Echoes for unknown egos―manifestations of sound

Unveiled at this event is a new performance piece that was realized in collaboration between YCAM and Shun Ishiwaka, a percussionist who has been attracting much attension with his broad-ranged, genre-crossing activities.

The performance “Echoes for unknown egos – manifestations of sound” that is presented here revolves around the core idea of “co-performing with oneself,” which in itself harks back to the event “Disco 3000 Vol.02_1+2 Layer Shun Ishiwaka extended technique” that took place in 2020 (organized by SONG X JAZZ, staged at blkswn welfare centre). Here, Ishiwaka presents an improvised performance for which he only determined the duration beforehand. After a certain interval following the performance, the artist does a second performance based on his own memory of the first one. Both performances were filmed, and the footage was publicly released. Ishiwaka’s experience includes repeated sessions with a wide variety of performers, each of which was an opportunity for him to flexibly vary his own musical style, and greatly inspired his sessions with none other but himself.

For this work, Ishikawa drew from such past experiences to develop “agents” – including the realm of artificial intelligence – that can listen to his performance and generate delicately diverse sound-based expressions. They do so based on Ishiwaka’s drum solo, and such “communication” with agents provides the artist with new hints and ideas for his performance, while initiating a process of rediscovering the core of his music, including elements of sound that evolve into music, and connections with co-performers. Following Ishiwaka’s solo concert on the opening day, the program on day two features also Ishiwaka’s old friend, the saxophonist Kei Matsumaru, how adds new facets to performance.

“Egos” in the title refers to agents, while also suggesting the likely encounters with as-yet unknown realms of sound through the co-performance with those agents. In other words, the work can be understood as an attempt to produce a variety of “egos” of Ishiawaka himself.