), “aomono” (greens), and “aoba” (green leaves). Meaning, even though the green light is green colored, it’s officially called the blue light in Japanese. This relative correctness is a social construct and differs from factual correctness. This situation, where society accepts something factually incorrect, happens everywhere.

—Regarding questioning the norm, I feel like hosting the exhibition online was another viable choice. I’m interested in knowing why you decided to host a physical one.

Oda: This is something Shiouchi-san told me, but digital things are two-dimensional while real-life things are three-dimensional. Three-dimensional things have much more information, so I feel you could convey thoughts and feelings more deeply. People could fully appreciate many artworks in a real-life setting, such as ceramics, music installations, and photography. We decided to host a physical one so people could engage with the art sincerely. I knew we were going to get criticisms, but I was ready for it.

Shiouchi: Of course, we took measures to prevent coronavirus from spreading. Also, the quietness and coldness virtual mediums provide are effective at times. But we believed we could present our concept and enthusiasm honestly by talking to people using our actual human voices. Ideally, I could make something that represents reality as a four-dimensional thing by using technology while comparing that to a five-dimensional prallel universe.

People connected by serendipity 

—There’s a disharmony between a normal-sized, everyday building in Nihonbashi and the art displayed there. Was this intentional?

Oda: If someone wants to rent a gallery and have an exhibition there, then a gallerist could do that. When I thought about why this art fair was necessary, I figured we needed to work together with the community. So, the location was crucial. By hosting an art fair, people who never set foot in Nihonbashi could visit and contribute to the local economy; the profits would go to both the artists and the city. I thought it could bring positivity to the locals and the people around us. And I thought it would be fun if unexpected interactions between such people took place. That’s why I decided to rent an unused building in Nihonbashi, which was financially devastated by the pandemic, and turn it into an alternative space*. People have used the term alternative space as something in direct opposition to its surrounding spaces since the 70s. I wanted to subvert that and create a space that coexists with the local area and upgrade the definition to the modern version.

*Alternative space: a space used for purposes aside from its intended purpose. Artists living in New York in the 70s used properties in this fashion, which amassed into a cultural movement.

Oda: I looked for a place for the exhibition for three months because I didn’t want a venue with just a regular flat surface. I preferred the artists to feel like they could express their art according to their given space. I made phone calls, looked up registrations, and met up with the owners directly. But I was told that they couldn’t rent it to me short-term or that they had found someone already. I couldn’t find anything and was about to give up. Just then, my friend from my student days introduced me to Mizobata-san, the architectural director of NOD and owner of GROWND nihonbashi. After that, I got introduced to someone from Mitsui Fudosan, which led me to Shinkou Building. I met other people on the team, thanks to fate. Kohei Kikuta and Yuzuru Murakami of Buttondesign directed the design of the space. They came up with the idea of covering the insides of the worn-out building with white carpet and placing images of famous western museums on the walls. The aim was to have upcoming artists question society’s idea of correctness and show their art against a backdrop of established, acclaimed art. The space itself asks, “What is correct?” 

Shiouchi: Oda-san himself is like a junction that connects people. I fused his role and presence into the key visuals. People say ideas and movements are in proportion to one another, and I think he came across the perfect venue because the act of him going back and forth served as his guiding compass. The color white, seen in Kikuta-san’s conceptualization of the space, ties into each artist’s artwork. The color complements the overall art. “Fake museum” is the space concept- the virtual images of western museums printed on tarpaulin and the stark, fluorescent lights greet visitors. This witty style was effective in communicating the artwork.

To create, look, sell, destroy, and so on. Are we content with the current landscape of art?

—How did the collective of the eight artists come about? Did you have any criteria?

Oda: Someone who’s uncontrolled by economic reasoning or rationality. Someone who does the unexpected. Chaotic. Those of us who curated this exhibition aren’t gallerists, so I didn’t want to be too strict about who to bring in. I met artists and other staff who related to the concept by chance. Much like a jazz session, we got a result that no one could’ve predicted. To move people, you must present them with something different. If you don’t see the things other people don’t see, then you can’t make something new and touch someone’s heart. I think those who say things that other people can’t understand are interesting. This applies to Shiouchi-san too, but such people look at society from behind or the left or right side — they dig up information from multiple angles. Whether or not what they find is the truth doesn’t matter for a moment because what matters is the ability to look at the world in multiple ways.

Shiouchi: The gallery became an intersection for collectives and otherworldly creators to come together. We tested out a hypothesis with this exhibition, like chaos engineering, and we still came across unexpected encounters and bugs and chemical reactions.

 —Sound art, ceramics, performance, photography, tattooing, Kinbaku- It seems like each artist’s take on the relationship between people and art differs quite a bit.

Oda: The visitor could access history through one used book from Komiyama Tokyo, and they could also buy art from A2Z, whose art is edgy and contemporary yet beautiful. In contrast to that, Boring Afternoon didn’t make artwork for the occasion because they live and create art with those who come to the exhibition. TEMBA destroys art in each room. Kaito Sakuma A.K.A Batic vibrates space while Satoshi Miyashita’s ceramics stay still. From conventional art forms like photography, all the way to avant-garde, contemporary art — artworks that would usually be separated coexist together here. To create, look, listen, watch, buy, destroy, sell, not sell… people’s relationship with art, or the way they treat it, should be up to each individual. You could consider something as beautiful and nothing more, for instance. I hope people could ponder in the gray area, the in-between where there’s no right or wrong.

Shiouchi: As art evolves and becomes more commercialized today, the consumer’s role is more imperative than ever before. We can’t deny that the context of art is becoming more complex. Gallery of Taboo exists in opposition to the insular, contradictory, and cursed art industry, where people use jargon to keep their world closed off. It’s also in opposition to those who praise limited methods of creating art.

Oda: We can have both visually stimulating art and intellectual, conceptual art. Like, does it bring you joy? What do you feel?

The necessity of trusting one’s imagination, dialogue born from restrictions

—As the organizer of Gallery of Taboo, what does the medium of photography mean to you?

