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’.

Field recordings

Yasuhiro Morinaga presents Field Recording Series Slamet Gundono [Surakarta, Indonesia]
Slamet Gundono [Surakarta, Indonesia]
The second edition of “Field Recording Series” by Yasuhiro Moringa has released. This edition features Jawa’s charismatic performer, Slamet Gundono. Slamet Gundono is a charismatic performer, musician, puppet shadow master. With his particular ironic sense of humor through the appreciation of traditional Indonesian culture, the unique style of his music and narration have been appreciated by local Indonesians. By his considerable influences, He received a prestigious award, Prince Clause Award in 2005. Sound designer & Music director, Yasuhiro Morinaga met with Slamet Gundono during the production of contemporary dance performance (choreography by Akiko Kitamura) in 2011. Throughout the number of discussions and communications, both Morinaga and Slamet agreed to work collaboratively in producing new recording album. With two microphones, Morinaga captured Slamet’s dynamic voice and instruments and other Indonesian local instruments such as gender or kendang etc. Because of his improvisational music style, the recording has never been replaced or re-recorded. And Morinaga decided not to edit anything during the process of post production process (certain bypass filtering and equalization during the mastering process) to enhance the real sonic environment around him and his musicians.

Cinema

The Cloud of Unknowing
The Cloud of Unknowing
Ho Tzu Nyen’s multichannel video installation The Cloud of Unknowing (2011) explores the expansive subject of the representation of the elusive and amorphous cloud. Inspired by philosopher Hubert Damisch’s thesis on the form’s aesthetics and symbolism, A Theory of /Cloud/: Toward a History of Painting, first published in French in 1972, Ho’s work incorporates a set of eight compartmentalized vignettes, each centered on a character that stands for the cloud’s representation in historically significant Western European artworks by artists including Caravaggio, Francisco de Zurbarán, Antonio da Correggio, Giovanni Lorenzo Bernini, Andrea Mantegna, and René Magritte, as well as the Eastern landscapes of Mi Fu and Wen Zhengming. This incorporation and blending of cultural, historical, and philosophical references, both Eastern and Western, is prevalent in Ho’s practice, which references painting (EARTH, 2009), pop music (The Bohemian Rhapsody Project, 2006), literature (The King Lear Project, 2008) and philosophy (Zarathustra: A Film for Everyone and No One, 2009).