YCAM Portal

Lecture + Dance Demonstration

2009-05-07T08:12:43Z

This is one particularly noteworthy event held as part of this time's exhibition. The artist himself gives a dance demonstration in the same exhibition space where the "Phantom Exhibition" is on view, so visitors will have the unique opportunity to witness how Paxton's ﬂesh-and-blood movement overlap with those on the screens.

Lecture + Talk

2009-05-06T08:51:00Z

Guest: Steve Paxton, Fujiko Nakaya (Artist)
Lecturer/moderator: Kikuko Toyama (Professor for Aesthetics at Saitama University)

This event discusses Steve Paxton's activities and their meaning against the social backdrop of the genre-straddling experimental endeavors in art, dance, music in the America of the 1950s-60s.
The lecture will touch upon Blackmountain College, inter-media, and other important keywords in the current art and contemporary dance scenes, and will be followed by a talk session with the artist himself.

＊English/Japanese Interpretation (in Talk)

Steve Paxton "Phantom Exhibition" / "Body as Interimage"

2009-05-05T00:51:45Z

Steve Paxton
"Phantom Exhibition"

Phantom Exhibition, Steve Paxton with Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien (Contredanse). Photo: Contredanse (Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien)

Introducing Paxton's body philosophy reinterpreting the frameworks of various physical sensation and action in a fusion of contemporary dance and art.

A leading figure in American post-modern dance, dancer/choreographer Steve Paxton is visiting Japan for the first time in 34 years. At YCAM, Steve Paxton presents a new video installation, centered around which a variety of events including demonstrations by the artist himself, and lectures with invited experts, take place as a comprehensive introduction to Paxton's body philosophy.
Through the experience of a video installation and other events explaining Paxton's methods and original artistic work, which keep influencing the current dance scene, this exhibition introduces Paxton's work from the contexts of social and historical circumstances in the 1960s, and looks at the present form of the new physical and spatial qualities discovered through media-based artistic expression.

"Body as InterImage"

Media based art drafting the future of the human body.

At the occasion of the Steve Paxton exhibition, YCAM hosts a special exhibition introducing the works of three up-and-coming artists as a further step in the Center's exploration of "art, media and physical expression."
The "own body" and the "image of the body" have been rediscovered and exhaustively featured in media-based works of art. While focusing on the double quality of the body - the "Body as Interimage" - the event explores the possibilities and relationships between media technology and the human body today.

□Works in the exhibition
newClear + Alessio Silvestrin "skinslides"
Shinichi Takashima "Pascal pass scale"

□Screening
Saburo Teshigawara "Friction of Time - perspective Study vol.2"

Steve Paxton "Phantom Exhibition"
Organizer: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Support: Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education
Co-organizer: DANCE DOCUMENTS JAPAN COMMITTEE (DDJC)
Co-sponsor: Japan-United States Friendship Commission, Asian Cultural Council, The Saison Foundation
Produced by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]
Technical support: YCAM InterLab
Curator: Kazunao Abe (YCAM)
Design direction: Shun Kawakami (artless)

＊This event is part of the "Touch, Contact, Bones Steve Paxton + Lisa Nelson Dance Project 2009.4.26 - 8.31" series co-hosted by art-related organizations and facilities across Japan.
Organizer: DANCE DOCUMENTS JAPAN COMMITTEE (DDJC)
Co-organizer: Hot Summer in KYOTO, Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts, Wacoal Art Center, The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Global COE Programme, Dance Research Course, Waseda University, Kinki University International Center for Human Science, Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Cooperation: Aomori Public College, Aomori Contemporary Art Centre AIR Committee (tentative), Contredanse, Videoda
Sponsor: Japan-United States Friendship Commission, Asian Cultural Council, The Saison Foundation

Steve Paxton "Phantom Exhibition"

2009-04-20T04:53:57Z

A leading ﬁgure in American post-modern dance, dancer/choreographer Steve Paxton is visiting Japan for the ﬁrst time in 34 years.

Steve Paxton has been integrating Aikido, Yoga, Vipassana meditation, and other Asian body techniques into dance. This exhibition introduces his understanding of the body, and his works based on that. At YCAM, Steve Paxton presents a new video installation, centered around which a variety of events including demonstrations by the artist himself, and lectures with invited experts, take place as a comprehensive introduction to Paxton's body philosophy. Through the experience of a video installation and other events explaining Paxton's methods and original artistic work, which keep influencing the current dance scene, this exhibition introduces Paxton's work from the contexts of social and historical circumstances in the 1960s, and looks at the present form of the new physical and spatial qualities discovered through media-based artistic expression.

Phantom Exhibition, Steve Paxton with Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien (Contredanse). Photo: Contredanse (Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien)

]]> Introducing Paxton's body philosophy reinterpreting the frameworks of various physical sensation and action in a fusion of contemporary dance and art.

Phantom Exhibition, Steve Paxton with Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien (Contredanse). Photo: Contredanse (Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien)

Discover new physical sensations by abandoning yourself to a space completely ﬁlled with images
Steve Paxton liberated the body from conventional forms of ballet and dance, in order to carve out his own original dance style. In the 1970s, he advocated "contact improvisation" (*) as a new dance concept that would ultimately be introduced to the realm of contemporary dance as a groundbreaking new technique. This exhibition marks the ﬁrst occasion in Japan to show a new video installation based on the "Material for the Spine" system that Paxton has been developing since 1986. Five large screens surrounding the exhibition space show images of Paxton and other performers moving according to that method, as well as dance moves simulated with computer graphics, along with poetically rhythmical explanatory narration. Within this overwhelming visual setting, the visitor perceives with all his senses the relationship between the human body and gravity.

(*) Contact improvisation is a form of dance improvisation based on movement triggered by contact with other performers. It is a dance and communication method that enables the performer to experience new forms of movement beyond existing dance patterns, by entrusting his body to the generated energy.

■Works in the exhibition
Video Installation
"Phantom Exhibition"

Phantom Exhibition, Steve Paxton with Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien (Contredanse). Photo: Contredanse (Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien)

Steve Paxton has been developing "Material for the Spine"(*) as a method for exploring the center of the body since 1986. The installation consists of five large screens showing video footage of Paxton and other performers who move their bodies based on this system, as well as computer-generated images analyzing those dance moves. Within a space that is entirely surrounded by images, visitors will encounter a new form of physical sensation by perceiving with all their senses the relationship between the human body and gravity, the body's interior and exterior, and the structure of its bones. The work was created by Paxton together with two Belgian video artists, and will be reproduced in a high-quality spatial installation as it can only be realized with the help of YCAM's own studio equipment and technology. Unveiled in Belgium this April, the talked-about piece is now staged at YCAM (and nowhere else in Japan).

(*)"MATERIAL FOR THE SPINE, a movement study." Steve Paxton. Contredanse Editions. Brussels 2008. DVD-ROM (PC-MAC) 240 min. English original version, English and French subtitles. www.contredanse.org

Steve Paxton, Florence Corin + Baptiste Andrien (Contredanse)
Originally produced by Contredanse with coproduction of Bozar Dance, Charleroi/danses, with the help of WBI.
Sound environment: Philippe Jelli

■Lecture + Dance Demonstration
May 24 (Sun) 13:00‒14:30 (the venue opens 30min before)
Venue: Studio B
Performance: Steve Paxton

This is one particularly noteworthy event held as part of this time's exhibition. The artist himself gives a dance demonstration in the same exhibition space where the "Phantom Exhibition" is on view, so visitors will have the unique opportunity to witness how Paxton's ﬂesh-and-blood movement overlap with those on the screens.

Admission Free [Capacity: 70]
＊Tickets will be available from 10:00 am on the day of the performance
＊On the day of the event, the "Phantom Exhibition" will be open to the general public from 15:00.

■Lecture + Talk
May 24（Sun） 15:00‒17:00
Venue: Foyer
Guest: Steve Paxton, Fujiko Nakaya (Artist)
Lecturer/moderator: Kikuko Toyama (Professor for Aesthetics at Saitama University)

This event discusses Steve Paxton's activities and their meaning against the social backdrop of the genre-straddling experimental endeavors in art, dance, music in the America of the 1950s-60s. The lecture will touch upon Blackmountain College, inter-media, and other important keywords in the current art and contemporary dance scenes, and will be followed by a talk session with the artist himself.

Admission Free ＊English/Japanese Interpretation (in Talk)

■Gallery Tour
June 7 (Sun), 14 (Sun), 27 (Sat), 28 (Sun)
July 5 (Sun), 11 (Sat), 18 (Sat), 25 (Sat), 26 (Sun)
August 1 (Sat), 2 (Sun)
14:00‒15:00
August 29 (Sat), 30 (Sun)
11:00‒12:00

This event aims to communicate the theme of this exhibition along with basic knowledge about contemporary dance. Through the experience of both lecture and displays, participants will discover together with YCAM's expert staﬀ the central, most attractive features of the exhibition.

Admission Free
＊Application: Please visit YCAM 1F Ticket Information 30 minutes before the start

■Film and Document Displays
Venue: Foyer, Gallery 2F

Steve Paxton's work, as well as his "Material for the Spine" system of body movement, will be explained in visual documents. The program combines excerpts from his latest DVD-ROM, released in 2008, and video footage from the 1970s, to trace the history of Paxton's achievements.

Admission Free

Cooperation: Contredanse/Videoda

Material for the Spine

Begun in 1986, it is a simple dancing system based in sensation and evolved self-imagery for the skeletal elements of head, spine and pelvis. In other words, an exploration of the center of the body. The Material is abstracted from Contact Improvisation, which will be used in the class to some extent, but Material is more technical and meditative, with emphasis on breathing and precise exercises done solo. Connections may be noticed to extant dance techniques, and their mostly unstated use of the pelvis. Material for the Spine cannot avoid the rest of the body: so far it has extended to the hip sockets and thighs, the shoulder blades and arms.
(2007/08 by Paxton)

Phantom Exhibition, Steve Paxton with Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien (Contredanse). Photo: Contredanse (Florence Corin and Baptiste Andrien)

Organizer: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Support: Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education
Co-organizer: DANCE DOCUMENTS JAPAN COMMITTEE (DDJC)
Co-sponsor: Japan-United States Friendship Commission, Asian Cultural Council, The Saison Foundation
Produced by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]
Technical support: YCAM InterLab
Curator: Kazunao Abe (YCAM)
Design direction: Shun Kawakami (artless)

＊This event is part of the "Touch, Contact, Bones Steve Paxton + Lisa Nelson Dance Project 2009.4.26 - 8.31" series co-hosted by art-related organizations and facilities across Japan.
Organizer: DANCE DOCUMENTS JAPAN COMMITTEE (DDJC)
Co-organizer: ot Summer in KYOTO, Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts, Wacoal Art Center, The Tsubouchi Memorial Theatre Museum, Global COE Programme, Dance Research Course, Waseda University, Kinki University International Center for Human Science, Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Cooperation: Aomori Public College Aomori Contemporary Art Centre AIR Committee (tentative), Contredanse, Videoda
Sponsor: Japan-United States Friendship Commission, Asian Cultural Council, The Saison Foundation

"Body as Interimage"

2009-04-20T01:32:02Z

At the occasion of the Steve Paxton exhibition, YCAM hosts a special exhibition introducing the works of three up-and-coming artists as a further step in the Center's exploration of "art, media and physical expression."
The "own body" and the "image of the body" have been rediscovered and exhaustively featured in media-based works of art. While focusing on the double quality of the body - the "Body as Interimage" - the event explores the possibilities and relationships between media technology and the human body today.

]]> ■Works in the exhibition
New installation work
newClear + Alessio Silvestrin "skinslides"［commissioned by YCAM］

Conceived as an interface for a permanent preservation of the dancer's movements, this video dane piece is based on the novel idea of producing images and sound first, and subsequently programming a data-choreography out of the single elements. Three displays are embedded in the venues floor, while sensors detect the visitors movements. The displays show vivid projections of the dancer's contact points with the floor and by moving around in the exhibition space, the visitor adds an element of chance to the generated sequences of footage on the displays. （All the sequences are consisted by five parts of scenes, which includes 55 footages.）The soundtrack is composed of the sounds of the body movements and of their contacts with the floor, and music performed by Otomo Yoshihide based on footage of body movements.

Construction: Richi Owaki
Performance: Alessio Silvestrin
Sound: Otomo Yoshihide
Programming: Satoshi Hama (YCAM InterLab)
Technical support: YCAM InterLab

New installation work
Shinichi Takashima "Pascal pass scale"

"Pascal pass scale"

One old and one new work themed on the human body and imagery are being displayed symmetrically in two separate exhibition booths, inspiring the visitor to think about the way we grasp things that are very familiar yet not directly perceivable. By assuming a situation in which body and space can only be dealt with in a prejudiced way, the piece pursues the question "how we can construct our edifice of ideas if neither the real world nor our own perception of it qualify as premises."

■Screening
Video Dance
Saburo Teshigawara "Friction of Time - perspective Study vol.2" （2008）

Saburo Teshigawara "Friction of Time - perspective Study vol.2"

Saburo Teshigawara, a world-renowned dancer and plastic artist who has also been involved with filmic art since the 1990s, produced a video piece in collaboration with the YCAM InterLab staff. Recorded with high-speed cameras as used in sports engineering, car safety experiments and space exploration among others, the artists produced a dance video that focuses on the human body from a new perspective, capturing in a beautiful way and down to the subtle motion of the muscles the movements of Teshigawara's dance.