Oda: There are less freedom and information with analog media among the vast sea of other mediums. I feel like it’s close to haiku poems. Although you can frame the time and background, viewers usually create their interpretation with the limited amount of information they’re given. There’s a high possibility the viewers will interpret your work in a way you hadn’t intended. I think haiku is still relevant today after all these years because it links to the power of imagination, which relates to the infinite universe itself. Matsuo Basho’s “The Cry of the Cicada” probably sounds different according to the times. People might also picture varied imagery in their minds according to the time they live. That power of imagination sublimates his work. Perhaps I say this because I lack confidence, but I believe photography is the art of imagination. It’s an art form that needs other people’s help for it to be complete.

—Lastly, as different relationships bloom between society and art, and art and people, I think this exhibition will become a new point of contact for visitors. With Gallery of Taboo in mind, how do you think the role of art will evolve?

Oda: I believe the sincere role of art is to raise questions. Art expands people’s possibilities. It’s essential because it supplies meaning. There’s this legendary photo magazine called Provoke, the “provocative materials for thought.” It was launched in 1968 — so around 50 years have gone by since then — but when I saw photos by Daido Moriyama and Takuma Nakahara, I was blown away. It was like I was being asked, “Are you living life to the fullest? Are you searching for the possibilities of art?” It told me, “Live life, madly.” Of course, this was just my interpretation, but that was the intense message that lingered in my mind. I even felt self-loathing because it made me feel lazy and wrong. I think there’s the danger of feeling doubts about society and oneself and pretending to not notice one’s true feelings because of one’s circumstances. I want people who feel down in the slumps or people who feel trapped but desire to make a breakthrough to come to Gallery of Taboo. I want them to be blown away from the brilliant artworks, ruminate, and expand their potential, just like me. Art is salvation.

Shiouchi: There’s a term called social sculpture, coined by Joseph Beuys, which is also A2Z’s concept regarding his work. The theory is about how every single person is an artist. It’s the artistic idea that each person’s actions can contribute to the overall happiness of society. It would be great if art or the exhibition could enable people to think about what they can do in this situation- now that we need to stay home more and limit our activities. Some call it the butterfly effect, but group mentality is so powerful. All it takes is for 10,000 people to cause an earthquake. The power of individual consciousness is intimidating. But it also can make the world a better place if each person acts and expands their mind. Isn’t it critical to live in the now by imagining a new, unknown landscape of the city?

Now that staying at home is the norm, many cultural activities and events are dwindling. I haven’t gone to museums or movie theaters in a long time. I couldn’t answer the question, “Is art nonessential?” right away when photographer Shunichi Oda asked me. My life won’t be affected negatively, even if I don’t interact with art. When I entertained the thought, I realized I had never questioned my thinking about art being essential or nonessential. Without investigating the meaning of art, I had unconsciously decided what makes something socially acceptable. Gallery of Taboo is a mirror that reflects our thinking and social etiquette and is a shelter that embraces doubts. In a world where new restrictions and norms are being invented, dialogues in the gray area are what we need. The exhibition is open until February 28th.

Koji Shiouchi is an art director, graphic designer, and founder of CATTLEYA TOKYO, born in Aichi prefecture in 1985. After studying in the U.K., he earned a visual design degree from Kyoto Seika University. He founded the creative collective CATTLEYA TOKYO in 2013. He works as an art director, graphic designer, and video maker in various fields such as art and fashion, with his unique vision. He had an exhibition in September 2020 at OIL by Bijutsu Techo.
http://cattleya-arts.com/
Instagram : @cattleyatokyo

Shunichi Oda is a photographer born in 1990. He went to the U.K. in 2012 and studied photography on his own, and became independent in 2017. In 2019, Shunichi Oda joined symphonic. He mainly shoots portraits for magazines, advertisements, and more. He published Night Order, a photo book depicting Tokyo’s cities at night during the emergency announcement in 2020. He hosted Gallery of Taboo in 2021 and released “OTONAsei – Hyakumensoka Suru Jikoishiki no Hateni.” He gets his ideas from his connection to society and is working towards producing socio-photography to inspire people.
https://www.shunichi-oda.com/
Instagram: @odaoda_photo

■Gallery of Taboo 
Location: Chuoku, Nihonbashimuromachi, Tokyo 1-5-15 Shinkou Building 3rd floor ~ 5th floor
Date: January 14th ~ February 28th, 2021 (closing day extended until February 28th) 
Opening hours: 1 PM ~ 8 PM (on the last day, last entrance is 30 minutes before closing time) 
Holidays: No holidays
Admission fee: Free
In cooperation with: Nihonbashi Restaurant Association/GROWND nihonbashi 
Instagram: @gallery_of_taboo
*The first 500 visitors will receive a 500-yen coupon, available to use at around 300 restaurants in the Nihonbashi area, thanks to Nihonbashi Restaurant Association/GROWND nihonbashi. Half of the profits made at the exhibition will go to the local economy. This way, visitors can contribute to the city’s livelihood. galleryoftaboo.com/

Photography Shintaro Ono

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Have you ever tried to listen to the sound of the city, the hustle and bustle?

In the midst of the state of emergency, even Shibuya—the part of town that never really sleeps—was quiet, as if everyone had just disappeared. When it’s this silent, we come to realize that the word bustle actually means a layer of muffled sounds.

We can call Ono and Hasunuma sound observers and sound hunters. So, how do they listen to the sounds of the streets? Let’s take a moment to observe the sounds of Shibuya, standing between the concepts of listening and creating.

-Sound Study-
How the sounds of the city were created

Shuta Hasunuma：Environmental sound is like “going out to record”, isn’t it? It’s like holding a gun in your hand, or going hunting, or something like that, a so-called proactive act. But the truth is I’ve never really liked the idea of going out recording with a microphone, or looking for a specific sound. I have never really searched for a sound. I would hear something and be like, Oh, this sounds great. Sometimes I would take the recorder to the forest to observe something and leave it there. When I would come back an hour later I’d have something good. In this case, this was an interesting project for me because it had both elements of observation and newness, as I captured some sounds that I wasn’t expecting. 

