LIFE–WELL Installation
Ryuichi SAKAMOTO+Shiro TAKATANI
Profiles
Ryuichi SAKAMOTO
Musician
Ryuichi Sakamoto made his debut in 1978 with the album "The Thousand Knives" as well as joining the internationally acclaimed, YMO (Yellow Magic Orchestra). After YMO broke up (the band officially called it 'spread-out'), he composed the music score for many feature films. While he gained worldwide stature by winning the Academy Award as a composer, he has always pursued innovative music and sounds. In 2006 he established "commmons", aimed at the creation of a new music community. He is always casting about for new forms for delivering music. Following his 1999 opera "LIFE", Sakamoto became outspoken on the issues of the environment, peace, and social issues. In reaction to the simultaneous terrorist attacks of 9/11, he edited an anthology Hisen (Non-war). That same year he founded "artists' power", an artists' organization that advocates the encouragement and use of renewable energy. After the devastating earthquake, tsunami, and Fukushima nuclear power plants disasters of March 11, 2011, Sakamoto along with Tomoyasu Hirano founded kizunaworld.org. "kizunaworld" aims to empower individuals to get involved with helping afflicted people through donations without aligning with any agency or organization. As a gift for the donations, donators are able to download exclusive material from a diverse cast of prominent artists, with more being continuously added. Ryuichi Sakamoto resides in New York City.

Shiro TAKATANI
Artist
Born in 1963. Graduated from Environmental design - Art Dept. of Kyoto City University of Arts. Joined Dumb Type as one of the founders in 1984, and has been involved especially in the visual and technical aspects. In his solo activities, Takatani participated in a municipal project of Groningen, Holland (artistic director: Daniel Libeskind), in collaboration with Akira Asada in 1990. Takatani created images for the collaboration concert Dangerous Visions with Art Zoyd and the National Orchestra of Lille in March 1998. He did visual direction for the Ryuichi Sakamoto's opera LIFE September 1999. And he released solo video installation work frost frames 1998, optical flat 2000. Also, He created the video installation piece IRIS collaborated with Fujiko Nakaya, a fog sculptor, for the Valencia Biennial in 2001. Commissioned by the Natural History Museum of Latvia in Riga, for the exhibition "Conversations with Snow and Ice", his installation was presented in November-December 2005, as part of a retrospective of the works of the snow and ice scientist Ukichiro Nakaya (1900-1962). In 2006, under the auspices of the Japan Foundation's 2006 Australia-Japan Exchange Project "Rapt! 20 contemporary artists from Japan," selected for a one-month artist residency in Australia and exhibit in Melbourne.
