Installation

The Voice of Inconstant Savage
Commissioned for the Engawa – Japanese Contemporary Art Season programme organized by Calouste Gulbenkian Museum's Modern Art Center, The Voice of Inconstant Savage is an immersive installation that superimposes a prayer inspired by the story of a 16th-century Portuguese missionary, a chant from a Kakure-Kirishitan (hidden Christians) prayer – a religion rooted in Nagasaki Prefecture –, a chant from the Karawara spirits of the Awá indigenous people – who live in the Amazon rainforest – and a chorus of Western Gregorian chant. Morinaga questions the position of the aesthetics of inconstancy in relation to the discourse of the “savage” that modern society confronts.

Field recordings

Sombat Simla: Master Of Bamboo Mouth Organ
Simla is known in Thailand as one of the greatest living players of the khene, the ancient bamboo mouth organ particularly associated with Laos but found throughout East and Southeast Asia. His virtuosic and endlessly inventive renditions of traditional and popular songs have earned him the title ‘the god of khene’, and he is known for his innovative techniques and ability to mimic other instruments and non-musical sound, including, as a writer for the Bangkok Post describes, ‘the sound of a train journey, complete with traffic crossings and the call of barbecue chicken vendors’.

Installation

POLLINATORS
本作は、ベトナム北部の山岳地帯のモン族の生活にフォーカスし、シャーマンによる厄除儀礼と養蜂家による採蜜行為を重ね合わせた視聴覚インスタレーションとなっています。シャーマンによる精霊との対話と養蜂家による蜂との対話から引き起こされる人間、環境、そして生活における共生共存を通じ、記号化された私たちの社会生活にオルタナティブな視点を導入していく作品となっており、3D立体音響と4チャンネル映像によって、観賞者への没入度を一層高めていきます。

Field recordings

Yasuhiro Morinaga presents Field Recording Series Slamet Gundono [Surakarta, Indonesia]
Slamet Gundono [Surakarta, Indonesia]
インドネシアはジャワ島のスラカルタで活動するパフォーマーのスラマット・グンドノとフィールドレコーディングした作品です。スラマット・グンドノはジャワ島を代表するパフォーマー、音楽家、影絵師。インドネシアの伝統文化を探求しながら独自のユーモアと風刺で、物語の事実/虚構を混ぜ合わせながら現代社会の様相をユニークな音楽として歌うユニークなアーティストです。森永とグンドノは2011年に公演された振付家である北村明子のダンス作品『To Belong』で知り合いになって以来、幾度となくコミュニケーションを交わし、今回のレコーディング・プロダクションにたどり着きました。二本のマイクロフォンでグンドノの歌声と楽器、そしてクンダンやゲンデルといったインドネシアの楽器演奏を一回録り(グンドノの音楽はその日の彼の気分で音楽が全く変わってしまう)で実現させ、一切のポスト・プロダクションを省くことで、フィールドでの彼を取り巻いた環境を如実に表す作品となっています。

Cinema

EARTH
“Earth” is a film that consists of three long slow motion shots. It depicts a landscape after a catastrophe – human bodies are mixed here with coils of wire, fragments of pallets and cardboard boxes, as well as dead fish and chaotically flashing light bulbs. The work bears a marked reference to European painting, especially French Romantic painting. The film has borrowed inspiration from Theodore Gericault’s “Raft of the Medusa” from 1819, one of the most significant paintings in France after the Revolution. Also noticeable are references to pieces by Eugene Delacroix (“The Massacre at Chios”, 1824) and Caravaggio (“The Incredulity of Saint Thomas”, 1601-1602 and “David with the Head of Goliath”, ca 1599). The artist’s fascination with old painting – highlighted by the strong light of fluorescent tubes that imitate the chiaroscuro effect of the Baroque paintings – was juxtaposed in the film with the contemporary electronic soundtrack of Black to Comm. Played in slow motion, the music seems hardly recognisable combining two temporally and geographically distant motifs.