Seigen Ono：When recording natural sound, if you’re near the microphone, you’ll end up recording yourself, so I place the microphone, go away, and let it record for a few hours. I’m like an Okinawan longline fisherman with his net! [Laughs] But for this project I swung my “net” around as I moved about.

Hasunuma：It’s like going to a different place and coming back again. Ten years ago, I used to do field recording more often than now. Back then, I thought the listening part was more important than the recording part. Then you realize that there’s a difference between the sound you’re hearing and what it sounds like recorded. So you’re not doing it on purpose—it’s like the recorder is recording on its own—and it feels kind of neutral. I like that. When recording with a microphone, there are times when I accidentally encounter a sound, and I find these encounters interesting. The soundscape, if you will, is made up of all kinds of sounds, so instead of listening to it as a whole, there’s a way of doing it where we separate each sound and listen to each component individually. 

Ono：I put on my headphones and see if I’ve got something good. It’s like if you take pictures with a film camera, you really don’t know what they’ll look like until you develop them. 

Hasunuma：These sounds were recorded the day after the state of emergency was declared, so I was actually more curious about observing the situation in the streets rather than spot-recording the city from my own perspective. Observing Shibuya, the center of Tokyo, was a bit strange. The sounds of advertising were reverberating so loudly at the Shibuya Scramble intersection!  I knew this intuitively already, but I experienced it this time: when nobody is around, when we listen to the sounds of the street, we start to hear the different elements in the background as well as the sound design. I was overwhelmed by how the background sound of Shibuya is overshadowed by the sounds of advertising, particularly the pop music that resounds over the Center Gai area. 

Ono：It’s like a live performance without an audience at Shibuya Scramble. Usually, the echoes are masked by the noise of the crowd. But because nobody was there, I could really hear the big echoes coming from tall buildings all in a row. We don’t normally hear this sound, and you could even say it was a bit scary! You could get a recording with really interesting reverberations if somebody were to play an instrument early in the morning or after the last train, when the advertising has stopped. 

Hasunuma：What was interesting from a spatial standpoint was the Harajuku side of the Meiji Shrine. When I recorded the sound on the Harajuku side of Meiji Shrine with a microphone, the Yamanote Line was behind me. The sound of the train was not so much the sound of a train as it was the sound of an echo, so I was able to record the sound of the train behind it. It sounded like a nice sound from that direction.

Ono：So it’s like the forest of Meiji Shrine became an echo chamber?

Hasunuma：That’s right. And the microphone was facing towards the quiet forest, so I really liked that contrast.

Ono：That’s interesting. When people aren’t around, you can clearly hear the calls of the birds. This is the kind of recording that we can only get during this special time. 

Hasunuma：Riding my bicycle in the city to record sounds, I really noticed how my attention goes toward what I’m hearing, even within a very short distance. For me it’s not so much about the texture or comfort level of the sound and whether it’s good or bad, but more about why we have this sound. I’m also interested in urban planning and why the sounds of the urban environment turn out like those I’ve captured here. 

I feel that field recordings capture not only the sound but also the history of the land. Including the declaration of the state of emergency, I think it’s the accumulation of history that led to the sound we hear today… Observing the sounds and understanding the changes in them helps to unravel the history of the area. 

Ono：That’s right, it’s about history. Speaking of urban design, the pavement of medieval villages in Europe was made of stone, as well as the buildings themselves. Once, I was on the road to a small village where I noted that the houses on opposite sides of the street basically faced each other. The road continued for a long while, with many bends and turns. The echoes produced a wonderful sound in this town. The center of the village had a church and a plaza, and a narrow road. Thanks to these stone buildings, which were 300-400 years old, the people went about their daily lives listening to reflected sound without even realizing it. This kind of sound is part of daily life in Europe in a way that it can’t be in Japan, since there are no stone structures here. It makes perfect sense that the New Wave music of the 80s, featuring gated reverb, with loud crashing and banging, came from the UK. I think this is the influence of the echoes that people heard bouncing off the walls in everyday life. A big difference with the paper-and-wood culture of Japan. In Brazil, events like Carnival as well as samba school practice happen in spaces like under elevated highways, or public areas between office buildings on the weekends. The reverberation between concrete structures is the perfect fit for the powerful sound of samba. In the end, the powerful sound of the drum is 70% of the echoes of a large space.

Hasunuma：If you lived in city like that since you were young, it is just natural. But when you become an adult and move to a different city, it’s interesting to realize how unusual your childhood experience was. The memory of footsteps is tied to the feeling of the soles of our feet on the stone pavement. So, everyone’s experience is unique. Lately, with the globalization of the world, asphalt is becoming more and more common, and footsteps are becoming more and more homogenized. It could be said that percussion instruments in music are trying to reproduce the character of these footsteps.  

-Map of Sound-
The relationship between Sound and Memory

Ono：In terms of the relationship between sound and memory, the so-called sounds of the forest and the ocean are stored in our DNA. Even people who did not grow up by the sea find it relaxing to listen to the sound of the waves at the beach. Though for me the advertising at the Shibuya Scramble intersection is a sound for the younger generations, for others it might actually be nostalgic! Some people who grew up in the city can’t relax without the noise of the city streets, or the sound of repeating background noise such as machinery including elevators, car engines, etc.

Hasunuma：Some people prefer rooms facing the street. [Laughs]

Ono：And some people have childhood memories of the train running right next to their apartment building!

Hasunuma：I suppose the way you perceive sounds is influenced by your experiences and your literacy. So the sounds that a person was making or listening to are not always the actual sounds. I think that sound information contains a lot of memories of the place where we grew up, and they are mapped together with our memories.

Ono：The concept of mapping reminds me of a Polish movie called Imagine. The main character, who is blind, walks through the streets of Lisbon with echolocation, clucking his tongue. And as he goes along, the reflected sounds (echoes) keep changing with the walls, houses, cars, and the environment around him. He remembers them as a map in his head. Even a click sound, such as a snapping of fingers, can produce an impulse response, which means that even non-disabled people can learn the technique with training. Visually impaired individuals, however, map the world around them on a daily basis using the sounds that bounce off objects, acquiring the ability to identify concrete structures, intersections, approaching cars, stores, etc., in the environment. 

