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’.

Event/Workshop

耳の野外学習
コクヨ野外学習センターと黒鳥社による「働くことの人類学」のポッドキャストシリーズと連動したプロジェクト。森永がこれまで実践してきたフィールドレコーディングを素材に、「たたく」「ふく」「はじく」という、最も原始的な人間本来の生きていくための営み=技術をテーマにDJミックスを行っている。このDJミックスは、ここ数年アジアを中心にレコーディングしてきた民族の音楽や環境音をセレクト(アジアの音ではないものもいくつか含まれているが)し、ポストプロダクションでミキシングや電子的な加工を施しながら、リニアな音の時間を創造した。 人類学者たちは、調査地で現地語を学び、長期間地域に密着し、そこの情報をくまなく記述・記録した上で、ラボで検証・実験しながら論文や民族誌としてまとめあげていく。僕の場合は、現地の言葉もわからないし地域に密着しながら文字で記述をしていくような形も採用していない。むしろ楽器や音を軸に、その文脈や周縁を追い続けながらレコーディングしているに過ぎない。自身の目と耳を頼りに作品のゴールをゆるやかに想像しながら記録をし、素材を持ち帰ってスタジオで実験・検証しながら作品を制作していく過程は、どことなく人類学者の研究手法と似ている部分があることを以前から意識していた。

Event/Workshop

For a Friend, To a friend, …
This piece is dedicated to two Indonesian art masters, Gunawan Maryanto, who died in 2021, one of Indonesia's most prominent poets, with whom Morinaga worked on several projects, and Bambang Mbesur, a vocal artist who died in 2020. The texts were created for the sonic theater project “Gong ex Machina”, by Yasuhiro Morinaga and Yudi Ahmad Tajudin. It is recommended to use headphones while listening to the piece. --TEXT 1 Be my back I am a turtle traveling in time The pounding gong composes the body we inhabit Composing the islands we live in Composing I Composing you. The vibration of the sound harbors the memories of a far and lengthy travel That pounding gong Reverberating time TEXT 2 in the beginning was sound. A bang: be! And then, vibration, a long hum that creates a wave Creating space, and also: time And then nebula, partly clumping up, hardening, becoming planet. Add infinite numbers of planets, add trillions of galaxies. And among them all a little dot, so little it is insignificant: Earth: Us In the beginning was sound A bang and a long hum that create everything within seven days TEXT 3 “Do you hear me? Do you really hear me? Do you understand me? Do you really understand me?” Track List: Javanese instrument, Gender for Ruwatan rituals [recorded in Yogyakarta, Indonesia] Voice by Gunawan Maryanto & Rizman Putra [recorded in Tokyo, Japan] Threshing by Ede-Bih Group [recorded in Dak Lak, Vietnam] Meras Gandrung by Haidi, the Osing Group [recorded in Banyuwangi, Indonesia] Saggeypo by Kalinga Group [recorded in Luzon, Philippines] Pinwheel by Ede group [recorded in Buon Ma Thuot, t, Vietnam]

Cinema

A Ripe Volcano
A Ripe Volcano reflects Bangkok as a site of mental eruption and emotionally devastated land during the heights of terrors, primal fears, trauma, and the darkness of time. A Ripe Volcano revisits The Rattanakosin Hotel, the site where the military troops captured and tortured the civilians, students and protesters who were hiding inside the hotel during the Black May of 1992; and Rajadamnern Stadium, a Roman amphitheatre styled Muay Thai boxing arena, which was built in 1941-45 during the Second World War and since then has become the theatrical labyrinth of physical and mental explosions. The work builds around the recollections of human experiences that took place within these spaces and shifts through the mental space distilled from the possessed memory of wounded time.