Co-produced by KARAS, YCAM

Semitra Exhibition "tFont/fTime"

2009-04-10T04:54:29Z

"tFont/fTime" Exhibition website

First exhibition of Semitra, a group of creators combining great informational media sensibility and technology
"Typeface with a temporal element" themed displays at YCAM's exhibition space and on the Internet

"Semitransparent Design" is a creative team that has been connecting the realm of design with cutting-edge informational media technology in works ranging from web design to graphic and interactive design since starting off in 2003.
YCAM now presents "tFont/fTime", an exhibition of the "Semitra" group of artists that emerged from this collective.
Semitra have been attracting attention with their design work on various commercial websites, films, displays and other advertising media (digital signage). With a special focus on typeface design, this exhibition introduces a new work based on the unique idea of creating a font that changes hour by hour. The installation space creates unique typeface-scape which has connection to website in realtime, allowing visitors to participate/interact directly at the venue or via the Internet.

]]>
Design of Time × Font
Observing a continually transforming typeface in an installation and online

With a special focus on font design, this exhibition introduces new works based on the unique idea of a typeface that transforms hour by hour. Centering around four new installation pieces (shown at Studio B) incorporating the "tFont" typeface with an added element of time, as well as "fTime", which expresses time through typeface design, the exhibition allows the visitor to witness the generation and processing of this particular kind of font design via networks and visual relays. In addition, a number of large-sized signboards displayed in and outside the Center complete the ever-changing "fontscape" that pervades YCAM in a combination of real and informational environments dedicated entirely to the design of typeface and time.

Participate while viewing real-time images of the exhibition space via the Internet
An exhibition to be experienced from 12 locations in and around YCAM, and from your own computer

"tFont/fTime" stands for "time-font/font-time", and represents the result of an attempt to explore font design based on the novel idea of visualizing the transformation process of a gradually changing typeface.
The letters of messages supplied via a special website (http://www.semitraexhibition.com/) or email (m@semitra.com) become parts of artworks that ultimately emerge at YCAM's exhibition spaces. Messages are displayed in the original "tFont" typeface, and once placed on the "fTime" time axis, they are processed through visitors' actions and such media as cameras and monitors. The font's transformation process can also be observed in the form of "fontscapes" in images of the exhibition transmitted in real-time via the Internet. In addition to four new installation pieces exhibited at Studio B, these fontscapes unfurl at a total of twelve locations inside and outside the YCAM building, including the foyer and the Chuo Park.
All exhibited works are fed with common data of visitors' actions and supplied messages, which are then translated into configurations of typefaces, lighting, etc. to affect each respective work.

"tFont/fTime" Exhibition Works
(new work: commissioned by YCAM)
01. Movable Type（Studio B）* Live Straming
02. Typesetting（Studio B）*　Live Straming / Messages are displayed
03. California Job Case（Studio B）*　Live Straming
04. No Flash Photography Allowed（Studio B）*　Live Straming / Messages are displayed
05. LCD/CRT（Foyer）*
06. No Flash Photography Allowed - Projection（Foyer）*
07. Large Scaled Sign - LED（Foyer）
08. Large Scaled Sign - Sculpture（Central Park）
09. "tFont" Photograph Installation（Gallery second floor）
10. Large Projection from Studio B（Gallery second floor）*
11. Semitransparent Design's activities for Commercial Works（Information Space "BIT THINGS"）
12. Terminals for Access on the Web site（Information Space "BIT THINGS"）
* These works are linked each other and shared visual deterioration system on typeface by central server.

＜Main Woks＞
01. Movable Type

A font that can be played like music
Six turntables are set up in the exhibition space. Playing records on them triggers displays of letters from A to Z in alphabetical sequence on a screen in the front. By operating the turntable in a DJ-like "scratching" fashion, the visitor can change (distort) the shapes of the letters, and enjoy the resulting combinations of visuals and sounds demonstrating how this font design happens on a directionally manipulable time axis just like music or a movie.
At the same time, the letters gradually decompose during their repeated "playback" throughout the Center's opening hours. While the operation of the turntables results in a "distortion" that highlights a momentary relationship between the body and letters, the additional time axis introduced via the server causes further "decomposition". In this work, actual time as manipulated by the visitor overlaps with the notion of time added by the media, to produce a composite time axis that represents a new type of "fontscape".

02. Typesetting

Messages supplied via the Internet are displayed in the "tFont"
Text supplied via a special website or email address is displayed in the font that is concurrently designed in "Movable Type" (see above). In other words, this work synchronizes the timing of message posts to the website with the constantly updated data of the font's decomposition inside the exhibition space, in order to make participants' messages visible. Real-time footage of this process is streamed on the Internet, allowing those who posted messages to witness the decomposition process of their own letters in the physical exhibition space. The synchronized timelines interlinking the venue and the Internet, visitors and exterior participants, overlap with the aspect of time introduced through the media used, while the typeface's appearance keeps changing. The work as a whole can be interpreted as a visualization of the unique sensation of time in today's information society, along with the exchange of messages between an unspecified group of users.

03. California Job Case

Overlooking the transformation process of the original "tFont"
In this work, the visitor can observe the decomposition process of a font on a projected chart of letters (A-Z) and numbers (0-9). Manipulating the playback speed with a turntable results in a layering of multiple time axes that cause the typeface to change its appearance by the minute. The chart - in a sense a list of samples of the "tFont" - demonstrates on 33 examples how letters gradually transform into a distinctive font.

04. No Flash Photography Allowed

Messages that only become visible when photographed
Countless blinking dots of light representing text messages supplied via the exhibition's special website or email are being displayed on a screen in the original "tFont". The viewer can only read these messages by photographing the dots of lights and adding a temporal aspect to create an "animation". With an exposure time that is different to that of the human eye, the camera captures what seems like nothing but an accumulation of blinking lights, and reveals readable text information. The operation (photographing) of a third party as a subsequent creative/communicative element suggests an alternative form of creativity that, inspired by the unique sensitivity of skating and street culture, generates new scenarios in urban settings. This is the foundation the members of Semitra base their interpretation of the unique aspects of perception and speed in web design upon.

05. LCD/CRT
Experience a font that changes its appearance through media
This installation consists of a total of ten monitors (composed of both LCD and CRT) that display a font designed in "fTime". Here the decomposition process is demonstrated on single letters extracted from "fTime" (which is continuously updated at the exhibition space and via the Internet), appearing in random order and with varying speed on monitors with different reproduction systems and resolution. The work is a symbolic hint at the emerging various relationships between typeface, time and output media.

07/08.
Neon and other signs shaped like the exhibition's key letters

Large-sized displays in the shapes of the exhibition's key letters "T" (time) and "F" (font) are installed in the foyer. These T- and F-shaped objects are made of moving LEDs that change colors each time a message is posted via the exhibition's website. More huge Ts and Fs are placed in the Chuo Park, serving as benches among others. Visitors can enjoy the daily changing "fontscapes" of letters blending into the environment of the YCAM building and its surroundings.

12.
Website for message posts and real-time images from the exhibition
Websitehttp://www.semitraexhibition.com/
During the exhibition period, this special website can be used at any time to access the venue. Users who post messages can witness by way of real-time footage how the text they supplied is being displayed in a gradually transforming font.

"tFont" is a two-dimensional typeface with an added element of time. Dots of light arranged in seemingly random patterns describe in fact the shapes of letters that can only be read when photographed with long exposure. This typeface consists of dynamic and in their original state unreadable blinking lights, so it requires the additional step of photographing or filming in order to become readable. In other words, "tFont" is a typeface that was designed based on the premise of being shaped/modified by a third party. The web specific transmission of culture through shaping/modification that happens here hints at the various possibilities of creativity on the Internet.
The exhibition at YCAM this time is made up of an installation made out of the "tFont", and another one incorporating the newly developed "fTime". In the latter, the designers place a typeface on a time axis, and "play" the letters just as if they were playing music.
(Ryoji Tanaka / Semitra)

"tFont"

■Related Event

Opening Event : Artist Talk
Sep 19 (Sat), 2009 15:00-17:00 Venue: Foyer Admission Free
Panelist: Semitra Guest panelist: Yugo Nakamura (tha), Yosuke Abe (tha)
Moderator: Kazunao Abe (YCAM), Daiya Aida (YCAM)
Talk event in which the artists themselves discuss their work with guests Yugo Nakamura and Yosuke Abe from the noted web and interface design studio "tha ltd."

*Also planned is a workshop program, as well as a guided gallery tour and other related events.(For details, please check the website.)

Organizer: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promorion,
Agency for Cultural Affairs
Support: Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education
Sponsor: Color Kinetics Japan Incorporated
Produced by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]
Technical Support: YCAM InterLab
Curator: Kazunao Abe (YCAM)

Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala new sound installation "for maria installation version"

2009-04-10T04:53:29Z

Reverberating sound installed in YCAM's patios
Enjoy piano soundscapes you will not experienced elsewhere

The next work to be introduced in the "sound tectonics installation" series of media technology-based sound art taking place at YCAM's patios is a new sound installation made from piano recordings.
A unique piece of sound art that makes use of computers to charge music with aspects of spatial expansion and translocation, this brand new work based on high-grade piano recordings is introduced to visitors in the familiar setting of YCAM's own recreation oases. Come and explore the fascination of sound art in an exhibition that showcases the multifarious ways of spatial representation of the piano's timbre.

]]> Opening up new artistic and technical horizons for originality in sound art

Since its establishment, YCAM has been exploring the original expressive potential of electronic music and sound art. When focusing on the usage of media technology not only in video and other forms of visual expression, but especially also on its function in the realm of sound, we can perceive temporal and spatial acoustic qualities that haven't previously existed in art. This series pursues the new possibilities of artistic expression that emerge when the human senses of vision, hearing and touch are reconsidered on an equal level.
These possibilities include among others the installation of a 5.1 channel sound system that creates a unique acoustic sensation of sound "welling up from the floor" of the glass-walled patios, which generate the YCAM foyer's pleasantly relaxing atmosphere. The idea behind the "sound tectonics installation" series is to produce in the unique environment of these patios opportunities for visitors to appreciate sound art in a daily life setting.
Such commissioned works are created and exhibited at YCAM with the ultimate aim to establish a "platform" for expanding the possibilities of artistic experience and expression through the dialogue with artists and their works.

Commissioned sound art series at YCAM's patios "sound tectonics installation"
#1. Taylor Deupree + Christopher Willits
"LISTENING GARDEN" (2004)

new sound installation [commissioned by YCAM]
Keiichiro Shibuya + evala
"for maria installation version"

A sound space filled with processed, decomposed and reconfigured piano sounds
This sound installation piece is based on data taken from the latest piano solo album "ATAK015 for maria", composed and performed by musician Keiichiro Shibuya. Sound data of all pieces included in the CD were repeatedly processed, decomposed and reconfigured with a computer program, introducing new layers in order to redefine the relationships between the single tracks, and ultimately create a body of sound that is completely different from the CD's contents.
Two versions of the work are installed in two of the YCAM's Patios, known for their unique "wall of sound" effect, using 5.1/5.1+2 channel speakers with a distinctive sound embedded in the floor. In response to the Patios' different architecture and spatial acoustics, the respective installations work with differently programmed sound. The programming by Shibuya himself together with sound artist evala was designed to create a sense of three-dimensional movement within a constantly transforming sound space and shifting sonic layers.
Fragments of a high-quality DSD recording (128 times higher resolution compared to a conventional CD) of Shibuya's piano performance were processed, decomposed and layered with a special computer program, with the aim to establish a sonic environment in which sound seems to be traveling three-dimensionally. As the resolution of the original sound recording is on a totally different level from commonly used field recording or computer music data, the work was artfully conceived as an endless process of continuous transformation of sound that pervades the space as organically as smoke. Employing computer programs to fully explore the possibilities of spatial expansion, the sound processing is so complex and diverse that it is hard to believe that it is all based on the same data, presenting the visitor with music and sound that seems absolutely new. Listening to the sound as it moves around inside the Patios gives the visitor an acoustic experience of a soundscape that is perfectly unique to this exhibition.

Keiichiro Shibuya + evala
Keiichiro Shibuya and evala are two of the driving forces behind ATAK, a label that has been attracting attention around the world with releases of elaborately produced experimental music. Having initiated the "third term music" project with Takashi Ikegami, a scholar in the field of complex systems science and professor at Tokyo University, they keep operating on the cutting edge of computer music. In 2006, they unveiled "filmachine", a three-dimensional sound installation created in-residence at YCAM. This piece was awarded an Honorary mention in the Digital Music section at Ars Electronica, and subsequently exhibited in Berlin. A worldwide tour of the "ATAK NIGHT4" live music event in 2009 helped solidify the artists' international reputation, and expand the range of their influence.
The new work that is unveiled at YCAM this time marks for both artists the first occasion to build a sound installation out of piano sounds, and focus on sound (through a 5.1 channel speaker system) alone without adding visuals.

Organizer: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promorion
Support: Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education
Cooperation: ATAK
Technical Support: YCAM InterLab
Produced by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]

Seiko Mikami ＋ Sota Ichikawa "gravicells - gravity and resistance" [revised version]

2009-04-10T04:51:19Z

This interactive artwork that was produced and unveiled at YCAM returns to Yamaguchi from a journey around the world
Up-and-coming female artist's extensive solo show

Seiko Mikami continues to produce works of art that challenge her contemporaries, while critically observing technologies and the ideas behind them with a focus on "information society and the human body" since the 1980s. In connection with the large-scale solo exhibition that opens in March 2010. Also Seiko Mikami and Sota Ichikawa's "gravicells - gravity and resistance" will be shown once again in a revised version.
This work was produced and subsequently unveiled at YCAM in May 2004, from where it embarked on a journey around the world. Celebrated exhibitions at twelve different locations in eight countries, including Tokyo, Berlin and Torino, solidified the piece's reputation as one representative work of media art. This work provides a space with hypothetical dynamics having the opposing forces of gravity and resistance, through special devices and sensors. Walking freely in the site, audiences are able to feel gravity that they are seldom aware of, resistance to it, and the effects caused by other participants. All movements and changes made by participating audiences are transformed into the movements of sound and geometrical images through special sensors,.whole space develops or changes in this interactive installation.