Hasunuma：I find Rebecca Solnit’s book Walks: A Mental History of Walking very interesting about the act of walking. Remembering space through sound and walking are closely related.

Ono：I agree. On my way to Shibuya last time, as I was changing trains from the Ginza Line to the Inokashira Line, a visually impaired person happened to be in front of me. It was really dangerous because suddenly there were lots of people coming at us. I had him hold onto my elbow so that I could guide him. I wondered why the Braille was in this particular spot amidst the flow of traffic in the station.The announcements are made in Chinese and English, and although there are multiple languages available, the sound is coming from all directions in the station, and you don’t really know right away which direction it is coming from. The transfer design of Shibuya station is problematic for the visually impaired. I was thinking about that while I was moving around and recording sound.

Hasunuma：There are echoes and sound bandwidths, too. Depending on the space, the sound bandwidth can be blocked. In certain places such as the bathtub, there is an echo and you hear the lower tone sounds. There’s a New York composer named Alvin Lucier, known for his composition Music on a Long Thin Wire, in which he stretched the ends of a wire across a room, recoding and amplifying the vibration it produced. The same thing is happening on the city streets right now. 

Ono：Yes, there are frequencies that resonate with the size of the space. It’s easy to understand if it’s a square space, like a bath; we can just imagine there are strings there. It’s called standing waves, and sounds of the same pitch as a string in a space have a tendency to be emphasized.  For instance, if we tap on the flooring, the smaller pieces produce a lower sound. For this reason, the flooring used in this studio is comprised of pieces of random size so that we don’t have the same resonance. The relationship between space and sound is a complex one. By the way, I did a binaural recording of sounds nearby Shibuya station as I was walking along. When you listen to it with headphones you can get a sense of the space.

Hasunuma：I was amazed when I listened to your environmental sound with headphones. [Laughs] Whereas Seigen is recording the sound while moving around, I have primarily been recording in a still position. I think both of us think that we’re not just recording: we’re exploring the idea of what it means to record background sound, and also what it means to listen to sound. But the differences in our approaches is evident in our results, and that’s what makes comparison interesting.

-Reverberation of the morning-
Inspiration for musicians

Hasunuma：I’m 36 years old and grew up in Tokyo. Speaking from my background, I hope that the sound in Shibuya will get better, meaning not only sound design. It would be nice if the architecture would also be better suited to sound. There are lots of station buildings in Shibuya right now, and it would be great to see auditory design in the same manner as architectural design. 

Ono：It would be great to redesign the area around Oku-Shibuya, or “inner Shibuya.” In 2017, there was a lot of buzz about a crowd-funded restoration project by Tokyo University of the Arts: the musical sculpture exhibited by Toru Takemitsu (with the help of sculptor François Baschet), who was the producer of the steel pavilion at the Osaka Expo 70. It would be amazing to see an urban space design like this in Shibuya—a modern version of Baschet’s work. 

Hasunuma：I went to all of the performances in Kyoto, Osaka, and Tokyo. The great thing about Baschet’s music sculpture is that everyone has the opportunity to be exposed to it. This concept of Bachet’s, which came about in the 70’s during the Expo period, is still relevant in 2020. It would be nice if we could make it.

Ono：Wow, you saw it all! There is this big new building in the area where Hikarie and Google are located now. I imagine that there’s space where interesting sounds are produced between the buildings there. I’ll have to go there to find out.

Hasunuma：That’s right, I think there would be good places around there.

Ono：In terms of time, there should be interesting sounds in the middle of the night after the last train, or in the early morning. During the 80’s and 90’s, I’d often drink until 5 am, and I found that the sounds of the morning before and after 8 am differed greatly. After 8 am, the morning rush begins with commuters getting to work as well as children going to school. At 5 or 6 am, there are hardly any people and it’s quiet enough to hear reflective sound, or sounds coming from far away.

Hasunuma：Yes, that’s right, there is definitely a sound of the morning, a vibration of the morning. We’ve been talking about space and acoustics and even the time axis. It’s through complex combinations of these elements that art pieces are created. Yet when it comes to sound, the main thing is the listener. We can even say that in a sense it’s the listener who makes the music! 

Ono：Now all you need is a cell phone to record. I’d love it if our readers could discover their very own background sounds in the streets. It’s all about experiencing and noticing things we don’t normally see.

Seigen Ono
Seigen Ono launched his career with JCV in 1984 as composer and artist. In 1987, he became the first Japanese to sign a contract with Virgin Records (UK). He established Saidera Records in 1987, followed by Saidera Mastering in 1996. He has engaged in a wide variety of work, including joint development of acoustic technologies such as VR, acoustic space design, consulting, and more. He won the ADC Grand Prix in 2019.

Shuta Hasunuma
Musician and composer, Shuta Hasunuma formed the Shuta Hasunuma Philharmonic Orchestra as a platform for experimentation with a wide range of artists. Involved in a variety of projects including music, theatre, dance, and advertising, Shuta Hasunuma consistently takes an experimental approach to music from an auditory and visual perspective.

Photography Seigen Ono, Shuta Hasunuma
Edit Moe Nishiyama

The post –SHIBUYA SOUNDSCAPE–Listening to the footsteps of Shibuya appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

『20200609_HARAJUKU 1』
© Seigen Ono

Encountering Noise, Harmonizing Sound

Shinya Matsuyama：Seigen, do you consciously listen to sound and music in your daily life when you’re not creating artworks?

Seigen Ono：I don’t think it’s conscious. Since my job is to record sound and music, I’m sure I’m rather unaware of it in my daily life. But if I hear music that I don’t like, I’ll react against it as strongly as if it were cigarette smoke. [Laughs] If I’m in a shop, I’ll leave. And also, unconsciously, there are things I notice. A recent example is at a café I was going to every morning. They had a machine there for kneading dough, and the rhythm of the sound it made was samba. I thought about sampling it and turning it into a piece of music. 

Matsuyama：So you get your music from the sounds of nature and daily life, not just the sounds of instruments.

