記憶を呼び起こすパフォーマティブ・インスタレーション これまでの創作のベースにある「記憶」を「記録」するというテーマをもとに、ある場所をおとずれた際に現れる「風情」という感覚へアプローチする試み。それぞれのアーティストが観察・収集した「場」を劇場にもちより、空間からもたらされる感覚と想像を手がかりに、共存することがなかった場所たちの再構築を図ります。クリエイションの場に観客を招き入れることで、さらなる融合と解体をはかりながら、人間と環境が行き来する「パフォーマティブ・インスタレーション」の在りようを導きだします。

A sonic theatre "Gong ex Machina" is created based on the sound composition. The event will also highlight and develop the presence of sounds as its anchor. “Gong ex Machina”, is a word play from a technical term in ancient Greece in the 5th century: Deus ex Machina, which more or less means God in or out of the machine. The term refers to the technique to present actors playing as gods on the stage of a Greek tragedy using equipment like cranes, moving up and down, or a trap door, to allow the actor coming from below the stage. Hence, Gong ex Machina, a gong in or out of the machine. The concept of the performance evolves from a reflection following an extensive research by Morinaga on the gong culture throughout South East Asian countries. Gong ex Machina also stems from the history of an encounter between music or sound cultures and the modern technology of sound recorder and player: phonograph or gramophone. Similar to other encounters between tradition and modernity—happened against the background of the industrial revolution and European colonialism in the 17th to 20th century—the encounter of gong culture with gramophone is a story of a complicated acquaintance. Apart from stories of adaptation and appropriation are also stories of distortion and manipulation. It was an encounter that changed the way we experience and understand music, in particular, or sounds in general.