A Few Notes
I met my friend Mamoru a sound artist who hadn’t seen in a while on my last trip to japan. We met this time in Tokyo at the Roppongi Crossing exhibition, but he’s actually based in Osaka after living in New York for quite a few years. He usually works with an original sound system which includes handmade valve amplifiers and a guitar which is used more like a harp and tuned to specific pitches. The result is what he calls a ’sound collage’ where he mixes different sounds, improvising while he works using loop samplers, home made oscillators, bells and other non reed instruments, usually with some kind of visual installation.
Part of his work is creating a performance which does not actually begin and end with the performance itself, he wants the listener to form their own narrative and in some ways become part of the work itself albeit a very personal one.
As part of a full moon performance in glass building in Daikanyama, he initially send out a small book that contained words taken from his notes to people who were visiting the show. On arrival people were also given a kind of bound book box which was just the right size for the first book to fit in to.
A month after attending the performance people received a CD with a recording of the performance itself which fits perfectly in the space left in the box. The performance then becomes something more like an piece of art in itself.
