concrete

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’.

Publication
Yasuhiro Morinaga + Roberto Paci Dalo 『Japanese Girls at the Harbor』
『Japanese Girls at the Harbor』
CONCRETEが送るCDリリース第二弾は、日本の無声映画『港の日本娘(監督:清水宏)』から想像するサウンドスケープを、サウンドデザイナーの森永泰弘とイタリアを代表するマルチメディア・アーティストのロベルト・パチ・ダロによって作り上げた作品です。森永による多彩稀な録音のテクニックとライブエレクトロニクス、パチダロによる編集技術とクラリネット演奏とが組み合わさって、無声映画における音響作品というユニークな側面を打ち出しました。 映画が撮影された横浜での録音、フィルムとデジタルが織りなす電子音、過去と現在の音環境や文化の多様性を互いに検討しながら、映画の持つ「時間」に沿いながら制作された本作は、森永とパチダロが推進するプロジェクト『SOUNDGRAPH』の第一弾作品です。『Soundgraph』とは、無声映画の音響化を文化学的な側面から捉え、映画特有の物語構造と時間に沿って音響の制作が行われるものです。今後、様々なアーティストがこのプロジェクトに参加する予定です。

Cinema
The Mental Traveller
The Mental Traveller is a poetic reflection on the nature of remembrance. It navigates through the mental spaces of people consumed by memories of lost time.The film meditates on the passing of time, external behaviors, habitual patterns of thought and the sensorial realities of five mentally disordered men inside the psychiatric ward in Chanthaburi Province, east of Thailand, in which it is filmed. The film was conceived from the director’s connections to his parents and companions as they went through states of sickness, impending death, dementia, grief, and temporary insanity. At the same time it echoes upon the turbulent years of political upheavals and repercussions in Thailand, resulting the nation in a state of delirium, lunacy and trauma.