Ono：I actually recorded the sound of that kneading machine on my iPhone! If you listen to just the sound, I tell you, it is a perfect samba beat. I even went to the trouble of recording it on a portable recorder. One day, though, the café started playing background music. From that point on, only mere clanking could be heard, and so I stopped going there. 

Matsuyama：Seigen, remind me, when did you start using so-called non-instrumental or non-musical sounds in your works?

Ono：It was in fact for my first album, SEIGEN (1984), that I began incorporating sounds, or noise, into my music. It included the sounds of New York City streets and parks. In my second album, The Green Chinese Table (1988) , I used background noise from everywhere. In “The Pink Room” track, I used the buzz of an audience in a concert hall before the curtain opens, and reversed it. There’s a unique tension before a performance and during intervals. The buzz of a street corner, the hubbub in a hall. The live sound on the runway, the size of the venue and the number of people in the room before the show… if I were to put it all into words, they would be described as a “hum” or “buzz,” but the scene—the size of the auditorium, the number of people, the pre-opening atmosphere—is totally different, right? 

Matsuyama：So you’ve been aware of noise from the beginning as a musician?

Ono：I hadn’t really thought about it until you asked me this, but the movies I was watching in high school had a big influence on me. I didn’t go to university, and instead, worked as an assistant at the long-standing Onkio Haus studios for two years from 1978 to 1980. I gained on-the-job experience with commercial film editors, projectionists, and professional recording of the sound that is added to the film. For instance, on film sets, I would hold the boom microphone for actors. Thinking back now, it was an invaluable experience. Even after switching to music recording, visual collage naturally became my style. 

Matsuyama：Do you reckon you see noise, in and of itself, as a kind of musical sound, as one element of an ensemble? 

Ono：Yes, I’ve come to treat noise as a musical element, just like the sounds of an instrument being played or a sampler or tape editor. Suppose a script says, “A woman wearing heels walks in a bar.” To represent the bar, you can hear the distant clink of glasses. And what of the floor? Is it marble? Wood flooring? A sole of harder material will sound more like a pair of high heels. And what about the tempo of the woman’s walk? There is even a profession called “Foley artist” to create sound effects that sound more conceptual than they actually are. Rather than perceiving noise as an instrument, if you work in recording, you realize the importance of noise. People often aim for a particular sound and try to get a clean recording, right? They either move the microphone closer, or to prevent interference from ambient sounds, they use a super cardioid (super unidirectional) microphone or shotgun microphone which records sound only in the direction it is pointed. Like a zoom lens, it picks out only the object you were closing in on. But elements that end up being shed, that is, everything other than the object—so-called ambience and background noise—are surprisingly important, right?

Take for instance this plate of curry on the patio here which is bathed in sunlight. The curry looks absolutely delicious, but trying to reproduce the same light situation in the studio is very difficult. A spotlight mimics the direct sunlight, and the reflected light creates shadows. In terms of sound, the reflected sound creates shade around the curry and dominates the space. Even though it seems like the objects are captured by spotlights and super cardioids, the important noises and reflections that used to enhance the sound are now missing.

Matsuyama：You’re saying that music comprises feedback and harmony of all sounds in the world, so some music inevitably contains noise. 

Ono：That’s right. One of my albums, Forest and Beach (2003) , has five-channel surround content, but it’s impossible to extract the sound of waves from the beach. What is the sound of the waves? What is the sound of the wind? The rumbling sound of waves hitting, moving and rubbing against pebbles and sand is accompanied by a very high frequency of microbubbles with a fizz. The same goes for wind in the trees rustling leaves against each other. If you think about it, waves and wind have no sound; we sense the various noises, which are made by the energy of the wind and waves, as the sound of the wind. So, suppose for example that delicate, quiet music is playing. A roaring wind blows. The sound of the wind, or the sound of the waves, stops suddenly, and in that moment of silence, even though you haven’t turned up the volume, the music stands out as if suddenly under a spotlight. When recording music, the expression “noise” is spoken as if it were garbage, but musically speaking, it can also be viewed as a decoding that is out of tune and clashes.

Painting the landscape with sound

Matsuyama：Speaking of noise, the first 40 minutes of CDG Fragmentation, which was released last year with the reissue of COMME des GARÇONS SEIGEN ONO, contains the live sound of the runway at a Comme des Garçons show.

Ono：Chapters 1 to 6 of the CDG Fragmentation are real sounds recorded in real time at the 1997 Paris Fashion Week. There are photographers calling out to the models, the clicking of their cameras, hands clapping, the sounds of shoes, and the hum of voices. At the show, for each model, I played a set of various sounds that I had put into the sampler. For the first five minutes or so, the audience seemed to think it was an acoustic mishap. But as I adjust the sound like an anime to match the model’s gait, the audience gradually catches on that it is part of the production. It’s even more realistic to the people who were there. I was in two minds right up to the last minute about whether it was OK for the first 40 minutes on a new album being released by a major label, namely Nippon Columbia, to consist only of live sounds (about 100 minutes long in total). But on hearing this, photographer Kazumi Kurigami said to me, “I want to use this in my studio.” I guess he doesn’t play so-called background music when he’s doing photo shoots in his studio. More than music, he was interested in being able to reproduce the feelings of tension that build up at a show. That clinched it for me. The fact you can record and reproduce in sound about 40 minutes of tension and atmosphere was also a discovery. What did you think, Shinya? 

Matsuyama：In a sense, I thought it was more eloquent and realistic than the music in that it made you imagine the clothes, the environment and culture surrounding the clothes, and even the faces and passion of the designers.

