concrete

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’.

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.

Cinema
廻り神楽
東日本大震災により甚大な被害を受けた岩手県三陸海岸を舞台に、大津波を生き抜いた神楽とこの地に暮らす人びとの生活のベースにある力強さを描いたドキュメンタリー。三陸沿岸150キロにおよぶ地域の人びとの人生に寄り添いながら、神々や精霊が息づく三陸の地を340年以上にわたり神の使いとなって巡行の旅をつづけている「廻り神楽」。三陸の大津波を生き抜いた神楽衆が以前と同じように海辺を巡りはじめる。奏でる音色が死者を鎮魂し、海に生きる者の心を支える神楽衆たち、そして海と向き合いながらこの地に住み続ける人びとの日常が描かれる。

Archival sounds
『Archival Sound Series : Jose Maceda』
武満徹(日本)やタンドゥン(中国)と並び、20世紀のアジアを代表する作曲家であるフィリピンのホセ・マセダ(1917-2004)による半世紀前のフィールド・レコーディング集。 現代音楽の作曲家であるホセは、東南アジアの音楽文化を体系化した一人として民族音楽学の研究者としても多大な業績を残した人物である。本作品はマセダが初めてフィールドワークを行った1953年からの約20年間を振り返り、フィリピンの少数民族による音楽文化を包括する音源集となっている。地理学的な国境線だけでは語ることのできないフィリピンの音楽文化を、ホセの触る録音機からきこえてくる音・音楽・ノイズを我々の耳へ近づけてくれる作品となっている。