Current

The Voice of Inconstant Savage
[Commissioned Work] This multifaceted, polyphonic and immersive sound installation by Yasuhiro Morinaga establishes a historical encounter between Portuguese culture and Japan, memories and myths that remain and coexist with other cultures of the Amazon. Commissioned for the Engawa – Japanese Contemporary Art Season programme , The Voice of Inconstant (2023) 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’.

Performing arts

To Belong
インドネシア×日本国際共同制作プロジェクト。コンテンポラリーダンス、伝統舞踊、武術、それぞれのアーティストのもつバックボーン・・・鋭敏な身体感覚同士の新鮮な出会いが巻き起こしていく磁場。インドネシアの伝統や神秘的ともいえる生命力あふれるエネルギーと、現代表現を融合を試み、新たなる舞台空間の創造へと臨んだダンス作品。

Cinema

The Autumn Festival of Dogo, one of the most violent religious festivals in Japan, takes place each year in the town of Matsuyama on the island of Shikoku. From the meticulous preparation to the battle, it is above all an immersive plunge into a mysterious and abstruse ceremony reported by Gaspard Kuentz (to whom we owe notably Kings of the Wind & Electric Queens, co-direct- ed with Cédric Dupire, VdR 2014). Alternating between external and distant viewpoints – such as the women leaning on the balcony to watch – and the perspective of an on-board and subjective camera, intertwining silence into the tumult of the collective trance, Uzu builds the immersive account of an event and conserves the tension required to evoke the brutal assault. Somewhere between visual ethnography and war reporting, a sensorial choreography imbued with violence, in submission to the chief.

Archival sounds

『Archival Sound Series : Sir. Ludwig Koch』
ルドウィグ・コックは、フィールド・レコーディングにおけるパイオニアだ。録音技術史上、自然環境音や野生動物の録音に関して最も重要な人物である。本アルバムは、コックが1889~1952年に外地でレコーディングした貴重音源集だ。作曲家のヨハネス・ブラームス本人が演奏するピアノ曲やベルギー王室の委託を受けて採取したサウンドスケープ、50年代のパリの都市環境音等、欧州における自然環境音・都市騒音を考察する上で重要な音源集となっており、森永泰弘と英国立図書館サウンド・アーカイブ部門の共同プロデュースにより発表された極めてレアな音源集だ。