Image Forum Festival 2008

Yokohama Museum
Saturday, July 19, 2008

The annual Image Forum Festival showcases new works by international experimental film makers. The traveling festival moved to Yokohama after stops in Tokyo, Kyoto, Fukuoka and Nagoya earlier this year. Today's programs, collectively presented as "Japan Tomorrow" consisted of award-winning works by young film makers from Japan. I caught Programs G and I, and left quite unimpressed. Images of the everyday and hand-held video recording apparatus offered in a view into the kind of film-making that begins at home, with you and me, not limited to the dreams and machines of big bad studios. The effect today... kinda daring, sorta heart-warming... and way too banal to make it anything but dumpy. Nothing dumpy chic about this. Better luck next year.

On a more positive note, the little installation outside the theater titled Portable Duchamp by Ryusuke Ito was cute, and in the spirit of Duchamp in the ipod age. Viewers were invited to peek through a pair of classy old binoculars mounted on a tripod. Attached to the binoculars were two ipod touches each showing an image of Duchamp's Given 1. The Waterfall, 2. The Illuminating Gas. So bastardly. Finally a worthwhile use of the ipod touch (image of Duchamp installation below).






Program G

SUNDAY［ 金東薫 (Kim Donghoon)／ビデオ／10分／2007］奨励賞
新年10日間［ 栗原みえ (Kurihara Mie)／8ミリ／62分／2005-2007］奨励賞

Program I

合縁奇縁他生之縁 ここは山根四号組
［ 青山佳世 (Aoyama Kayo)／ビデオ／58分／2007］入選
Mermaid［ 高田苑実 (Takada Sonomi)／ビデオ／4分／2007］入選
しあわせ［ 徳本直之 (Tokumoto Naoyuki)＋鎌田綾 (Kamata Aya)／ビデオ／22分／2007］寺山修司賞

Program H

LINE［ 大仁田弘志／ビデオ／14分／2007］入選
回帰［ 孫于景／ビデオ／34分／2007］入選
もここ［ 佐藤健人／ビデオ／27分／2007］奨励賞
UNCONSCIOUS［ 中島雄介／ビデオ／5分／2007］大賞

Micropop Awards (for Programs G and I)
Best Obession With Nikes of Different Colors, and Commitment to Weird Obsession for 3-year Duration:
Kurihara Mie for Shinnen Toka

Best Birth-of-a-Calf Scene
Aoyama Kayo for Aien Kien Tasei no En

Best Crush on Hot Sister-in-Law Film (with Unacceptable Music):
Tokumoto Naoyuki and Kamata Aya for Shiawase

Chiaroscuro Award:
Kim Donghoon for SUNDAY

Best Feet Given to Mermaid with the Dregs of Information Society Award:
Takada Sonomi for Mermaid

News Flash: Neck Face Sighting in Shibuya

Across the street from Tower Records in Shibuya

microtrash

Closely related to the spirit of micropop, I'm seeing more of microtrash these days. Not that using found objects is a new concept, but seeking out the obscene, filthy, and diseased... in a cute way... seems to be catching on. That's the theme of the latests bang by the Tokyo-based art collective Chim↑Pom exhibit at the newly re-opened gallery space, NADiff in Ebisu, Tokyo. Basically, the show consists of a flooded basement of the newly constructed building. Little Manneken Piss slowly trickles urine onto the floor, where hundreds of piece of trash, and PET bottles are floating or sinking amidst other bloated objects. Spray paint covers the walls with mindless non-threatening messages. Generally, the scene is puke-colored, but cute anyway. And so wrong. Amidst the mixed messages thrown around in pop culture today, from green capitalism (referred to as "eco" in Japan) to consumerism to "cuteness," from that obscure flooded basement, they scream, through homemade video, FUCK ECO! Or, more like, rrraaarrrr aaaaaaa aaarrrrrrrrArrr.
Chim Pom recently received a glimmering review in the NY Times recently.

Worst CD of the Year... No, EVER!!!

