The Sine Wave Orchestra and So Kanno + yang02 unveil their respective new installation works.

Vanishing Mesh is an expression that hints at the various boundaries and other defining lines that are gradually becoming invisible due to technological innovation. This exhibition is an attempt to review present informational environments through the innovation of technology-based art in a ubiquitous society. Thanks to the popularization of smartphones or smart mobile devices, it enables us to communicate through the networks wherever we are. With the works presented by these two groups of artists, the exhibition will be a precious opportunity to examine the present state of media art today.

Works

So Kanno + yang02

Avatars

The installation by So Kanno + yang02 features 16 various objects in different sizes, such as a traffic cone, a plaster figure, a car, and a plant and etc, where micro-computers and other types of components are embedded. These objects are connected to the Internet, which allows the visitors to experience the work by logging in to / "riding" each object via a web browser. These “avatars” exist as substitutes of – yet together with – real human beings (the visitors) in the same real environment that is subject to physical laws, rather than operating in a virtual space. Against the backdrop of the age of Internet of Things, where all kinds of things are connected through networks, and where artificial intelligence is about to mature, this work observes the new relationships that emerge when inorganic, non-autonomous objects transform into persons that act and perceive the world according to their own intentions.

avatars.ycam.jp

The SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA

A Wave

Indistinct images are projected onto a large screen, accompanied by inarticulate sounds reverberating across the entire exhibition space. All of these images and sounds are created by disassembling and recomposing algorithmically in real-time from vast amount of video materials that are picked up from the internet continuously over the period of the exhibition. The fragmented videos that provide the visual and acoustic source material are recomposed/reordered based on their respective data of luminance and sound (magnitude/level) to create a sine wave, which means that the original videos are deprived of their meaning, and reduced to abstract elements of light and sound for the construction of a sine wave. While all sounds in the world can be represented through combinations of multiple sine waves, in this work a single sine wave is produced by cutting and connecting large amounts of source material.

The SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA stay

Each visitor is given a small device which can play a sine wave, chooses its frequency, and positions it at a location on one of the 49 spiral-shaped columns of copper wire that are arranged in a grid in the exhibition space. These sine waves remain audible for the rest of the exhibition period, which means that the sound field - starting with absolute silence at the beginning of the exhibition - gets increasingly complex with every single visitor’s contribution towards the end of the exhibition. It is thus a collective performance, creating a work that continues to change while revealing different sonic qualities depending on the listening point, and number and position of device being installed.

The SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA in the depths

This sound installation consists of four loudspeakers that play sine waves in an unusual concrete- enclosed space. Frequency responses are measured beforehand at each point on a 30 x 30 cm grid in the exhibition space. Based on these measurement results, revealed the spatial “deviations” that found the characteristic frequencies and combinations of these create the space’s distinctive sound. Even though the individual sounds themselves do not change, together they make up a dynamically transforming sound field in which sounds intensify or cancel out each other depending on the listening position in the room. While walking around the space of four invisible layers of sine waves, visitors discover and explore their own individual narratives, the characteristics of hearing, the interaction of sine waves, and the acoustics of the space itself.

The SINE WAVE ORCHESTRA in the depths, Instructions

The work is exhibited in a basement space that can be entered only in a guided tour. Numbered tickets for these tours are available at the Ticket Information Desk.