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New creation of media art through the production, exhibition and circulation of original works
YCAM organize original art works on the theme of "art & science" are being conceived while incorporating information technology, and realized and exhibited with the YCAM InterLab production team's technical developments. Aiming to explore the creative potential of media technology, the numerous works of art that were previously created here highlight at once aspects of the human body and media that we are usually not aware of.
One of these achievements, "gravicells" is certainly an epoch-making interactive work that enables the participating audiences to sense the presence of gravity and its effect on the human body. This artwork that anyone can enjoy without background knowledge in media art and computer, it has been set up in twelve cities in eight countries so far, and continues to fascinate people around the world.

World premiere of the revised version

Significant modifications made to enhance the dynamic expression of spatial distortion
The new version of "gravicells" modified and made even more dynamic by the artists with technical support from the YCAM InterLab team. In addition to visuals projected onto the floor, the revised version introduces projections onto four screens that enclose the space. The interlinked visual transformations now take place on a total of five surfaces, resulting in a significantly improved three-dimensional perception from various angles of the spatial deformation caused by the audience's movements and the effect of gravity.

revised version (2010)

(2004)

about this work
The spatial expression of "gravicells" is rendered consistently by the real time calculation of the dynamics. The on-going dynamic movements are composed of the counter powers around gravity. Gravity is not materialized without the reaction force. In this artwork, it is possible for us to develop a new human sense through feeling gravity differently than usual and having new perception of body. The work provides a space with hypothetical dynamics having the opposing forces of gravity and resistance, through special devices and sensors.
Walking freely in the site, audiences are able to feel gravity that they are seldom aware of, resistance to it, and the effects caused by other participants. All movements and changes made by participating visitors are transformed into the movements of sound and geometrical images through the sensors, so that the whole space develops or changes in this interactive installation. Stand or move around on this unstable flat floor (6m x 6m), and audience are participating in the installation. Each participant becomes "an observation point," and another participant joins to make "plural moving observation points." The number of participants at a time is not limited. On the floor are placed 225 units of 40cm x 40cm cell-like grids, in which specially developed sensors are fixed to detect instantly and continuously the changing position, weight, and speed. Additionally, the position of the exhibition space is simultaneously measured by GPS, and with plural linked GPS satellites as part of the work and the moving direction of GPS is shown as the locus. Then the dynamics of GPS is turned into a simultaneously moving site, and thus the installation space involves the outside environment.

"gravicells - gravity and resistance" tour schedule
＝Premiere＝
2004.5.15-6.20　Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]　StudioB
2004.11.9 -11.21　DEAF04 (Rotterdam, Netherlands)
2005.2.4-8　transmediale 2005　(Berlin, Germany)
2005.2.24-3.1　Share Festival (Torino, Italy)
2005.3.10-3.20　VIA 05 (Maubeuge, France)
2005.3.30-4.9　EXIT 05 (Creteil, France)
2005.9.1-19　Ars Electronica 2005 (Linz, Austria)
2005.11.23-12.25　"Possible Futures:" NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] (Tokyo, Japan)
2006.9.20-10.29　O.O.H 06 festival, Centro de Cultura Antiguo Instituto (Gijon, Spain)
2007.2.22-3.7　Mois Multi, salle Multi et le Studio d'essai de la Cooperative Meduse (Montreal, Canada)
2007.4.27-6.27　el medio es la comunicación ElTanque, Espacio Cultural El TAnque (Canaryls lands, Spain)
2008.4.19-2009.2.28　"Open Space 2008" NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] (Tokyo, Japan)
＝This exhibition＝
2010.1.24-5.9　Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]　StudioB

Organized by: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
In association with: Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education
Grants from: THE ASAHI SHIMBUN FOUNDATION
Support: Tama Art University: Media Art Lab.
Produced by: Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]
Co-developed with: YCAM InterLab
Curator: Kazunao Abe (YCAM)

Seiko Mikami "Desire of Codes"

2009-04-10T03:40:10Z

The desire of encoding vs. the human body's refusal of being coded

Seiko Mikami creates precise depictions of the gradually transforming relationship between information technology and sensory perception in artworks focusing from unique perspectives on the human body and its forms of existence. This retrospective overview of her activities is a large-scale solo exhibition centering around a new installation piece (commissioned by and created at YCAM), shown here along with two related new works.

Reference photo: Seiko MIkami new installation "Desire of Codes" (commisioned YCAM) test image

The new piece titled "Desire of Codes", exhibited at YCAM's Studio A with 3 different pieces. One is consists of a wall installation of objects responding to the movements of audiences (see photo), "laser projector" was equipped with 6 robot arms are follow the movement of the audience from the ceiling and special 3.5m screen that resembles an insect's multifaceted eye. The entire inorganic apparatus begins to move like a wriggling living being according to the motion detected by built-in small surveillance camera in the exhibition space. The images recorded by these cameras are mixed with footage from surveillance cameras installed at places around the world. Create own database of audience's images the resulting fragmentary recombinations of time and space are projected onto a large insect eyes compound screen.
The central theme of this exhibition is the state of a society in which programming languages, genetic codes, personal information, and even matters of individual interest and taste are being converted into codes. Audience who experience this artwork stands face to face with his or her own observed and encoded existence, the resulting data/codes, and ultimately, the repercussions of "the body as data" and "the desire of codes." By turning the audiences bodies into both the objects of observation and artistic expression, this work aims to redefine our position in a time when all kinds of environments - including those of everyday life - are increasingly being information oriented society.
*Details will be announced in early February.

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Organized by: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
In association with: Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education
Grants from: THE ASAHI SHIMBUN FOUNDATION
Corporate sponsor: Microvision, Inc.
Support: Tama Art University: Media Art Lab.
The University of Tokyo, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, Department of General Systems Studies, Ikegami lab.
ATAK, DGN co.,ltd.
Produced by: Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]

Co-developed with: YCAM InterLab
Curator: Kazunao Abe (YCAM)

YUDA ART PROJECT "Artist Talk"

2008-11-11T13:36:38Z

YUDA ART PROJECT
Related Events

This artist talk holds the presentations and discussion with three participating art group, exonemo, SHINCHIKA, and United visual Artists.

Subject to discussion: The meaning of art with media technology in public space.
]]> Guests: exonemo, SHINCHIKA, United Visual Artists
Moderator: Kazunao Abe (YCAM)
＊ English/Japanese consecutive translation

YUDA ART PROJECT

2008-11-11T12:48:41Z

YUDA ART PROJECT unfolds in the town of Yuda Onsen in Yamaguchi.

Three groups of up-coming artists who are actively working at home and abroad use media technologies (image, sound, network, etc.) to produce new works on the theme of light and interaction, and each of the three artist groups shows their work at a different place.

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exonemo [JP]
renewal version, commissioned by YCAM
The Terminal for Pilgrimage
Venue: Yuda hot spring area

A stroll around Yuda Onsen looking for art works

While making their original portraits by using the special photographing and printing terminals (photo booths) installed at four places in Yuda Onsen, participants can enjoy this work strolling around the town of Yuda. Citizens as well as tourists of Yuda Onsen can make their unique souvenir photos by using this work. At each terminal, participants can photograph only photos of faces and fragments of the background scenery. When they go through all terminals taking a photo on the same paper each time, all fragments are connected so as to complete their original portraits. In addition, those portraits are transmitted to the Internet server, and consequently they become "new faces of the town," going beyond each participant's specific character, to be shown on a huge screen set in downtown Yuda Onsen during the exhibition period every night. Participants can experience via this work the encounters between people and the town as well as people and people at crossovers of space and time.
The Terminal for Pilgrimage web site

SHINCHIKA [JP]
new work, commissioned by YCAM
Tour of ☆ FOOT-SPA Timer
Venue: Yuda foot-bathes hot springs

By up-and-coming artist units, Footbath Project

The Yuda footbath hot springs where many tourists and local residents come and relax are used. What is proposed in this work is a new space for communication through image expressions by using monitors and projections. In this animation film appears an animation character original to "YUDA ART PROJECT" produced by SHINCHIKA. The theme is the relation between "town" and "individual," and the character develops a fictional story navigating the original promotional movie. This animation of a new style blending different types of expression from two-dimensional illustrations to three-dimensional computer graphics will renovate the footbath hot springs.

United Visual Artists [UK]
new work, commissioned by YCAM
Array
Venue: Chuya Nakahara Memorial Museum

The latest work of British artists using the whole outer garden of Chuya Nakahara Memorial Museum.

London-based United Visual Artists (UVA) work primarily with light as their medium. UVA, who are actively working worldwide, have produced a new installation for this exhibition. The whole outer garden of Chuya Nakahara Memorial Museum located in the central part of Yuda hot springs is the setting for the exhibition. The installation is a responsive work utilising elegant pillars of LED light and sound that rely on ultra sonic sensors to detect human presence. A forest like sculptural grid will echo the form of the garden, drawing the audience into the space. Inhabiting the work is an ephemeral spirit that reveals itself unexpectedly and then, like many of its kind disappears as you try to approach it. UVA have attracted attention by their unique image expression and formative design for public installation works such as 'Volume' at the V&A Museum in London and also for their live show design for musicians such as Massive Attack & &U2. This year in Roppongi Hills, Tokyo UVA were commissioned to create the installation 'Contact' for the opening of the UKJP08 programme by The British Council. Their works reflect changes in the audience and the surrounding environment. They show such a high degree of perfection that they are talked about a lot all over the world. UVA have always created innovative trials to challenge the established concepts. This time, there is every reason to expect that they will successfully meet our expectations with their installation in a public space of Chuya Nakahara Memorial Museum.

Installation from Battles Tonto by UVA Photo: John Adrian

Organizer: Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Support: Yamaguchi City Board of Education, UK-JAPAN2008
Co-sponcer: Agency for Cultural Affairs
Special Support: British Council
Sponsorship: SHIMADA CORPORATION
Cooperation: Yuda support committee
Produced by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]

minimum interface

2008-10-14T15:28:04Z

A look at communication design from the position of the interface
The theme of this exhibition, "the future of the interface," was chosen to reflect the particular cultural diverseness of today's information society. On display are a variety of works from the fields of film, photography, animation, sound, architectural sculpture, product design and others, selected based on the principles of "art + physical expression" as an original discipline pioneered by YCAM. A total of eight artists/units from Japan, America, Netherlands, and Spain present their newest pieces of art and design - including commissioned works - at several points across the venue.

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Connections established through media and the human body

The term "interface" is generally used to refer to a device that a person uses for navigating a computer. The keyboard, for example, connects the user's thoughts with the computer, functioning as a writing tool instead of a pen, but from a different point of view, one can also interpret it as an instrument that expands the abilities of the human body by way of the act of writing. Different ideas and systems are interlinked through the existence of an "inter-face", and the resulting communication makes us aware of new body sensations and images we aren't normally conscious of, while highlighting the connections between body and mind. By approaching the dynamic relationship of the body and its perceptions from the viewpoint of interface-based perceptive affordance, this exhibition aims to showcase the variety of spatial setups effected by the artworks on display. Visitors are invited to experience visually, acoustically and tactually some truly unique ideas for interfaces connecting media technology and the human body.

An exhibition to design the relationship between artworks and audiences

"Minimum Interface" tackles the subject matter with the aim to encourage a redefinition of the relationship between exhibit and audience, and to review the role of an art center. Regarding the navigation plan for the exhibition as a meta-interface for the works on display, the event proposes an original interpretation of the presence and flow of information at the venue from this perspective. The show adopts a unique interface/navigation tool for the entire exhibition space, designed by the partaking members of Leading Edge Design, as an attempt to give visitors an opportunity to discover and unlock new channels of sensation and active conception.

＜Artists＞
Sergi Jordà, Martin Kaltenbrunner, Günter Geiger, Marcos Alonso
(Music Technology Group,Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain) [Spain]
reacTable
The reacTable has been receiving international attention since it was used on stage during the "Volta" concert tour of the renowned singer Björk. At this exhibition, the instrument is introduced in the form of a hands-on installation that allows visitors to get in touch and play with it. The player of this novel kind of electronic musical instrument can manipulate sounds and its visual representations by moving or turning multiple objects on
an illuminated round tabletop. Sonic and eventually musical structures are created based on the objects' orientation, distance and the relationship between them. The instrument can be played by two or more
persons at once, while the spectators can monitor the other's performance and tangible manipuation of the sound elements, in order to study and acquire performance skills intuitively.

reacTable (2003-2006) photo: Xavier Sivecas

Daan Roosegaarde [Netherlands]
new work (commissioned by YCAM)
Liquid Space 6.0
This organically configured architectural object is slightly bigger that a human body.
When a visitor approaches the object, sensors measure the position and distance from the object, and trigger an expansion or contraction of the three-armed structure, comparable to an underwater creature. In addition, LEDs integrated in the arms emit differently colored lights, while sound coming from the object's body change accordingly. The visitor can observe the transformations of the large object's shape and spatial construction that take place when he approaches or walks through it.

Liquid Space 6.0 by Studio Roosegaarde

Akihiro Kubota [Japan]
new work (commissioned by YCAM)
Pureφ- Abstract Painterly Interface
A dynamic pictorial image is projected onto a large screen as an abstract interface. Without using diagramatic graphical user interfaces (GUI) as symbols or icons, the random dot image that looks like mere noise when motionless is mixtured through optical flows. With this new piece, the artist explores minimal interface affordance by stimulating direct perceptional interaction out of rapidly transforming textures.