幸せの可視　(shiawase no kashi)
Moon-light Record, Osaka (Dec. 2007)

Pikachu--the drum and vocal half of Osaka-based magical mystery international punk rock star duo Afrirampo heads in a new direction. Soon-to-be mother tries her hand at the art of singerly songwriterlyness, performing mostly on an un-tuned acoustic guitar singing songs with titles like "A girl is YURA YURA," "A elephant has nose on his back," and "You can seen the happy." Some tracks have drums that sound like they were recorded from 2 apartments away on the voice recorder function of my cellphone. It's not even an iPod. Other tracks have some wild vocal improvisations and synthesizer lines that could have been played on the "composer" function of your cell phone. To make it worse, each track is around 7 minutes long. A new era in the age of DIY, mobile recording studio arts?

It's the WORST album ever. Really.

This, I guess, is quite an accomplishment though, because 2 minutes into the album, I was totally convinced of the fact that I had never heard an album that was worse. Think about it--there's a lot of mediocre music out there. Some sad, some embarrassing, some meaningless, some pathetic. But something this BAD?! So bad it blows you away... so bad that it makes you question the meaning of art... life... the cosmos...

This may be a work of genius.

Or not.

And yet, Pikachu is like a combination of the coolness of Kim Gordon with the your-best-friendness of Kimya Dawson, and the open-your-heartness of Lavender Diamond. Delivered to you with tako-yaki flavor from the heart of Osaka. She's dripping wet, because when it rained, god drooled on her, or she's dripping wet because she woke up bawling after she dreamed that her mother died, and she's dancing in the sky shining brighter than the other (more famous) Pikachu (who caused little Japanese children to have seizures with his amazing strobe light way of being). Hanshin Tigers have nothing on this lady.

I may never listen to this album again, but it has forever made its mark on my heart.

Oh. Yeah, and it's a CD-R, and it comes with a sunflower seed taped to the cover of the sheet of glossy paper that is the CD case... so that your dreams may blossom so that you can "See the Happy."

映像作家徹底研究 6 - Experimental Music and Film at Super Deluxe

Film Makers' Workshop 6

Music: Otomo Yoshihide
Film: Ito Ryusuke
Presented by Yasunori Ikunishi


A meeting of big names in the experimental film and music worlds took place at Super Deluxe tonight in front of a full house. Ito's ultra high-speed, stunningly low-tech, almost-silent film reels were accompanied by Otomo's junk-yard orchestral assemblage with a turntable, guitar, and oh so much more. Using found footage and found objects spliced together to make their artistic worlds, Otomo and Ito seemed to come from a similar place. The message is distorted, objects are mangled, and there is sonic and visual rubble. But, Ito's choice of bright colors seemed to offer some kind of hope for happiness though maybe already lost in the remains of his impossibly corroded images. Otomo meanwhile mixed Merzbow-level noise with crystal clear guitar tones and sine tones that cut through the sounds collected by the dangling contact mic swinging above and around the turntable. In good Otomo style, all this was produced with unexpectedly precise deliberation, it seemed. It takes a skilled manipulator of noise to be able to draw out these kinds of complex human emotions from somewhere in the middle of all that noise. Think about Wall-e.

More than just the individual performances though, the inter-media synthesis seemed to be happening. The result wasn't just a combination of sound and image, but a sort of haptic experience with sound emanating from multichannel speakers, bouncing off the walls along with the unrelenting blinking images of cartoons, explosions, porn, chanbara samurai films among the undecipherable colored mess. In short, I was assured something cosmically grand was taking place. The difference between this and Wall-e though, is that the question is not about whether this music can make people happy. But that's fine. That kind of metaphysical problem has to be dealt with by something or someone even grander... like, the Creator. Or Wall-e.

Solid.

Rating: **** out of 5 stars

Test Tone vol. 35 - Festival of Alternate Tunings

The Line-up:
1. Katchmare aka Nick Hoffman
2. Otani Yoshio, Yamamoto Tatsuhisa, L?K?O?, Cal Lyall
3. Miclo Diet
Visuals by onnacodomo!!!!!