Ono：Apparently, Comme des Garçons didn’t use any music at all during a number of shows prior to 1997. Then in the commission I received from Rei Kawakubo, she said that she wanted to use “sound” but not “music.” Although it was like a Zen riddle, I defined the difference between music and sound for that presentation. Since it was Comme des Garçons, the idea of sampling any old fragments from records wouldn’t do. So, I went to the trouble of recording fragments of sound. But you can’t just order musicians to play fragments at random. I wrote a score to give to the musicians, and I recorded myself at the piano to act as a guide. These, however, only included chords and a simple melody. I call this “Lurking Tonality Piano.” Ha! I wonder, can it be called an invention? Anyway, based on the piano as a guide, and with the instruction to not participate as an ensemble, I proceeded to record the musicians, one or two at a time. The musicians, however, could not hear each other. During the mix, I muted my piano. The fortuitous result contrived from this process were a couple of pieces that clearly show some tonality but without ensemble: the 9th track on the album “Jean from 3rd street” and the 11th track “John from 3rd street.” Another possible way of looking at this is wondering how actors will act after reading a film script, or in this case, the musical score. At the show, we only used fragments from these pieces. Based on this “Lurking Tonality Piano,” I also recorded a new piece—the 10th track “At long last”. I find this approach interesting, and is one that I’ve adopted again—on a synthesizer this time—for the new album that I’m producing during the current #StayHome period. 

Matsuyama：You were heavily influenced by films, or rather, it’s the foundation of your work, isn’t it?

Ono：I recorded the album Bar del Mattatoio (1994) between 1988 and 1994 in places all over the world: Sao Paulo, Rio, Paris, Milan, Tokyo, New York… In retrospect, I’m still glad I made that album. Caetano Veloso, who I love, wrote the liner notes for the album, which made it a complete work of art. The answer to your question also lies there. While I don’t compose soundtracks, I was heavily influenced by films. Films by Fellini with Nino Rota’s music, Yasujiro Ozu and others. The genre of montage recording was created with their works in mind. 

It’s also interesting to see that space-time is different between video and sound, like in films by Jean-Luc Godard. In films, there are things that aren’t shown on the screen, and there are things that are connected by sound and music to move on to the next scene. It’s like in the 1984 video work released by JVC, MANHATTAN—which has close ties to my first album, SEIGEN. When asking Masanori Sasaji to compose a piece for the opening scene, we had meetings about instrumentation and chord. My brief for the sample really went something like… the intro will be like the interval music from Death in Venice (1971) directed by Luchino Visconti (the fourth movement “Adagietto” from Gustav Mahler’s Symphony No. 5), and the rest will be like Bill Evans. Once I’d specified the worldview, or broad framework, the rest was up to the composers and musicians. Within that framework, they were given free rein. 

Matsuyama：Wow, I didn’t know I had pointed such a specific example! 

Ono：Even though it’s music, the sound created by Takemitsu feels like it is painting a scene, doesn’t it? 

Matsuyama：In his case, it’s like he’s using sound to create images. He’s a composer and a film director by trade. He doesn’t just use music written in the score, but also electronically modulates the recorded sounds to make noise, and then makes them sound like he’s making a film. And so on. He also uses a lot of environmental sounds, and in his mind, the noise is also music and images. 

Ono：Memorable among recent film scores is the score composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto for The Revenant (2016). The tremendous visual images of nature and the cold are certainly stunning, but also there’s no boundary between natural sounds and music in the soundtrack, is there? It seems they’ve also used the “Glacier” music from his Out Of Noise (2009) album. In describing the sound of Arctic glaciers and water in the liner notes, he writes, “I left various sounds based on the sound of pure water several thousand years old.” If watching the movie on a DVD or TV broadcast, these sounds get compressed using AAC and so you can’t hear the detail. While The Revenant is therefore best listened to in a good cinema, it also sounds really good on Blu-ray with a good system. There is no division between the quiet, delicate sounds of nature and the sound of the synthesizer that whooshes in behind. It was brilliant, wasn’t it?

Matsuyama：That’s true. Sakamoto is very good at blending delicate electronics with noise-like sounds from nature. He’s been consistent since the 1970s. I sense he’s been constantly thinking about the division, and the shared domain, between noise and sound. 

『20200609_HARAJUKU 2』
©Seigen Ono

Observation of music beyond the conscious and subconscious

Ono：That said, what do you imagine if you see “sound of wind,” for instance, written in the stage directions of a script? 

Matsuyama：The sound of wind… the sound of a glass window rattling, or…

Ono：Wind, you know, doesn’t really have a sound. Actual wind. Then there’s the phrase “sound of rain.” But rain doesn’t have a sound either. Same goes for “sound of waves.” At the water’s edge, or where waves break and strike the rocks, there’s the sound of sand being shuffled by the wave, right? It’s the same with wind as it hits leaves. The rustling sound we hear is that of leaves rubbing against each other. And then there’s unwanted noise, right? Since we’re doing this interview outdoors, later when you transcribe the tape, it’ll be hard to follow because of the buffeting. This buffeting is the sound of wind hitting the grille on the IC recorder’s microphone. It’s the same as the whistling noise you hear when you open your car window while driving. It’s a noise that is not needed for this interview. But the whistling noise would be OK though if the stage directions said, “Sound of wind.” Recording the sound of leaves rustling might be quite difficult. 

Matsuyama：You’ve got me worried now, so… [wraps a paper napkin from the café around the IC recorder microphone] I know how hellish it can be if you can’t transcribe from a tape because of noise. 

Ono：Just now, a plane flew overhead on the new flight path to Haneda, but we were able to continue this conversation, right? The sound of the airplane recorded on your IC recorder should be much, much louder than our voices. But we humans are able to capture sound three-dimensionally, and if our consciousness is directed here (to this conversation), in our minds, we can cancel (ignore) the surrounding sounds (noises). Machines, though, are unable to do this, so when you try to transcribe it later, only noise will be recorded, and you won’t be able to hear this critical interview! It’s called the “cocktail party effect”—the ability to focus only on what you want to hear from among multiple conversations going on at the same time at a party. Human ears are amazing, aren’t they? The ability to differentiate sounds is one we all use unconsciously.

Matsuyama：In short, the IC recorder mechanically picks up all sounds equally without distinguishing between the sounds you want to hear and the sounds around you, but in the same way, if we humans try to listen consciously to the sounds that we’ve unconsciously removed, they may become music instead of noise.

Ono：Yes, that’s it! Like the sounds of this spoon scraping against the plate of curry we’re eating now.  This is delicious! Effective sounds, you know, also influence the way we  feel about things. So, I try to sample and record these sounds as reminders of that flavor. 