LEADING EDGE DESIGN [Japan]
Floating Compass
LEADING EDGE DESIGN have been focusing on future-oriented product design while consciously integrating aspects of human physicality and the way we relate to objects around us. This time the group propose a new interface for the navigation of the entire exhibition space. The display that lacks conventional explanatory elements is expected to unlock new sensual and intellectual channels in the visitor. Also exhibited is a work titled "Floating Compass", based on superhydrophobic technology to convey through a water strider motif the delicate sensation of "touching" a water surface.

Floating Compass (2007)　photo: Yukio Shimizu

Zachary Lieberman, Theodore Watson [USA]
new work (commissioned by YCAM)
Card play
This work is based around an interface in the form of a card game - a magician's tool for catapulting aspects of chance and destiny into the realm of the unreal. The installation invites visitors to become illusionists and perform all kinds of magic tricks. Turning over playing cards switches on music or introduces a story. The American leading program developers and media artists have unveiled another fun piece for people of all ages to enjoy.

SHINCHIKA [Japan]
new work (commissioned by YCAM)
H2Orz
Shinchika extract a variety of designs from Japanese subculture between the 1980s and today, and string them together to unique animated films combining elements of illustration and 3D computer graphics. This time they present a sculptural installation of objects that were plastically modeled after blueprints based on data from their own animations. Here the visuals as such integrate different methods and forms of spatial representation, to form interfaces depicting parts of reality.

JSCO (2008)

Chris Sugrue [USA]
Delicate Boundaries
Small bugs are wriggling on a computer screen. When a visitor touches the screen, the bugs gather at that contact point, jump out of the computer and onto the visitorﾕs hand, and crawl up his arm. The artist employs dexterously programmed sensing technology to explore the boundary that separates/connects virtual existences with physical bodies in the real world.

Delicate Boundaries (2007)

Shunsuke Takawo [Japan]
new version
Depth of the Field - Processing Photography Blink Series
Humans receive visual information while involuntarily opening and shutting their eyelids. This photographic installation works with sensors that were programmed to detect the blinking of a human's eyes, using the eyelid as an interface to manipulate the speed of a sequence of projected photographs. The images are shown on monitors of two different sizes, enabling the visitor to compare how the visual perception and experience of the photographs changes according to varying affordance and the amount of information perceivable on the monitor.

Processing Photography (2008)

Organizer: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Co-sponsor：Agency for Cultural Affairs Support: Yamaguchi City, The Board of Education of Yamaguchi City
Produced by: Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]
Graphic Design: good design company
Navigation Design: LEADING EDGE DESIGN
Project Curato: Kazunao Abe (YCAM)

OTOMO YOSHIHIDE / ENSEMBLES

2008-06-13T02:24:01Z

Otomo Yoshihide is an artist who is always pursuing sound on an experimental basis in varied areas of music, such as free jazz, improvisation, noise music, contemporary music, electronic music, and film music. Performing the mediamix of space and image in the comprehensive world of sound in a multifaceted way, Otomo presents four new installations as YCAM-commissioned work.

The concept of this event is that "ENSEMBLES" composed of many people are brought together in further plurality. Musicians, sound creators and visual artists in and outside Japan produce various collaborations together with citizens to resonate with all the audience. Please come and enjoy a new landscape that will be open to the view when people come together and mingle.
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installtion 1:
quartets (new work)

Period/Time: July 5 (Sat.) - September 23 (Tue. ) /12:00-19:00
*The period is changed from September 15 (Mon. ) to September 23 (Tue. ).
Venue: Studio B
Participating artists:
quartet A: Otomo Yoshihide (JP)＋Axel Dörner (GE)＋Martin Brandlmayr (AT)＋Sachiko M (JP)
quartet B: Kahimi Karie (JP)＋Ishikawa Ko (JP)＋Ichiraku Yoshimitsu (JP)＋Jim O'Rourke (USA)Kimura Yuki (JP) [video-shooting and direction] ＋Benedict Drew (UK) [object and image]＋Hirakawa Norimichi (JP) [programming, system]

Nearly life-sized silhouettes of musicians are projected on each side of a white cube (3.3m square and 2.5m tall) placed in the center of the hall. On the screen on each wall facing the cube are projected details of objects made of wood, iron, liquid, etc. and those materials vibrate to the sound produced by the musicians who are projected.
Each of four musicians is projected on a side of the cube. Either of two quartets, A or B, starts performing, and as time passes, players in A and B change places or interfere with each other. Consequently, the performances of A and B are blended or combined at random, and each time a totally new quartet comes to exist. Since visitors can look at only one side of the cube at a time, they can listen to the sounds played by all the players but can't see their figures all together simultaneously.

installtion 2:
orchestras(new work)
Period/Time: August 23 (Sat.) - October 13 (Mon.) /12:00-19:00
Venue: Studio A
Participatign artists:
Otomo Yoshihide＋Takamine Tadasu + many musicians

This exhibit is a sound installation created in collaboration with Takamine Tadasu, an artist of contemporary art, in which waste wood and beams of light are used. In the space of Studio A are all kinds of waste wood, objects, and speakers of various kinds. Placed in the center is an equipment that reflects light on them with mirrors, and the beams of light fly about in the space. Sounds are emitted from the objects searched by the beams, and while each part resonates, visitors can experience the sound of a compound orchestra. There is an installation that contains many electric guitars on the bottom of the semi-basement, and the feedbacks by the guitars are sometimes heard from there. Visitors can go down to that basement and walk about. In the recording of the sound sources, about a hundred people ranging from professional musicians of different genres to local amateur players participated and performed solos. Visitors can enjoy listening to this orchestration in which various sounds get entwined at random from different speakers hanging in space.

*Please note that as a live concert is scheduled on Saturday, August 23, Studio A is closed at 16:00 on the day due to the live concert.

Temporary closure of Studio A:
Date/Time: 16:00-19:00 Saturday, August 23, 2008

installation 3:
without records (new version)
Period/Time: July 5 (Sat.) - October 13 (Mon. ) / 10:00-20:00
Venue: Foyer, Gallery 2F, and Courtyard
Paticipating artists:
Otomo Yoshihide＋Aoyama Yasutomo

In this installation, there are about a hundred portable record players without records, but equipped with unusual materials such as corrugated paper or iron. In the space of the foyer, turntables scattered everywhere, high and low, right and left, produce noises by the rotating friction, resonating in multilayer. Quiet, low-fi sounds form groups and change the entire image of sounds. When visitors move the position of a player or replace the needle, an additional new world of sound appears. In the gallery on the second floor is a new installation, which disassembles turntable functions and hi-fi sound is output.
These installations provide people with an opportunity to reconsider the meaning, possibilities, and historical significance of sound art composed of records and turntables, which are being consigned to oblivion in the digital age.
(This work is a great renewal of the work exhibited in sendai mediatheque in 2007.)
The system has been jointly developed with YCAM InterLab.

hyper wr player - without records hi-fi version -

August 23 (sat.) - October 13 (mon.)
Gallery 2F

What is the sound that a record player has in itself? Adopting today's state-of-the-art technologies to the full, this work "without record player" is based on the concept of "without records," which uses only old portable record players and has been evolved through stages. This hyper-version performs deconstruction and reconstruction in the current perspective, taking away the recorded media (records) of a record player, the origin of recording media.

installation 4:
filaments(new work)
Period/Time: July 5 (Sat.) - October 13 (Mon. ) / Mon-Fri:19:00-, Sat, Sun, national holidays and library closing days:17:00-
Venue: Yamaguchi City Central Library in YCAM
Paticipating artists:
Filament [Otomo Yoshihide＋Sachiko M]

Four speakers are set up in the library. The quiet sound of Filament flows for an hour after the library is closed. While small LED lights set on the bookshelves in the library flash repeatedly, the sound fragments intertwine at random, sometimes in the volume hardly noticeable and sometimes within a barely audible frequency range. Listening carefully, you will hear Filament's ensemble in the ambient noise.

scopic measure #08 Satoru Higa "VP4L"

2008-05-03T02:34:16Z

"VP4L" is a work in which you interface with a sound space to be developed and programmed according to the motion and the position of the body. It is an installation developed from "VP3L (Visual Programming in 3D Landscape)" based on the space concept. ]]>
Organizer: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Produced by: Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM)
Technical support: YCAM InterLab

scopic measure #07 Tomoya Watanabe "IAMTVTUNERINTERFACE"

2008-05-03T02:10:53Z

This interactive installation deals with TV broadcasting as material, one of the most universal media in our daily life, and reveals how TV can be different from the conventional one through realtime demolition / reconstruction made possible by using information technology.
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This structural body that is continuously generated in front of the audience can be compared to sediment, and is one of the symbols representing TV broadcasting that is constantly discharging information regardless of our will in everyday life. This work is also a homage to the non-interactive system called ground wave TV broadcasting that had finished its role prior to the appearance of the Internet, though the introduction of various possibilities was examined such as conversion to an interactive system.

Commanding a bird-eye view or looking up at this structural body, the audience will be able to find out about a tacit "atmosphere" surrounding us, of which we cannot make mention in everyday life.

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Mitokomon Ketsujin no maki"

2010-02-24T01:39:53Z

1935/NIKKATSU-KYOTO/70min
Directed by:Ryohei Arai
adaptation:Sadao Yamanaka
Cast:Denjiro Okouchi

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Kochiyama Sousyun"

2010-02-24T01:33:58Z

1936/NIKKATSU-KYOTO/81min
Directed by:Sadao Yamanaka
Cast:Chojuro Kawarazaki

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Tangesazenyowa hyakumanryo no tsubo"

2010-02-24T01:21:37Z

1935/NIKKATSU-KYOTO/91min
Directed by : Sadao Yamanaka
Cast : Denjiro Okouchi

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Yamanaka Sadao no Parapara manga anime"

2010-02-23T02:19:00Z

2.3min/Kyotohu Kyoto bunkahakubutsukan

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Sadao nisan no koto-Sugao no Yamanaka Sadao"

2010-02-23T02:15:00Z

2009/60min
Cast:Michiko Harada,Tadao Sato

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Sono zenya"

2010-02-23T02:09:39Z

1939/TOHO EIGA/86min
Directed by Ryo Hagiwara
Original bill：Sadao Yamanaka
Screenplay:Kinpachi Kajiwara
Cast:Chojuro Kawarazaki

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Sengoku guntoden[Sosyuhen]"

2010-02-23T02:01:10Z

1937/P.C.L./101min
Directed by Esuke Takizawa
Adaptation:Kinpachi Kajiwara
Cast:Chojuro Kawarazaki

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Ninjyo Kamifusen"

2010-02-23T01:56:15Z

1937/P.C.L./86min
Directed by Sadao Yamanaka
Cast:Chojuro Kawarazaki

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Daibosatsutoge Dai ippen Kougenittoryu no maki"

2010-02-23T01:48:42Z

1935/NIKKATSU-KYOTO/77mi
Directed by Hiroshi Inagaki
Directed(Help)by Sadao Yamanaka,Ryohei Arai
Cast:Denjiro Okouchi

"4 Nights with Anna"

2010-01-15T14:56:53Z

4 Nights with Anna / Cztery noce z Anna
2008／94min／Poland・France
Directed by　Jerzy Skolimowski
Cast : Artur Steranko

Select CINE TECTONICS=9 Jacques Tachi "SOIGNE TON GAUCHE""L' ÉCOLE DES FACTEURS""JOUR DE FÊTE "

2010-01-15T14:40:46Z

■SOIGNE TON GAUCHE
1936／12min／Franc
directed byRené Clément
Cast : Jacques Tachi

■L' ÉCOLE DES FACTEURS
1947／13min／France
Directed by Jacques Tachi
Cast: Jacques Tachi

■JOUR DE FÊTE
1994(Monochrome：1949 Monochrome　and color：1964)／80min／France
Directed by Jacques Tachi
Cast: Jacques Tachi

Select CINE TECTONICS=9 Jacques Tachi "PLAY TIME"

2010-01-15T14:37:58Z

PLAY TIME
1967／125min／France
Directed by Jacques Tachi
Cast : Jacques Tachi

Select CINE TECTONICS=9 Jacques Tachi "MON ONCLE"

2010-01-15T14:34:29Z

MON ONCLE
1958／110min／France
Directed by Jacques Tachi
Cast : Jacques Tachi

Select CINE TECTONICS=9 Jacques Tachi "LES VACANCES DE MONSIEUR HULOT""COURS DU SOIR"

2010-01-15T14:23:25Z

■LES VACANCES DE MONSIEUR HULOT
1953／83min／France
Directed by Jacques Tachi
Cast : Jacques Tachi

■COURS DU SOIR
1967／27min／France
Directed byNicolas Lvovski
Cast : Jacques Tachi

Suzuki×Suzuki−Noribumi Suzuki Retrospective　−"Bungakusyo satsujinjiken Oinaru jyosou"

2010-01-15T14:18:10Z

1989／129min
Directed by Noribumi Suzuki
Cast : Koichi Sato

Gallery Tour - "gravicells - gravity and resistance"

2010-01-11T00:34:19Z

Free gallery tour appreciating works with expert staff
Through the tours, participants will discover together with YCAM educational staff, most attractive features of the exhibition.

Gallery Tour - Semitra Exhibition "tFont/fTime"

2009-12-28T02:53:58Z

Gallery tour appreciating works while discussing with YCAM educational staff.

Workshop "typo DJ"

2009-11-15T09:49:11Z

Be a DJ and play with "imagery & music" using DVJ system where you can edit sound as well as images.
Learning basic deejaying techniques and spinning records rounds off
the visitor's experience of a new design idea involving time and audiovisual elements.

HIFANA
Duo comprised of Keizo and Juicy, formed in 1998.
Known for highly original live performances centering around rhythms
created with electronic musical devices, percussion instruments and
turntables (scratching).
"Hifana" is a native Okinawan word for "southern wind".