Half way through the first set, when I was beginning to question how many live laptop improvisers it takes for us to realize we've got to move beyond this, I started to stare off into the ether, or actually, the wall behind the laptop performer Mr. Katchmare, and understood--aha! this series, Test Tone, is precisely about collaboration and "experiments in music" (as the sub-heading of the series indicates). So, moving my attention away from the stage to the other (arguably more real) stage, I saw onnacodomo--a trio of industrious mad video scientists--waving all kinds of objects like mirrors, prints, decorated cassettes, string, a magnifying glass, a cup, a crystal geyser bottle, at two hand-held video recorders. The person in the middle operated a kind of mixing board. If this sounds tacky, it's not. It looks great. In the spirit of improv, and collaboration, the video performers interact constantly with the live sound. If they weren't so damn faithful in responding directly all the time (i.e., tremolo on guitar-->shaking object; noise-->busy visuals; aka "mickey-mousing"), it would make for a more interesting counterpoint, I think.

Mr. Katchmare, could have used some more interesting samples and thought about balance and rhythm in his performance to make his use of "ma" more effective.

The second act started with some nifty solo drumming by Yamamoto Tatsuhisa. His playing style reminded me of Susie Ibarra's although he went for some more straight-ahead rock grooves at times. Still, the delicate and playful kind of free drumming was a welcome alternative to the aggressive showy styles prevalent in so many free jazz groups. Tatsuhisa was joined by turntablist L?K?O? who played in a similar sort of complementary style was nice. The addition of saxophonist Otani Yoshio, and guitarist Cal Lyall completed the quartet.

Miclo Diet was another laptop performer, who ended the evening with some more club/noise/glitch sounds.

I like the idea of the Test Tone series, which puts on a new line-up once a month at Super Deluxe. It's free, so you can't get mad if you hate it (and you can just get up and leave) and all you have to do to show your love is buy good beer at the bar. It's a deal.

Link to Test Tone: http://www.soundispatch.com/ttsnews/home/test-tone-vol-35/

Rating: *** out of 5 stars

Review: ギターの日キター！！！Guitaristival @ Super Deluxe in Nishiazabu

The event: 20 guitarists, four sets, 8 hours of music, and a full house at SDLX on June 29, 2008.
Highlights: Weird ways of playing the guitar, collaborations between people like Chiku and Uchihara, and younger sleeper hits like Hannoda
Usual suspects: Noise, noise, noise, and improv--some fine, some boring, but are we still not through 33 years after Metal Machine Music, and god knows how many Merzbow albums!?!!!!
Nice Surprises: People not doing noise

Special Micropop Awards:
Beautiful hair award:
Keiji Haino for his bobmullet

Somebody stop him award:
Keiji Haino for über self-indulgence

Best unassuming guitar wunderkind:
Taku Hannoda for silent subtle and shockingly sweet style

Classy and classic in a ROVO sort of way:
Seichi Yamamoto--I guess he's the Boss

Lovechild of Devendra Banhart and Chara, god child of Gertrude Stein:
Toshiaki Chiku, an middle aged man with the tenderness of Lavender Diamond

Sweetest most exquisite noise:
Imai Toshio trio

Funky, but in need of fashion police warning:
Yoshitake EXPE for really expensive-looking dreadlocks

Man to achieve most sounds intentionally from guitar and effects, and who also happens to be a great bossa nova guitarist:
Uchihashi Kazuhisa

Somebody stop him, no, really, award:
MURATORIX. We don't need to talk about it.

Lick my arse, John Cage:
Yoshihiro Kawasome.
"Hear the ma, hear the ma... it's the space, the space" and he just keeps going

Two time air guitar world champion (for real!) and budding belly dancer (at age 36):
Yosuke Oochi of owarai comedy duo, Dainoji

The Line-up:
Set 1:
Imai Kazuo, Keiichi Miyashita, AxSxE
Nakabayashi Kirala, Hannoda Taku
MURATORIX
Set 2:
Natsuki Kido, Mon Kumagai
Tetsuji Akiyama, Munehiro Narita
Yoshihiro Kawasome
Set 3:
Yoshitake EXPE, Keiji Haino
Seiichi Yamamoto, Kato Takayuki
Toshiaki Chiku, Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Takashi Ueno
Set4:
EVERYONE (in different combinations)

Overall Rating: **** (5 stars highest)
Yay for younger musicians doing really interesting new things (like Kawasome and Hannoda). Boo for not even having one woman guitarist the whole evening (Haino's beautiful hair does NOT make this okay)

Link to guitaristival website: http://guitarkuitar.web.fc2.com/