Matsuyama ：Non-musical things also become instruments. 

Ono：Plates, spoons, utensils lying around the kitchen… they are in fact musical instruments. Some of my tunes that feature utensils include “Anchovy Pasta” and “Sanma Samba.” Lots of kitchen utensils produce interesting sounds. Rolling pins and chopsticks in particular know no bounds. For softly tapping a cymbal legato like a clave, chopsticks are better than drumsticks you know. And while taiko drumsticks set you back between 3 and 5 thousand yen, rolling pins are a buck a piece if you go down to Chinatown. They’ve got piles and piles of them, so you can select the ones that produce the best sound as an instrument.

Composing music like a recipe

Ono：It suddenly occurred to me yesterday, and I uploaded a piece that is going to be part of a new composition. I’ve also used three-dimensional encoding for some headphones that are under development, but hardly anyone has looked at it yet.

20200403 Seigen Ono Fragmentation 2
© Seigen Ono

Matsuyama：It’s great. It’s so vivid and heart-pounding. Seigen, you can clearly feel your sense of beauty, expression vector and emotion in this work.

Ono ：Shinya, hearing you say those words makes me happy. It’s a collage of the Manaus jungle in Brazil in 2010, the sound of Les Ballets de Monte-Carlo dancers gliding across the floor of a rehearsal room in Nice in 2003, and the sound of scurrying children, combined with a variety of music tones. I feel it has a similar sensation as making pasta sauce. 

Matsuyama：The vividness reminded me of works by Chris Watson, as if the smell and humidity of the wind were almost carried by the sound. One of the founding members of Cabaret Voltaire, Watson later produced a great many of his own recordings while working as a sound recordist for the BBC in the UK. Since his time with Cabaret Voltaire, he has single-mindedly pursued answers to the questions: What is music? and What is the relationship between sound and music? There have also been a number of Japanese who have incorporated field recordings into their musical works. Key figures include Amephone and Aki Onda, who lives in New York. Always found with a cheap cassette tape recorder wherever he goes, Aki Onda records the sounds of various places, and creates collages using only those lo-fi sound sources. It’s wonderfully musical, wouldn’t you agree?

Ono：When it comes to making the most of a good opportunity, scouting for a good location and positioning your microphones are more important than any expensive mic or equipment. Rather than making a reservation and going to a three-star restaurant, you’re more likely to come across the fish of the day and have a tastier meal if you drop into that place near the fishing port where the local people go to eat. With sound and video too, it’s more about content than equipment and technology, right? What image and what sound do you want to record? Questions of the composition itself and emotional performance are absolutely more important. 

Matsuyama：These days, it feels like we’re too afraid of mistakes, errors and noise in all aspects, not just music. I think this is especially evident in Japan. And that’s despite superficial perfection having hardly any bearing on the depth and strength of art. More important than anything else is properly communicating what it is you want to convey, and the emotion that is contained within. Errors and noise will often clarify the essence of the art.

Ono：In commercial music, it’s commonplace now that everyone is always revising and correcting work recorded on computer. Personally, I think it’s just a waste of precious time. I don’t think anything is completely free of little mistakes. Rather than trying to fix them, I think that music that feels good and features emotion will ultimately be more appealing both for the players and their audience.

Seigen Ono
Seigen Ono launched his career with JCV in 1984 as composer and artist. In 1987, he became the first Japanese to sign a contract with Virgin Records (UK). He established Saidera Records in 1987, followed by Saidera Mastering in 1996. He has engaged in a wide variety of work, including joint development of acoustic technologies such as VR, acoustic space design, consulting, and more. He won the ADC Grand Prix in 2019.

Shinya Matsuyama
Born in 1958 in Kagoshima, Japan, Shinya Matsuyama is a music critic and author of The Age of Pierre Barouh and Saravah and BLIND JUKEBOX. He is also an editor of Perspectives on Progress and has co-authored numerous disc guides.

Interview Shinya Matsushima
Photography Erina Takahashi
Edit Moe Nishiyama

The post What we hear, what we can’t hear, and what we actually listen to appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Looking up, Tokyo skyline is changing. Buildings are being demolished to make way for the coming Olympics. Looking down, there is infinite information available on my phone. In these times where standing still is impossible and the days fly by so quickly, I felt something was missing. I looked around. There must something to observe. There must be a way to slow down.

An article from local paper also came back to my mind. It was about people a who listened to stones. The Anoshu are a group of stonemasons who orally passed on their technique for over 400 years. Their stone walls are made by stacking stones without shaping or altering them. The article mentioned a stonemason called Suminori Awata. I became interested in the idea of listening with stones, but I couldn’t find much information about the Anoshu and their technique.

The Anoshu lived in Anata (present-day Sakamoto, Otsu City, Shiga Prefecture) on the west shore of Lake Biwa in the province of Omi. They were skilled at naturally stacking stones without shaping them and in the Azuchi-Momoyama period (1568-1600), when Oda Nobunaga heard of the engineering that prevented the stonewall at Hieizan Enryakuji from falling, he hired them to build the walls of Azuchi castle. The Awata family is the only family in Japan to have inherited the technique.

Can you hear the voice of a stone? It might sound spiritual, but this traditional technique has over 400 years of history. What sort of training did the Anoshu receive? Perhaps they have an answer to the anxiety that can be felt in a city like Tokyo. With such questions and some hope, I decided to contact Mr Awata.

Moe Nishiyama Hello, nice to meet you! The theme of our magazine is Observation. In this day and age, it has become easier and more convenient to look up for information. I think it is becoming more difficult to sharpen one’s senses and believe one’s eyes. I contacted you because I think there could be some important advice for us from the Anoshu and their 400 years of history of listening to stones. I was wondering if you could tell me more about it.

Suminori Awata Listening to stones has been passed down from previous generation 13th Anoshu head mason, Makizo Awata. First, you look at the stones and consider the type of wall you want to build. You observe and imagine. You look at a stone and think where it wants to go, and you slowly build up an image in your mind. The biggest part of our work is selecting the stones. After this step, that’s 70-80% of the job done. So how you look at a stone during that process is very important.