IZPON
Percussionist / producer.
Known as the basist and producer of a garage band "The Flamenco A Go Go" where they established international reputations. Afterwards lived in Cuba for 5 years to learn Bata Drum with one of the most important Bata player, Angel Bolaños. Currently involved in various band activities as well as music projects as a producer.

Dance workshop "How unrestricted a thing dance really is!"

2009-06-18T06:59:45Z

This workshop with Yoko Higashino, an artist who has been showing performance of various styles at theatres, clubs and other types of venues, offers basic dance lessons, and a peek into the world of improvised performance. Once the participants are made aware of their bodies' characteristic features and senses, they will learn to work out their own individual dance styles in relation with their (human, acoustic and spatial) environment.

Supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2009
Sponsorship: Toyota Motor Corporation

Summer holiday workshop "Keitai Spy Workshop"

2009-06-14T14:30:00Z

Play tag and encounter the rules and manners of media society
"Keitai Spy Workshop", one of the most popular of all original workshops held at YCAM so far, returns for a ten-day event this summer. A game of tag played using cell phones' built-in cameras, including the rulemaking process, provides hints at the real life rules and manners in media society. Their continuous experience of playing, rulemaking and discussing will introduce the participants to ways of utilizing new media.

"YCAM Back Stage Tour 2009"

2009-06-14T14:25:51Z

"YCAM Work-in-residence" is a program in which internationally operating artists stay at YCAM, and realize original works together with the "InterLab" expert production team. Held again this year is the very popular "backstage tour" event that allows visitors to observe the creation process. This time it's the making of a new piece by theatre company Marebito-no-Kai that participants can witness, while at once learning about the mechanisms of sound and lighting as parts of a theatrical production.

Supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2009
Co-sponsor: Japan Foundation for Regional Art-Activities (JAFRA), The Asahi Beer Arts Foundation

Search engine workshop "Search'n Search"

2009-06-14T14:05:48Z

How "Googling" reveals the connection between society and media
This workshop aims to shed light on the mechanisms and functions of online search engines ‒ tools we have come to use frequently since the popularization of the Internet. This is not a course that teaches participants methods of searching the Internet more effectively, but that focuses by way of card games on the invisible mechanisms at work in search engines. The ultimate goal is to "search" for the connection between society and media.

Theatre workshop / Workshop for aspiring expert theatre viewers

2009-06-14T14:00:00Z

Workshop for aspiring expert theatre viewers
This workshop teaches participants about "subjects" and "expression" in theatre, with the aim to hone expert viewing skills. By interpreting classical texts with a contemporary mindset, participants will discuss the issue of "subjects" in theatre, and investigate the characteristics of the body, text, imagery, and other media used in theatre productions, in order to find our more about means of "expression." The idea is to help attendants understand the literary and artistic qualities of a play, with a lecture based on stock footage, as well as practical exercise in physical expression. As participants will do some basic acting in order to improve their viewing rather than acting skills, acting experience is not necessary.

Supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2009

Lecture "A playwright/director shares his thoughts: Where do the voices come from?"

2009-06-13T08:02:22Z

Lecture with Masataka Matsuda (Marebito-no-Kai), who will unveil his new work created in residence at YCAM in 2009
Playwright/director Masataka Matsuda (Marebito-no-Kai), a leading figure in the Japanese theatre scene from the '90s up to the present, and winner of multiple theatre prizes including the annual Kunio Kishida Play Award (Kishida Kunio Gikyoku-shô), holds a lecture prior to his residency at YCAM. While shedding light on Marebito-no-Kai's unique theatrical approach by discussing "whom the voices and vocabularies of actors belong to," and "how they are expressed on stage," Matsuda will talk about the background and appeal of his newest creation, which will be officially unveiled at YCAM.

Supported by the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2009
Co-sponsor: Japan Foundation for Regional Art-Activities (JAFRA), The Asahi Beer Arts Foundation

Gallery Tour

2009-06-05T03:24:39Z

This event aims to communicate the theme of this exhibition along with basic knowledge about contemporary dance. Through the experience of both lecture and displays, participants will discover together with YCAM's expert staﬀ the central, most attractive features of the exhibition.
＊Application: Please visit YCAM 1F Ticket Information 30 minutes before the start

"YCAM Chat vol.7 - How to achieve the 'never seen anything like this' effect on stage"

2009-02-07T11:26:48Z

The YCAM Chat is a casual event for newcomers to the world of stage art, and everybody else with an interest in performing arts. YCAM's theatre experts explain in a relaxed atmosphere the main attractions of such stage-based disciplines as dance, theatre or performance. This next installment will allow participants to catch a glimpse of Strange Kinoko Dance Company and plaplax as both groups put the finishing touches on their latest co-production. ]]>
　1. Name in full
　2. Address; with telephone number, e-mail address.
　3. Number of people taking part in this workshop

7-7 Nakazono-cho, Yamaguchi, 753-0075 JAPAN
Attn: educational staff "YCAM Chat vol.7 - How to achieve the 'never seen anything like this' effect on stage"
TEL: +81-83-901-2222/FAX: +81-83-901-2216
e-mail：backstage@ycam.jp

"While the clock ticks for the world premiere: a peek behind the scenes!"

2009-02-07T11:16:13Z

application: Please apply to YCAM office directly on each day till 13:45.

5th Anniversary Symposium

2008-09-20T09:08:37Z

Platform for Future

YCAM symposium on its traces and prospect is held to explore further possibilities of art and information media

Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media ［YCAM］, which opened as the base for cultural and informational exchange, celebrates its 5th anniversary this year. To commemorate the occasion, we hold a three-day symposium starting Saturday, November 1, 2008, to introduce the activities and results that YCAM has achieved so far.

Researchers, critics, specialists, artists and YCAM staff, who hold different positions in society, will join the discussion about three topics in terms of the works exhibited at YCAM, their production processes, and their own media education programs. Adopting various ideas of attendants, they will probe deeply into the three topics to search for further possibilities of art and information media, reviewing the tracings of YCAM.

]]> 11.1 sat 14:00-16:30
Session1:
The Traces and Prospects of YCAM-commissioned works
─artworks touring worldwide leaving from Yamaguchi─

YCAM has focused on producing and introducing works "now and here," which cannot be produced anywhere else. All sorts of works that have been produced in collaboration with artists, YCAM staff and YCAM InterLab (production section) have been shown widely, touring domestically and internationally after their premiere at YCAM. Moreover, those works are kept updated on a long term.
The artists make a report on how their works were exhibited and how people responded to them at different places in the first half of the session. The second half is dedicated to the discussion about the role of local cultural facilities in today's global society and the future of art and information media.

■Moderator
Miki Fukuda(YCAM InterLab Mannager)
■Panelists
exonemo(art unit / produced OBJECT B in 2006)
Takayuki Fujimoto(director and lighting designer / produced true in 2007)
SeikoMikami (artist / produced gravicells - gravity and resistance in 2005)
YukikoShikata(senior curator of NTT InerCommunication Center ［ICC］/ critic)
Aki Hoashi(art coordinator and coordinator of the Japan Foundation JENESYS Program)
Kazunao Abe(curator of YCAM)

interpretation is not available; Japanese only

organizer: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Support: Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education
Produced by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]

11.2 sun 14:00-16:30
Session2:
Media Art and New Production
─the appearance and possibilities of a production community─

The recent production movement that is spreading in the media society is discussed in this session, e.g. peer production in which many people collaborate going beyond a specific company or organization such as open source and wikipedia, as well as free license that promote creativity through sharing and alteration of works, and DIY in which individuals can produce what they want. Furthermore, the participants explore the cultivation and distribution potential of these communities, and investigate their developments in the realm of media art.
Additionally, collaboration works made by YCAM InterLab with artists and engineers at home and abroad are introduced. A new proposal to the work platform models of media art creation will also be presented.

■Moderator
Akihiro Kubota(Sound & Software Artist, Professor of Tama Art University)
■Panelists
Martin Kaltenbrunner (Artist / reacTable developer and researcher of the music technology group, Pompeu Fabra University, Spain)
Fredrik Olofsson(composer, Co-developer of SuperCollider)
Zachary Lieberman(Media artist, Educator, Co-developer of openFrameworks)
Miki Fukuda(Manager of YCAM InterLab)
* Please note that Mr. Phillip Torrone whom we have announced as a panelist cancelled his visit to Japan. Thank you.
* Simultaneous interpretation is available.

11.3 mon 14:00-16:30
Session3:
Discovering different ways of thinking
─Alternative education from YCAM─

YCAM aims at media education of a new type unhampered by the conventional frameworks of art museum education or school education. In this session, we define the "media environment" as the third environment in connection with the natural(first) and social(second) environment and discuss the the emerging new sense of form and of time, its originality and the possibilities of sharing, which plays an important part in this new environment.
In addition, the relations between regional characteristics and media environment are reexamined from a new standpoint in terms of creative environment including nature and society.

■Moderator
Kensuke Suzuki(sociologist and main personality of TBS Radio program Life)
■Panelists
Hatsumi Abe(stage director)
Daisuke Tsuda(journalist on IT and music)
Daiya Aida(chief of YCAM education and outreach section)

interpretation is not available; Japanese only

"Corpora in Si(gh)te"Related event "pasta-architecture" workshop

2007-09-24T11:27:27Z

*Note:
11/24, 25 : High school student or order
11/3, 4, 12/8, 9 :Elementary school over 4th grade and Middle school student ]]> With:
YCAM Educator
(only in Japanese)

Capacity:
12 persons

Admission:
500 yen

Booking:
Please make a reservation by e-mail or fax. Be sure to state clearly the program title, date, your name, age and your tel & fax number and / or e-mail address. (only in Japanese)
Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media "pasta-architecture" workshop
TEL:083-901-2222 FAX:083-901-2216 cis_ws@ycam.jp

Organizer: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Support: Embassy of Switzerland, Embassy of the Republic of Hungary in Tokyo, Yamaguchi City, The Board of Education of Yamaguchi City
Special Cooperation: University of the Arts Zurich (ZHdK), Department Interaction Design, Zurich Switzerland, Nextlab, Budapest Hungary
Cooperation: The Asahi Shimbun
Produced by: Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM)
Co-production: YCAM InterLab
Project Curator: Kazunao Abe (YCAM)

Backstage Tour

2007-09-05T17:06:22Z

]]>

sound tectonics #7 "ATAK NIGHT 4"

2009-03-26T11:39:32Z

Artist change "ATAK NIGHT 4"
Due to member Mika Vainio's sudden illness, Pan sonic, who were scheduled to appear at the "ATAK NIGHT 4" event on April 29 (Wed/holiday), were forced to cancel their Japan tour.
We apologize sincerely for the inconvenience to all those who have been looking forward to Pan sonic's performance in particular, as well as to the members of the press and other related individuals and institutions.

As a substitute for Pan sonic, Ryoji Ikeda confirmed his appearance at the event.

For more information on tickets and refunds, please contact the Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion ticket counter (at YCAM): TEL +81-83-920-6111

We are looking forward to seeing you at YCAM.

ATAK NIGHT 4 - Top sound artists touring the world
A group of renowned artists stop over at YCAM to challenge the Center's top-notch sound and video facilities.

This is the seventh installment of "sound tectonics", a series of concerts of sound art created using media technology, designed top quality of the world-class sound and video technical facilities of YCAM. Artists this time are Keiichiro Shibuya, who returns to Yamaguchi after touring Europe with the ATAK Night 4, as well as New York-based legendary sound artist Yasunao Tone, who makes his belated YCAM debut. Completing the lineup are Finnish duo Pan sonic, and Japanese artist Evala. Look forward to a festival of sharp-pointed audio-visual expression as it is possible only in the high-quality sound environment of YCAM.

]]> ATAK NIGHT 4
Four highly original sound artists come to put YCAM's high-quality acoustic facilities to a test in a sensational joint live performance.

After finishing a celebrated tour around Italy, Germany, Switzerland and France, the ATAK Night 4 live concert lands at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]. Four world-renowned artists gather at YCAM, a reputed stage for the production and presentation of novel forms of electronic music and outstanding sound art.
The event's main attraction is the appearance of Yasunao Tone, a Japanese artist who moved to New York in the '70s, and keeps operating in the forefront of experimental music even now that he is in his 70s. Also appearing is the Berlin resident Finnish duo Pan sonic, a leading name in cutting-edge electronic music for over a decade, and ATAK members Keiichiro Shibuya and Evala, both of whom created and unveiled the sound installation piece filmachine at YCAM in 2006, before presenting it in Berlin two years later.

YCAM has been showcasing electronic music made with computers and other devices, reproduced in the highest possible sound quality thanks to the Center's cutting-edge technology and top-notch acoustic environment. Making use of the construction's architectural characteristics, these events are realized with the help of a technical team of experts specializing in the synchronization of acoustic and optical images. Only at this YCAM date of the ATAK Night 4 tour, the audience will be surrounded by an elliptical 8-channel setup that allows for detailed reproduction of computer-generated sounds. Enjoy this long-awaited performance of the celebrated "ATAK Night 4", staged by outstanding sound artists together with YCAM.

YCAM Concert Series "sound tectonics"
Sound art as a manifestation of originality: a station on YCAM's pursuit of new expression and technique

Since its opening, YCAM has been exploring the original expressive potential of electronic music and sound art. When focusing on the usage of media technology not only in video and other forms of visual expression, but especially also on its function in the realm of sound, we can perceive acoustically temporal and spatial qualities that haven't previously existed in art. It has been our mission to explore possible new forms of artistic expression that emerge when reevaluating the human senses of vision, hearing and touch on an equal basis.

