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.

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]

Field recordings
Gong Culture of Southeast Asia「Ede-Female」
The Ede groups live mainly in Tay Nguyen, the central highlands of Vietnam. Ede women are the master of their families and the children usually take the family name of their mother. This recording consists of the music played by the only the female group of Ede (Ede-bih – subgroup of original Ede). They only play the gong on special occasions such as festivals, funerals, and welcoming guests. Besides these, their gongs are usually kept in the wooden box and preserved them in the church. In this recording, they played different gong music with 7 gongs. The names of gongs are termed by the order of family members and this female gong group only uses the knobbed gong (also called nipple gong) that the sound is far more resonated than the music from the Ede male gong group which is faster rhythmic patterns and wilder tonalities.