Nishiyama：How long do you spend selecting the stones?

Awata：It depends on the scale of the masonry, but we usually study the stone for about a day or two. If it’s a big stone wall, then it may take a week. As mentioned, the saying, listen to the stones and put them where they want to go, was passed down from the last generation. In today’s words, I think it’s close to observe carefully. Look with your own eyes and think. We call the visible side of a wall the face. Knowing the face, the vertical and horizontal sides of a wall is the most basic aspect of masonry. “Can’t you see the face?” At first, I was often scolded about it.

Nishiyama：I didn’t know that a stone wall had a face… So for you, choosing a stone, or listening to a stone means trusting in your own eyes. Is that so?

Awata：Yes. The way you choose a stone reflects your personality. For example, if my grandfather, my father and myself were each given 100 identical stones, we would build 3 different walls. It’s all about personality.

Nishiyama：Can you tell who built a wall just by looking at it?

Awata：For most of them, yes. My grandfather was quite delicate and meticulous. My father is rough around the edges. I am somewhere in between the two. My grandfather was able to draw everything in his mind. I’m not there yet, so as the scale of a project grows, I go looking for stones again and again. Every time I find one and look at it, the sketch is redrawn in my mind.

Nishiyama：What is an actually masonry drawing like?

Awata：It’s only in my head. If you intend to build a stone wall before observing the stones, you are likely to choose beautiful stones, with a pretty shape and easy to stack. But a stone wall made of beautiful stones only is not interesting at all. So, if you make a drawing beforehand, you will end up with what I call an ideal stone wall. And I am not interested in this at all.

Nishiyama：Although you have a plan in your head, you don’t try to build a nice wall. Now I’m really confused. Do you have some kind of criteria when choosing the stones?

Awata：My grandfather told me that a stone wall is like human society. There are beautiful stones, dirty stones, ugly stones. Some are big, some are small. Other are sharp, or round. The world is made up of those relationships. When I first started, I wanted to build nice walls, so I only chose beautilful stones. That’s when my grandfather told me “Would a world with beautiful women only be interesting? Who are you going to pick? If there aren’t any ugly girls out there, how will know which one is pretty?” That’s how I learned that every stone, big or small, has a role to play. Every single thing matters.

Nishiyama：That’s why, even when looking at the uneven stones piled up, there is a sense of strange harmony between them.

Awata：For example, the role of a small stone could be to make a large stone look bigger. It’s important to bring out the individuality of each stone. By placing ugly, rugged stones next to beautiful ones, you can reach a sense of beauty. By the way, it’s hard for moss to grow on a beautiful stone, but it’s easier for moss to grow on a rough stone. So, by placing beautiful and ugly stones together, I can get an idea of what the wall will look like after decades, even centuries. Also, the colors vary slightly from place to place, depending on where they come from, so I try to arrange them separately. Once you’ve piled them up, step back, and take a look. Observe the whole thing.

Nishiyama：So rather than looking at a single stone, it is important to harmonize the differences between them. Where does the ability to find the right stone come from?

Awata：At first, the job of a young child is to find a small stone to put between the large ones. Unless you walk around in the mountains all day long and search for stones, you won’t find a natural stone to fill the gap. Of course, you can cut or grind stones into a triangle and it will fit. But that’s easy. So, what is important is a good training. Our job is to handle natural stones. So if we place an altered stone, it will stand out and look unnatural.

Nishiyama：So, a perfect fit is not good enough. It’s not easy, is it?

Awata：There is a meaning to choosing a stone. It’s hard to say whether it’s a good or bad one just from its surface. I can tell when someone isn’t thinking when picking stones, and I always ask: “Are you looking at what you’re doing?”

Nishiyama：How do you feel when choosing stones? Has your training finally allowed to find the right stones?

Awata：No, it’s still a long way off. I still don’t really understand. My grandfather was a well-known Anoshu, but he kept saying: “I will train until I die.” The ultimate goal of us masonry craftsmen is that when we collect 100 stones, we will use up 100 of them, and at the end, no stones will remain. But it’s not that easy. We must train every day.

Nishiyama：It’s not important whether you chose a stone or not, but rather that all stones fit together without being chosen.

Awata：You can tell how good or bad a mason is by looking at how many stones remain once a wall is complete. You can’t have an ego. Castles and stone walls are rooted in the community, so everyone in the community should work together to build them and protect them. It’s not just a matter of good or bad skills; it’s also about making the people of the city happy.

Within an hour or two of our first meeting, I forgot how nervous I had been and got lost in the conversation with Mr Awata. The diverse collection of stones, no two of which are the same, creates a unique harmony. After this Zen-like exchange, I felt like I was catching a glimpse of the truth behind the masonry. It was still hard to believe. The work is made by human hands without any arbitrary intentions, and yet it is perfect and harmonious. Although Mr Awata looks at stones, he actually observes something much deeper: the roots of human society.

After the interview, we went out of the building. I had to look at the stone walls. I asked Mr. Awata where I could see his work. I walked up the slope in the direction of Hiyoshi Shrine, climbed up and down the steep stone stairs an kept walking along the Sakamoto approach. I can still vividly recall the view of the half-day walk along the approach to Sakamoto. Under a light cloudy gray sky, the branches stretched out in the cool, quiet air at the beginning of spring. The harmonious combination of cherry blossoms and a series of stones of various shapes and sizes, full of force, is a sight to behold. It would be a bit cliché to say that, but it was really, really beautiful. And I’ll never forget the taste of the buckwheat buns and green tea I ate halfway along the path.

Suminori Awata
15th generation stonemason of the Ano-shu Guild and president of Awata Construction Co. Spent his childhood around masonry sites around Japan, and upon graduation from junior high school, became the pupil of his grandfather, Makizo Awata, 13th head of the Ano-shu Guild. As the successor of Makizo, Suminori became head of the company at the age of 20. He is also actively involved in overseas masonry workshops.

Interview Moe Nishiyama
Photography Kazumasa Harada

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