Organized by Keiichiro Shibuya (ATAK)
Co-sponsor: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
Support: Yamaguchi City, The Board of Education of Yamaguchi City
Produced by ATAK, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media[YCAM]

ENSEMBLES closing live "Networks"

2008-06-13T04:12:33Z

1st set
Choi Joon-Yong(opened cdplayer/Seoul), Hong Chulki(turntable/Seoul), Jin Sangtae(hard-disk drives, laptop/Seoul), Otomo Yoshihide(turntable/Tokyo)

2nd set
Yamamoto Seiichi + Otomo Yoshihide Project

3rd set
FEN [Yuen Chee Wai(laptop, piano/Singapore), Ryu Hankil(inside clock/Seoul), Yan Jun(laptop, voice/Beijing), Otomo Yoshihide(guitar, turntable/Tokyo)], Yamamoto Seiichi(guitar/Kyoto)
]]>

［Organizer］ Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
［Support］ Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education, UK-JAPAN2008
［Co -sponsor］ Asahi Beer Arts Foundation, The Kao Foundation for Arts and Sciences, the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2008
［Cooperation］ sendai mediatheque, CALLITHUMP
［Special Thanks］ NHK ENTERPRISES, OFFICE SHIROUS
［Sponsorship］ Acoustic Technical Laboratory, Meyer Sound Laboratories Inc.
［Produced by］ Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM)
［Technical Support］ YCAM InterLab
［Project Curator］ Kazunao Abe (YCAM)

orchestras opening live "Musics"

2008-06-13T04:02:58Z

1st set: OTOMORCHESTRA

The first set is a session in which participating musicians perform pieces of music simultaneously in many different places in the building of YCAM. Elementary school children and junior high school students participating in the sound workshop join this performance.

Performers: ONJO, Takamine Tadasu, Ameya Norimizu, sound workshop participants, Oto-asobi-no-kai, rewall, Ogawa Kimiyo, Watanabe Hideki, Makino Takuma, Mohri Yuko, Gosho Junko, Yuasa Manabu,
Matsushima Tamasaburo, and many others

2nd set: ONJO(otomo yoshihide's new jazz orchestra)

In the second set, musicians give competitive performances in an installation of scrap materials in Studio A.

2nd set: ONJO(otomo yoshihide's new jazz orchestra)
Performers: ONJO [Otomo Yoshihide(g, perc, tt), Kahimi Karie(vo), Okura Masahiko(as, bcl, tubes), Aoki Taisei(tb, flute), Ishikawa Ko(shou), Sachiko M(sinewaves), Unami Taku(computer with objects), Takara Kumiko(vib), Mizutani Hiroaki(b), Yoshigaki Yasuhiro(ds, tp), Kondoh Yoshiaki(live sound engineering)], Ameya Norimizu(noise), UNO-MAN(tentekomai）etc

]]> ［Organizer］ Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
［Support］ Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education, UK-JAPAN2008
［Co -sponsor］ Asahi Beer Arts Foundation, The Kao Foundation for Arts and Sciences, the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2008
［Cooperation］ sendai mediatheque, CALLITHUMP
［Special Thanks］ NHK ENTERPRISES, OFFICE SHIROUS
［Sponsorship］ Acoustic Technical Laboratory, Meyer Sound Laboratories Inc.
［Produced by］ Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM)
［Technical Support］ YCAM InterLab
［Project Curator］ Kazunao Abe (YCAM)

ENSEMBLES opening live "Songs"

2008-06-13T03:15:04Z

1st set:    Kahimi Karie's Invisible Songs
2nd set:    without songs
3rd set:    Otomo Yoshihide's Invisible Songs ]]>

［Organizer］ Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion
［Support］ Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education, UK-JAPAN2008
［Co-sponsor］ Asahi Beer Arts Foundation, The Kao Foundation for Arts and Sciences, the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2008
［Cooperation］ sendai mediatheque, CALLITHUMP
［Special Thanks］ NHK ENTERPRISES, OFFICE SHIROUS
［Sponsorship］ Acoustic Technical Laboratory, Meyer Sound Laboratories Inc.
［Produced by］ Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM)
［Technical Support］ YCAM InterLab
［Project Curator］ Kazunao Abe (YCAM)

Ryoji Ikeda audiovisual concert "datamatics［ver.2.0］

2008-01-09T06:17:04Z

Ryoji Ikeda's project datamatics is an art project that explores the potentials to perceive the invisible multi-substance of data that permeates our world.

datamatics [ver 2.0] is the new, fullﾐlength version of Ryoji Ikeda's acclaimed audiovisual concert. Ikeda has significantly developed the earlier version of this piece (premiered in March 2006), adding a newly commissioned second part.

Driven by the primary principles of datamatics, but objectively deconstructing its original elements - sound, visuals and even source codes - this new work creates a kind of meta-datamatics. Ikeda employs real-time programme computations and data scanning to create an extended new sequence that is a further abstraction of the original work.

The technical dynamics of the piece, such as its extremely fast frame rates and variable bit depths, continue to challenge and explore the thresholds of our perceptions.

"datamatics [prototype] showed Ikeda at the height of his powers, building on his own unique and unmistakable artistic language." -The Wire, 2006

MOVIE
extracted from datamatics [ver.1.0] © Ryoji Ikeda 2006-08

concept, composition: Ryoji Ikeda
computer graphics, programming: Shohei Matsukawa, Daisuke Tsunoda, Norimichi Hirakawa, Tomonaga Tokuyama
co-commissioned by AV Festival 06, ZeroOne San Jose & ISEA 2006
produced by Forma
co-produced by Les Spectacles Vivants-Centre Pompidou and YCAM
supported by Recombinant Media Labs

YCAM performance lounge #2 / Rogues' Gallery Gasoline Music & Cruising in Yamaguchi

2007-10-26T02:51:12Z

You can drive through familiar sights in town while time is felt alive with realistic soundsÑüthe scenery seen from a car window with sound effects of the engine, turn signal, etc.

]]> Citroen XM-X is used, and only two people can experience this drive at a time. Participants experience the drive looking at the scenery in town with not only eyes and ears but also the whole body, along the driving route selected from the artist's point of view.

Please enjoy the art of "space" and "time" as well as the possibility of performing art away from the theater space in YCAM's second Performance Lounge in Yamaguchi Prefecture.

Official website: Rogues' Gallery

● Demonstration + Passenger registration
Saturday, December 1, 2007; 17:00~17:30
Venue: Near by the parking lot entrance

"Gasoline Music & Cruising" is demonstrated.
Everyone who is interested in "Gasoline Music and Cruising" and those who want to board the car are invited to attend.
Note: If there are more boarding applicants than the capacity, they are selected by drawing lots.

● Gasoline Music & Cruising in Yamaguchi
December 8 (Sat.) ~ December 16 (Sun.), 2007
(Closed one day during this period)

Admission: Free

The drive is conducted eight times all together.
(One drive per day: the number of participants is up to two each day.)
The drive is conducted approximately for one hour in the evening.
Each participant will be informed of the details of the drive after participants are decided.
Note: Participants of junior high school students and under must be accompanied by their guardians.

● You are invited to send in information on attractive driving routes in Yamaguchi!
Application period: November 1 (Thurs.) ~ December 6 (Thurs.), 2007

Roguesﾕ Gallery office in YCAM
http://rogues.ycam.jp/ (available from November 1)
You are invited to introduce attractive driving routes and spots in Yamaguchi, online or at Roguesﾕ Gallery office in YCAM.

Please send us information about attractive driving spots for the night that you would recommend among familiar sights, such as a night view with bright lights of a shopping center seen from a highway, or a hill where night view is beautiful. Roguesﾕ Gallery will produce Yamaguchiﾕs original driving routes referring to your information.

Note:
_Your information is used only as a good guide to Roguesﾕ Gallery works, and will not be open to the public.
_We might make a request that you accompany Roguesﾕ Gallery to visit a specific spot to make a preliminary inspection some day from December 1st to sixth. In that case, we will inform you directly.
_Your personal information is not used for the purpose other than Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion and this project of Roguesﾕ Gallery.

*YCAM Performance Lounge
This series introduces artists who are searching for potentials of new performing art. You can enjoy a great line-up of artists trying to communicate ﾒthe presentﾓ through a good command of different ways of expression, including theater and dance.

opening event "Corpora in Si(gh)te" laptop sound concert

2007-09-24T12:58:30Z

laptop sound concert
]]> Ticket information

Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion (in YCAM):083-920-6111

The ticket booking system is available only in Japanese. To use the online ticket booking service, membership registration (free of charge) is required. To register online membership and book ticket(s), please click here.(only in Japanese)
At the window / by phone (only in Japanese)
Ticket information, Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion (in YCAM)
Tel: 083-920-6111
(Office hours: 10:00 - 19:00 / Closed on Tuesday, or the following day in case of holiday)

サン・ラ・アーケストラ / 太陽が招く宇宙のドラマ

2007-09-04T15:06:27Z

JAZZから実験音楽まで、世界のあらゆる音楽シーンから多大なリスペクトを浴びているサン・ラー・アーケストラ。サン・ラー存命中に制作された秘蔵映像とともについにYCAM来演。

サン・ラー・アーケストラのリーダー、マーシャル・アレンと、ギタリストR.E.マホニー、映像作家ジェームズ・ハラーが繰り広げる映像×音楽によるスペシャルプログラム。太陽系と深い宇宙の闇を突き抜けてたどり着いた美しい旅が、ついにYCAMに舞い降ります。

]]>
今回の公演は、ジェームズ・ハラーが作り出したミステリアスな映像が、マーシャル×R.E.マホニーによる即興演奏にジョイント。ネイティブアメリカンの彼の本名は、現地の言葉でライジング・サンの意味を持ち、ジェームズとマーシャルの出会いは運命に導かれた出会いともいえるでしょう。さらに今回は、60年代末〜70年代前半にアーケストラが遊び心たっぷりに撮影し撮りためていた日本未公開フィルムの上映も敢行!公演時間中ひと時も目を離す事のできない注目のプログラム。しかもスペシャルゲストは山本精一(BOREDOMS、ROVO)という豪華ナイトです。

"YCAM Foyer Concert" by Tokyo Metroporitan Brass Quintet

2007-08-01T08:39:29Z

*This event also will be held from 16:00 on the same day.

"Street Concert" by Tokyo Metroporitan Brass Quintet

Venue : Front of Chimakiya Department Store
Admission : Free

Organization : Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion

Marebito-no-Kai "PARK CITY" (new piece)

2009-06-27T09:25:11Z

The first full-fledged theatre production realized at YCAM
A new experience that defies the conventional idea of "theatre"

Masataka Matsuda (playwright/director, Marebito-no-Kai) and photographer Keiko Sasaoka (photographers' gallery) unveil their new theatre piece "PARK CITY" at the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media. This YCAM original production is a result of Matsuda's stay in Yamaguchi as part of the "Work-in-residence" program exploring the possibilities of artistic expression together with the Center's expert staff -YCAM InterLab-. "PARK CITY" experiments with temporal, spatial and physical sensation by combining stage art with photography and media technology.

"PARK CITY"website

]]> Left: "Voiceprints City - Letter to FATHER" (FESTIVAL/TOKYO 2009) photo: Tsukasa Aoki
Right: Keiko Sasaoka "PARK CITY" (2007)

"PARK CITY" Hiroshima portrayed in words and photographs remote seats equipped with individual video screens

Masataka Matsuda, a leading Japanese playwright/director since the 1990s, has received numerous awards for his experimental work exploring the possibilities of stage arts with the theatre company Marebito-no-Kai. In his newest creation, he captures scenes of the city with the help of Keiko Sasaoka, a young photographer regarded for her original approach. The two artists illustrate through texts and photographs the latent memories of the city of Hiroshima as it was re-erected around a "monument" in the form of a park after the war.
Seats in the theatre are deliberately placed at a distance from the stage, and equipped with individual video screens. This alternative viewing style enables the audience to enjoy a new form of theatre with text, photography, sound and imagery transcending the boundaries of time and space. Look forward to a radically new type of stage production that incorporates Masataka Matsuda's script and direction, Sasaoka's photographs, and YCAM's own cutting-edge media technology.

Written and directed by: Masataka Matsuda
Photography by: Keiko Sasaoka (photographers' gallery)

Cast: Chise Ushio, F. Japan, Chiaki Kirisawa, Goma-no-hae, Takashi Shima, Aki Takeda, Maki Nishiyama, Yuichiro Masuya, Norifumi Miyamoto, Harumi Yamaguchi
Stage manager: Takuro Iwata (YCAM InterLab)
Stage Technicians: Mitsuo Uno (YCAM InterLab), Takuro Iwata (YCAM InterLab), Clarence Ng (Esplanade)
Sound: Takayuki Ito (YCAM InterLab)
Recording: Masamitsu Araki
Lighting: Fumie Takahara (YCAM InterLab)
Video: Richi Owaki (YCAM InterLab)
Costume Design: Kyoko Domoto
Monitor system: Takayuki Ito (YCAM InterLab)
Programming: Satoshi Hama (YCAM InterLab)
Dramaturg: Tsuyoshi Tanabe
Assistant director: Yuriko Maiya
Technical support: YCAM InterLab
Produced by: Akiko Tkeshita (YCAM), Naoko Shiomi (YCAM), Mariko Mori (Marebito-no-Kai), Mao Nishimura (Marebito-no-Kai)
Advertising design: Isao Tanaka (photographers' gallery)
Cooperated by: Gyoto, Eisei, Knit Cap Theater

Produced by Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM], Biwako Hall, Marebito-no-Kai, photographers' gallery
Organized by Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion, Biwako Hall Foundation, Marebito-no-Kai, photographers' gallery
Supported by Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education, The Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2009, Japan Foundation for Regional Art-Activities (JAFRA), The Asahi Beer Arts Foundation, The SAISON Foundation Sponsored by AVOX
Kyoto Art Center support project

"The Traveling Companion"

2009-06-27T05:39:11Z

A very special, colorfully dream-like story for Japanese children

Italian stage director Teresa Ludovico creates highly ingenious pieces with simple stage sets and rich colors. Her newest production tells the story of a boy who falls in love with a girl that appears in his dreams, and embarks on a journey with the aim to find her. The piece was made in collaboration with a variety of performers, including actors, dancers and musicians. The boy in his fantastic adventure symbolizes human love, and inspires our courage to face life.

Grupo de Rua "H3"

2009-06-27T04:36:25Z

Next-generation Hip Hop Dance from Brazil
Highlighting the overwhelming energy and tension of the human body

Taking hip hop, a movement that keeps affecting dance, music, art, fashion and other aspects of cultural and social life, and catapulting it to the level of performing arts, "H3" is an ambitious piece that introduces a fresh current to the realm of dance.
Witness nine trained street dancers as they knock down stylistic stereotypes with breathtaking speed and energy, to make way for novel forms of expression that unfold in an impressive demonstration of flexibility and potential.

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"H3"
Hip hop's high-flying crusade from the street into the theatre

© Grupo de Rua

Since emerging in New York in the early 1970s, hip hop culture has been exerting a strong influence on dance, music, art, fashion, and other cultural and social aspects. Dance as one facet of the hip hop phenomenon has been conquering the world while leaving its marks on several other dance styles, and has evolved into an art form in its own right that enjoys popularity on various levels today, with professional dancers participating in contests, and countless young people practicing and performing on the street also here in Japan.
"H3", an attempt to bring innovation to hip hop as a contemporary performing art, has been presented to great acclaim at festivals and theatres. The ambitious idea to elevate hip hop to the level of performing arts resulted in a display of overwhelmingly energetic physical power.

© Bruno Beltrão

Highlights
Trained bodies in simple settings
The simple stage set includes not much more than lighting to add subtle nuances to the dancers' movements against the acoustic backdrop of environmental noises and silence replacing the original hip hop and R&B music. The additional sounds of the nine street-trained dancers' steps add to an atmosphere that is pregnant with a sense of tension that both street and theatre settings share. A delicately sophisticated choreography, made possible thanks to the performers' physical abilities and characteristic features, is one of the attractions of this spectacle highlighting the explosive energy set free in the generation of truly innovative physical expression.

Thought-out overall composition over individual skills
The rules of hip hop, originally a competitive "dance battle" format, include a display of personal skills while avoiding body contact with the opponents as a stylistic element. Rather than focusing on individual performing skills, this piece follows a general concept and composition that demands from the dancers to move constantly on the brink of collision in a rather aggressive approach to contact that ultimately never happens. Speed, dynamism and speculation are the pillars of a construction that aims to explore the uncharted territory between the street and the theatre.

A new art form born on suburban streets
Hip hop has grown into a global cultural movement. The style that once was a communication tool - not excluding elements of protest - for young people living in the downtown areas of big cities has matured into a means of self-expression for suburban youths. The Grupo de Rua, a company based in the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro, seek to demolish stereotypes in artistic expression in order to establish their own original methods, suggesting an analytical approach to the obliterating flow of mainstream trends.

© Bruno Beltrão

Bruno Beltrão (Choreographer, dancer)
A choreographer and his revolution of hip hop 30 years after zero hour
Born and raised in the outskirts of a Brazilian town, Bruno Beltrão first encountered street dance as a teenager. After enrolling at the university of Rio de Janeiro to study dance and philosophy, he began to produce works that gradually liberated him from the rules and conventions of hip hop, and eventually unveiled the piece "H3" at the Kunsten Festival des Arts in Belgium in 2008. Following its predecessor, "H2", it is on a continuously successful tour around major festivals around the world. 30 years young, Beltrão is definitely one choreographer to watch when it comes to breathing new life into the current hip hop and performing arts scenes.

Direction, Choreography: Bruno Beltrão
With: Grupo de Rua
Co-production: Grupo de Rua, Festival d'automne à Paris, La Ferme du Buisson - Scène nationale de Marne-la-Vallée, Le Grand Théâtre de Luxembourg, International Arts Festival/Salamanca 2008 - Junta de Castilla y León, Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Hebbel am Ufer

Art Direction & Design: Ryo Sugi (scenery of design)

Produced by: Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM]
Organized by: Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion, Agency for Cultural Affairs
Supported by: Yamaguchi City, Yamaguchi City Board of Education, Embassy of Brazil

"On the Planet" Pre-event

2009-06-27T04:22:21Z

Prior to the performance, stage director Hatsumi Abe and other guests will reveal some details about the piece in a talk event.

Support: the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2009

"On the Planet" (working title)

2009-06-27T02:23:17Z

Observing mankind in the present age from a hypothetical future world

Inspired by completely artificial confined spaces that exist in reality, this piece dealing with such actual environmental issues as global warming, atmospheric and radioactive pollution depicts a future scenario of the world based on a "global environment, man, nature and civilization" theme. Different from the usual method, where a director would adapt a finished script written by a playwright for the stage, this piece is the result of a new type of collaboration, created by the director together with his staff and cast from the playwright's incomplete, fragmentary texts.

Support: the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2009

Keiko Sasaoka "PARK CITY" Photo Exhibition

2009-06-26T07:33:39Z

Keiko Sasaoka presents a selection of photographs used in "PARK CITY" in a photo exhibition of the same title. Enjoy the photographer's original prints up close, and in a different setting and atmosphere from the stage performance.

Yoko Kemumaki dance session "ALL LOVES YOU!"

2009-06-12T02:39:10Z

Experience an ad-lib dance battle when YCAM turns into a club for one night only!
Yoko Higashino is a dancer/choreographer who usually takes charge of everything from direction to scenic art and costumes, to charge each of her pieces with a unique world-view. Together with world renowned DJs and musicians, this time she presents a special club event style performance under the alias of Yoko Kemumaki. Look forward to a stage spectacle with artists from various fields beyond the realm of dance, aiming to carve out fascinating new aspects of physical expression.

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Support: the Agency for Cultural Affairs Government of Japan in the fiscal 2009
Sponsorship: Toyota Motor Corporation

Strange Kinoko Dance Company × plaplax "The Rainy Table"

2009-02-07T09:03:09Z

Dance and media art meet to produce a wonderful world of cute pop

The performance of The Rainy Table is the final event held in celebration of the 5th anniversary of the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM].
This new performance piece is the result of the first ever collaboration between Strange Kinoko Dance Company and media are unit plaplax (Motoshi Chikamori, Kyoko Kunoh, Yasuaki Kakehi), created over the period of approximately one month during the artists' residency at YCAM.
The fruit of the challenging endeavor of Strange Kinoko Dance Company and plaplax to create a full-fledged piece of dance performance piece, The Rainy Table announces an intriguingly new work in YCAM's continuing exploration of new territories in art, media and physical expression.

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A journey that departs from the memorable scene of a "table in the rain"
Embark on an exciting adventure through cute and exciting adventure.

Strange Kinoko Dance Company are renowned for translating casual everyday sensations and emotions into a cute dance style, while plaplax combine daily goods and media technology to create works of art that excite the senses and spark the imagination. What these two collectives share is the ability to locate the most surprising and fantastic occurrences in "daily routine", and illustrate these in a playful manner. This co-production revolves around the theme of a "journey" that expands from a small gap in everyday life. Surrounded by various imagery and visual art, the dancers' movements lure the viewer into a wonderful adventure. Catch this titillating new piece and enjoy the novel kind of sensation it will evoke.

Strange Kinoko Dance Company has gained popularity with their realistic portraits of "girls" in our time, cleverly illustrated by capturing the dance elements in daily life. At YCAM, they collaborate for the first time with plaplax, a group of artists who have received international recognition for their interactive art incorporating such elements as shadows and flavors. Also participating is Yumiko Ohno (Buffalo Daughter), AOMI for costume who make new works exclusively for this piece. Look forward to experiencing a magical journey initiated by the various interactions of an attractive array of artists from the realms of dance, media technology and music.

Strange Kinoko Dance Company

not quite right(2006) photo: Yohta Kataoka

Turning the everyday into a cute dance spectacle
Launched in 1990, Strange Kinoko Dance Company has cultivated a remarkable dance style that connects directly to everyday life. Rather than simply presenting the habitual gestures of daily life in a stage setting, their dance expresses even sensations and emotions in a natural way that has been bringing pleasant experiences to large audiences. The key of this success lies in the girls' alluring way of displaying the technical skills they honed in their experience with modern dance and ballet in extremely light movements. The pieces of Strange Kinoko Dance Company are distinctive also in terms of creating a new kind of relationship between performers and audience. Not limited to conventional theatre stages, their performances take place at museums, coffee shops, offices and other places, enfolding in close contact with visitors and while reverberating with the respective venue's atmosphere and spatial characteristics. Another highly entertaining aspect of their performances is the insertion of talk and song blocks between dance parts.
Come and let a unique dream world surprise you as it is shaped by the artists' sensitive response to their environment, and a festive sense of community with the audience.

plaplax

Tool's Life(2001)

Fantastic media art connecting image and reality
plaplax is a collective of artists comprised of media artist group minim++, who have shown such poetic installations as objects made from various commodities, the shadows of which turn into animated images of animals or airplanes, and central member Yasuaki Kakehi, who has been exploring innovative media technology that stimulates interaction and communication to expand the natures and functions of objects and the human body, producing, among others, works in which viewers/users play hockey against their own mirror images. The group creates works based on immediate yet intangible elements such as shadows, smells, footprints or voices, or constructed on such themes as evidence of existence". While utilizing digital technology, the artists place importance on the aspect of touching and holding things, which has made them popular around the world among children and adults alike. plaplax create new sensory and spatial experiences born out of seemingly magical interconnections between reality and the world of images. For their newest piece they challenged the real, physical bodies of dancers, the result of which promises to turn the stage into a previously unseen scenery.

Concept, direction, choreography: Chie Ito(Strange Kinoko Dance Company)
Stage design, projection, media technology: plaplax(Motoshi Chikamori + Kyoko Kunoh + Yasuaki Kakehi)
Music: Yumiko Ohno(Buffaro Daughter)
Costume: AOMI

Assistant direction: Yoko Koyama
Choreography co-operation: Strange Kinoko Dance Company
With: Masako Ide, Satomi Yamada, Memi Shinozaki, Mayumi Chaki, Mao Nakagawa, Chie Ito
Stage manager: Michiko Yasuda
Animation: Ai Ohara(plaplax)
Programming co-operation: Daisuke Akatsuka
Lighting: Fumie Takahara(YCAM InterLab)
Sound: Takayuki Ito(YCAM InterLab)
Video system design: Richi Owaki(YCAM InterLab)
Technology co-operaion: YCAM InterLab

Advertising design, copy: Gabin Ito(NNNNY)＋Yotsubakakou

The Rainy Table Musicians
Sunshine Love Steel Orchestra
(Tennor: TICO / Low Tennor: Gen Tamura / Triple Cello: Yumiko Ohno)
Guitar & Pedal Steel: Gen Tamura
Drums & Percussion: Yasuhiro Yoshigaki
Recorded and Mixed: ZAK at st-robo
All songs written: Yumiko Ohno
All songs produced: Yumiko Ohno & ZAK

Organized by Yamaguchi City Foundation for Cultural Promotion, Setagaya Arts Foundation, Strange Kinoko Dance Company, plaplax
Co-sponsor: Japan Foundation for Regional Art-Activities
Sponsor: Shiseido Co., Ltd
Produced by Strange Kinoko Dance Company, plaplax, Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media[YCAM], Setagaya Public Theatre
Support: Yamaguchi City, The Board of Education of Yamaguchi City

YUDA ART PROJECT Opening special performance "lost"

2008-11-14T03:41:54Z

YUDA ART PROJECT Opening Events
- Lighting ceremony for Array
- Opening special performance "lost"

YUDA ART PROJECT website

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- Opening Event
November 21 (Fri), 2008
Place: Chuya Nakahara Memorial Museum
Admission free

17:30-18:00
- Lighting ceremony for Array

18:00-18:30
- Opening special performance "lost"
solo dance performance with twelve LED lighting equipments
Performer: Yuko Mori
Choreography: Kosei Sakamoto
Direction / Lighting design: Takayuki Fujimoto (Dumb Type)
Sound design: Daito Manabe

Op. ∞

2008-09-27T05:11:00Z

A crossover between dance, media technology and live cello performance:
Japanese premiere of an experimental performance exploring the relationship between sound and the human body

"Op. ∞", an experimental dance piece created in collaboration between artists from Germany, France and Japan, is shown as part of YCAM's fifth anniversary program.
With Richard Siegal, reputed as a "dancer with amazing physical ability" in William Forsythe's (then) Ballet Frankfurt, and Eric-Maria Couturier, solo cellist for the contemporary classical chamber orchestra "Ensemble Intercontemporain", two world-leading artists have teamed up with researchers from the Institut de Recherche et Coordination Acoustique/Musique (IRCAM), to explore possible new connections between sound, technology and the human body.
The piece is performed by two dancers and a cellist. Based on an "IF/THEN" system originally developed by Richard Siegal, both protagonists will approach the relationship between body and sound in a particularly scientific and at once artistic way.
The performance in Yamaguchi will be the first and only occasion the piece is staged in Japan. Look forward to experiencing an amalgamation of physical expression and technology that will be another landmark in YCAM's continued pursuit of cutting-edge artistic expression.

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Stage performance revolving around the "IF/THEN" system's focus on the link between body and gesture

This piece was conceived using the "IF/THEN" open-source system in order to create an interactive relationship between sounds, visuals, and body movements.
The "IF/THEN" system is a game with simple rules and gestures, following such basic principles as, "If you do X, then I do Y" or "If I do Y, then you can do either Z or N." Each gesture of one of the performers limits the other's reaction to a predefined set of gestures, so that the performance progresses like a dialogue. In concrete terms, the dancer hears the musician's sound, and the musician perceives the dancers' movements, while a third (visual) layer that emerges at once out of this conversation provides the two artists with hints regarding the next step.
The implementation of this system reflects the piece's rather scientific approach to the mutual connection between the human body and sound, resulting in a new type of performing arts originating from dancers' and a cellist's movements, and the sounds they trigger.

Gilles Jobin "Text to Speech"

2008-06-22T08:25:23Z

Text to Speech, first venture into the world of words,

In Text To Speech, Gilles Jobin de-contextualizes the most concrete terms of his own language, which he tries to scrutinize from different angles. Halfway between plastic and choreographic approach, he no longer tries to link, in hybrid or mutant fashion, or through the articulation of a system of transposition, but instead attempts to sample, to directly extract materials and sources of reflection in order to expose them on more immediate terms. What remains is a work on porosity and on friction that in the first instance appeals to the sense of hearing, being the world of sound and speech. A work that equally assumes responsibility for the phenomenon of violence, both physical and political, that has been present in his entire body of work. The interface of body/screen, multimedia language/physical effort is the opportunity to explore new spaces where the performer and the movement are set into motion. A first game that one could almost describe as post-situationist orchestrates it: voices, languages, historical or topical texts taken from the internet are changed and manipulated to the point of recreating a singularly poetic environment.
An impressionist touch with humoristic and alarming undertones whose ambiguous sway between the real and fiction acts on our perception. It is a process that closely resembles the relation image/body developed in earlier creations, notably Braindance (1999). Waves and frequencies, loops and samples, mixings and interactions are the object of this approach operating through focalisation, manipulation and impacts. They make up a kind of "material to be heard" that develops itself in the form of "tampering".
(text ; Irène Filiberti) ]]> Performance in Tokyo

25th, 26th July, 2008
venue: Spiral Hall / Spiral 3F (Tokyo, Aoyama)
5-6-23, Minami-Aoyama, Minato-ku, Tokyo 107-0062
http://www.spiral.co.jp/

Advance ticket ¥4,000, Day ticket ¥4,300

YCAM performance lounge #3 / Makotocluv "Jijou Chiiki "

2008-03-21T07:17:26Z

Jan Fabre "Angel of Death"

2007-11-26T09:04:42Z

video installation / dance / performance

In 1996, the artist, dramatist, choreographer and writer Jan Fabre wrote a piece inspired by the American artist Andy Warhol. He subtitled it "a monologue for a man, a woman or a hermaphrodite". Fabre had previously shown an interest in the ideas of this influential, androgynous artist's artist. In the theatre production Universal Copyrights 1 & 9, for example, where he explicitly raised the subject of copiability and thus questioned the concept of authenticity. In 1997 Warhol appeared in the form of an almost perfect lookalike in Glowing Icons, the third part of Fabre's trilogy of the body, devoted to the erotic body, the body that possesses an eternal aura and is condemned to immortality as in the case of collective heroes who become icons.
]]> Angel of Death is the encounter between three spirits through the author's pen. In addition to Warhol there is also the spirit of William Forsythe, to whom this piece is dedicated. Forsythe is the pioneering choreographer of Ballet Frankfurt, and himself an outstanding dancer. Fabre saw a kinship between the two, starting with the physical aspect.

Lastly there are Fabre's personal fascinations, such as transformation, the beauty of gender (and therefore of the hermaphroditic too), and double identity, and the contradiction of being an artist, balancing between publicness, fame and the longing for anonymity and seclusion. This provides the substance for a meeting of three "spirits". Layer by layer, the elusive "I person' takes shape through the interweaving of observation, identification, the quotation of famous statements by "Drella" and interpretations of Warhol's, Fabre's and Forsythe's own lives. The I-figure goes back and forth between the meaning, which reaches out a hand to an audience, and withdrawal into ambiguities and questions. It seems as if he is in a post mortem state, in a time vacuum, both living and dead, where he reveals and conceals himself and reassembles his identity. In the end comes the wish to dance and forget oneself. The enigma maintains itself...

In the way the piece is staged, Jan Fabre foresees a new confrontation with the text in the form of a live, animated video installation. It consists of four monumental video walls set up symmetrically in a square. Inside the square, seating is set up on all sides that runs down to a small stage on which the Croation dancer Ivana Jozic, enters into dialogue with what she sees on the screens, which is a film of William Forsythe dancing and reciting the text of Angel of Death in the anatomical museum in Montpellier. These images communicate with each other between individual screens: they dissolve and show various camera angles or points of view. The second interaction will arise by the intervention of the performer in the middle, who will respond to the video sequence in language and gesture. A new composition by the composer and saxophonist Eric Sleichim will, with a musical addition, give extra significance to the whole. This set-up is a new experiment in Jan Fabre's work for the stage.

TOKYO MIXED STYLE「STREET DANCE + DORAVIDEO」

2007-11-26T08:58:42Z

DANCE x MUSIC ! VOL.3　Yukio SUZUKI[Kingyo] x Yasutaka HENMI, yummydance x takeo toyama band

2007-11-26T02:37:43Z

The exhibition period for Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala "for maria installation version" has been extended.

2010-01-28T00:00:00Z

The exhibition period for Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala new sound installation "for maria installation version" has been extended.

The new exhibition period for Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala new sound installation "for maria installation version" is; October 1(Thu.), 2009 - June 6 (Sun), 2010
(The last day has been extended from January 31 to June 6)

During the term, you can appreciate forthcoming exhibition, Seiko Mikami "Desire of Codes" starting on March 20, so please come to YCAM and enjoy the works.

Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala new sound installation "for maria installation version"
October 1 (Thu.), 2009 - June 6 (Sun), 2010
10:00-20:00
Closed: Tuesday (the next days if it falls on a holiday)
Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala new sound installation "for maria installation version"

Seiko Mikami + Sota Ichikawa "gravicells - gravity and resistance" [revised version](2010.1.23)

2010-01-23T05:25:37Z

Seiko Mikami + Sota Ichikawa "gravicells - gravity and resistance" [revised version]

2010-01-23T05:17:21Z

http://www.ycam.jp/en/art/2009/04/seiko-mikami-new-installation.html

YCAM exhibition to be temporarily closed (2009.10.26-11.6)

2009-10-25T22:01:23Z

These exhibitions will be temporarily closed between October 26 (Mon) and November 6 (Fri).

- Semitra Exhibition "tFont/fTime"
- Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala new sound installation "for maria installation version"

The exhibit will re-open from November 7 (Sat).

Grupo de Rua "H3" (2009.10.2)

2009-10-25T06:33:36Z

Semitra Exhibition "tFont/fTime" vol.2 (2009.9.19)

2009-10-22T05:13:00Z

Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala new sound installation "for maria installation version" (2009.10.05)

2009-10-05T06:56:26Z

Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala new sound installation "for maria installation version"

2009-10-05T06:09:03Z

http://www.ycam.jp/en/art/2009/04/keiichiro-shibuyaevalanew-soun.html

Semitra Exhibition "tFont/fTime" vol.1 (2009.8.3)

2009-08-03T09:48:23Z

The exhibition period for "Body as Interimage" has been extended.

2009-07-17T04:31:31Z

The exhibition period for "Body as Interimage" has been extended.

The new exhibition period for "Body as Interimage" is; 4.25 Sat. - 8.31 Mon.
(The last day has been extended from 8.10 to 8.31.)

During the term, you can appreciate two exhibitions Steve Paxton "Phantom Exhibition" & "Body as InterImage" ,so please come to YCAM and enjoy the works.

"Body as Interimage"
April 25 (sat) - August 31 (mon), 10:00-20:00
□ Works in the exhibition
newClear + Alessio Silvestrin "skinslides" New installation work
Shinichi Takashima "Pascal pass scale" New installation work
□Screening
Saburo Teshigawara "Friction of Time - perspective Study vol.2"（video dance）
"Body as InterImage" website

Marebito-no-Kai "PARK CITY" (new piece)

2009-07-09T03:18:00Z

http://www.ycam.jp/en/theater/2009/06/marebito-no-kai-park-city-new-1.html

Marebito-no-Kai "PARK CITY" (2009.7.9)

2009-07-09T02:14:10Z

YCAM Event Schedule April 2009 - March 2010 (2009.7.2)

2009-07-02T04:50:01Z

Yoko Kemumaki dance session "All LOVES YOU!"

2009-06-12T04:46:52Z

http://www.ycam.jp/en/theater/2009/06/yoko-kemumaki-dance-session-al.html

Steve Paxton "Phantom Exhibition"

2009-05-12T04:49:19Z

http://www.ycam.jp/en/art/2009/04/steve-paxton-phantom-exhibitio.html

YCAM Portal

Lecture + Dance Demonstration

Lecture + Talk

Steve Paxton "Phantom Exhibition" / "Body as Interimage"

Steve Paxton "Phantom Exhibition"

"Body as Interimage"

Semitra Exhibition "tFont/fTime"

Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala new sound installation "for maria installation version"

Seiko Mikami ＋ Sota Ichikawa "gravicells - gravity and resistance" [revised version]

Seiko Mikami "Desire of Codes"

YUDA ART PROJECT "Artist Talk"

YUDA ART PROJECT

minimum interface

OTOMO YOSHIHIDE / ENSEMBLES

scopic measure #08 Satoru Higa "VP4L"

scopic measure #07 Tomoya Watanabe "IAMTVTUNERINTERFACE"

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Mitokomon Ketsujin no maki"

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Kochiyama Sousyun"

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Tangesazenyowa hyakumanryo no tsubo"

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Yamanaka Sadao no Parapara manga anime"

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Sadao nisan no koto-Sugao no Yamanaka Sadao"

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Sono zenya"

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Sengoku guntoden[Sosyuhen]"

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Ninjyo Kamifusen"

Sadao Yamanaka Retrospective "Daibosatsutoge Dai ippen Kougenittoryu no maki"

"4 Nights with Anna"

Select CINE TECTONICS=9 Jacques Tachi "SOIGNE TON GAUCHE""L' ÉCOLE DES FACTEURS""JOUR DE FÊTE "

Select CINE TECTONICS=9 Jacques Tachi "PLAY TIME"

Select CINE TECTONICS=9 Jacques Tachi "MON ONCLE"

Select CINE TECTONICS=9 Jacques Tachi "LES VACANCES DE MONSIEUR HULOT""COURS DU SOIR"

Suzuki×Suzuki−Noribumi Suzuki Retrospective −"Bungakusyo satsujinjiken Oinaru jyosou"

Gallery Tour - "gravicells - gravity and resistance"

Gallery Tour - Semitra Exhibition "tFont/fTime"

Workshop "typo DJ"

Dance workshop "How unrestricted a thing dance really is!"

Summer holiday workshop "Keitai Spy Workshop"

"YCAM Back Stage Tour 2009"

Search engine workshop "Search'n Search"

Theatre workshop / Workshop for aspiring expert theatre viewers

Lecture "A playwright/director shares his thoughts: Where do the voices come from?"

Gallery Tour

"YCAM Chat vol.7 - How to achieve the 'never seen anything like this' effect on stage"

"While the clock ticks for the world premiere: a peek behind the scenes!"

5th Anniversary Symposium

"Corpora in Si(gh)te"Related event "pasta-architecture" workshop

Backstage Tour

sound tectonics #7 "ATAK NIGHT 4"

ENSEMBLES closing live "Networks"

orchestras opening live "Musics"

ENSEMBLES opening live "Songs"

Ryoji Ikeda audiovisual concert "datamatics［ver.2.0］

YCAM performance lounge #2 / Rogues' Gallery Gasoline Music & Cruising in Yamaguchi

opening event "Corpora in Si(gh)te" laptop sound concert

サン・ラ・アーケストラ / 太陽が招く宇宙のドラマ

"YCAM Foyer Concert" by Tokyo Metroporitan Brass Quintet

Marebito-no-Kai "PARK CITY" (new piece)

"The Traveling Companion"

Grupo de Rua "H3"

"On the Planet" Pre-event

"On the Planet" (working title)

Keiko Sasaoka "PARK CITY" Photo Exhibition

Yoko Kemumaki dance session "ALL LOVES YOU!"

Strange Kinoko Dance Company × plaplax "The Rainy Table"

YUDA ART PROJECT Opening special performance "lost"

Op. ∞

Gilles Jobin "Text to Speech"

YCAM performance lounge #3 / Makotocluv "Jijou Chiiki "

Jan Fabre "Angel of Death"

video installation / dance / performance

TOKYO MIXED STYLE「STREET DANCE + DORAVIDEO」

DANCE x MUSIC ! VOL.3 Yukio SUZUKI[Kingyo] x Yasutaka HENMI, yummydance x takeo toyama band

The exhibition period for Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala "for maria installation version" has been extended.

Seiko Mikami + Sota Ichikawa "gravicells - gravity and resistance" [revised version](2010.1.23)

Seiko Mikami + Sota Ichikawa "gravicells - gravity and resistance" [revised version]

YCAM exhibition to be temporarily closed (2009.10.26-11.6)

Grupo de Rua "H3" (2009.10.2)

Semitra Exhibition "tFont/fTime" vol.2 (2009.9.19)

Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala new sound installation "for maria installation version" (2009.10.05)

Keiichiro Shibuya＋evala new sound installation "for maria installation version"

Semitra Exhibition "tFont/fTime" vol.1 (2009.8.3)

Suzuki×Suzuki−Noribumi Suzuki Retrospective　−"Bungakusyo satsujinjiken Oinaru jyosou"

DANCE x MUSIC ! VOL.3　Yukio SUZUKI[Kingyo] x Yasutaka HENMI, yummydance x takeo toyama band