Memespelunk

Installation art by Juria Yoshikawa.
Original soundscapes by composers Miulew Takahe, Bingo Onomatopoeia, Auxillary Snook and AldoManutio Abruzzo.

At White Cube Gallery
June 3rd to July 4th

Week 1: 6/3-9 Miulew Takahe
Week 2: 6/10-16 Bingo Onomatopoeia
Week 3: 6/17-23 Auxillary Snook
Week 4: 6/24-7/4 AldoManutio Abruzzo

More info about the composers can be found on the gallery website:
http://www.whitecubegallery.org/index.php?exhibition=juriayoshikawa

4 weeks, 4 installations and 4 composers. “4″ is my latest installation work and collaboration with composers Miulew Takahe, Bingo Onomatopoeia, Auxillary Snook and AldoManutio Abruzzo. Given a month in a 15×15 meter cube shaped art space, I chose to use a single number as the beat to create to. The idea is simple, to install a new artwork and create a new composition in the gallery each week. The minimalist number concept then extends to the 4 SL musicians - one each week. Each composer is given a single number 1, 2, 3 or 4 to create a soundscape based on their musical interpretation of that number. I will use each of the 4 weeks to extend my ongoing exploration of light in immersive spaces. Yet this time, I will take on the challenge of using the art space itself as the raw material of the sculpture. As with light, sound, motion and time - the art space is material for the creator. Can a simple number inspire? Please join us at 4 to find out.

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Week 1: Installation 1 by Juria Yoshikawa and musical composition by Miulew Takahe

Juria and Miulew at the opening

Juria in Installation 1:4
They say it’s easier to start something than finish it. “1″ was a bit harder than I expected. I knew I wanted to use an intersecting motion for my sculpture where x and y panels cut across each other while they glided through you. The idea was to create walls of color that form temporal spaces or rooms. I also wanted to use have a minimalistic narrative and imagined large visible words that rise out of the floor while my daughter’s voice saying a matching message. In my attempt to create viewer played artwork the language is triggered by viewers walking through the panels. Together with Miulew’s composition, I was looking for a way to combine simple sound, language and visuals to create powerful sensory presence.

Miulew Takahe on musical composition 1:4
I just followed what came up as it was very much first ideas (as in 1st) that i was going for. The number and theme for me pointed and gave meaning about the struggle for unity - as in “one” - and versus to not feel unity. So there is two polarities in this - - you will certainly hear these polarities - and i hope the uncomfy side of this polarity is not spoiling too much of the nicer side of the polarity…. i enjoyed doing this piece very much. It is mainly a use of different sine tones set up in different more or less feedbacking situations plus a reuse of a some snippets from a very old International Garbageman track called Dreamy House.

Viewers interact with kinetic panels, emitting sounds and text.

Each panel contains a unique voice audio sample and visual text that is activated when viewers walk through each panel.

Installation as seen from above.

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Week 2: Installation 2 by Juria Yoshikawa and musical composition by Bingo Onomatopoeia

Juria on Installation 2:4
The best way to describe “2″ is a giant musical musical instrument that can be played by a group of people while the form constantly changes shape, challenging the players with new, unexpected instances of the instrument. For “2″ Bingo Onomatopoeia has created both the soundscape and the samples in the sculpture to be played be the viewers. In this way, I see the viewers experiencing the sound and installation by taking part in a percussive performance themselves. With the changing shape of the sculpture/instrument viewers can go beyond logic and experience pure sound and physicality in virtual space. At first, a not so obvious part of the piece are hidden conversations of famous couples (or “two’s”) that are triggered by playing of the installation. By exploring different heights of the piece the viewer can found new narratives which themselves are a layer of meaning and experience. To me the ultimate goal is to create layer upon layer of experiences to ponder and enjoy.

Bingo on Composition 2:4
I am not really able to provide detailed background-infos on the backgrounds of this track, as making music solo is nothing more than doing whatever I want to do to make it sound the way I want it to sound. What I like to do is in general to take sounds from my surrounding (field recordings) and transform these noises into music.

To be frank, I took Juria’s request as a challenge: I have never before made an electronic track in two weeks; two years is a more common time-frame for me.
To overcome what first looked like a restriction/limitation/force, I restricted myself to two circuit-bent toys as sources for the raw-material to fill my samplers: a circuit-bent EURO-PLAY 69/02370 with several body-contacts and a Tiger Electronics/Hasbro toy with starving batteries. Of course these sources went through a bit of processing with hardware FX and digital plugins; after that the material was scanned and cut for loops and single samples, the loops were timestretched to fit together and arranged to build a basic track which finally was ornamented with the single samples and held together with a coherent rhythm. The samples within Juria’s installation are the same as in the “rhythm-section”: so feel free to interact like you are in a virtual samba-group or whatever YOU like it to be. Add the dialogue and the soundtrack to a film in YOUR imagination.

Show sign

People fly around the installation to experience it.

Shot from above. By clicking the spheres a story is revealed in chat texts.

People playing the installation.

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Week 3: Installation 3 by Juria Yoshikawa and musical composition by Auxiliary Snook

Juria on Installation 3:4
The gallery is just another space. Space is just another material to shape and transform. Art can be seen as instances of pure experience. As phase three in the exhibition 4, “3:4″ is the next instance in what could be seen as a progression from phases 1:4 and 2:4 being art “contained” by the art space to 3:4 where the space becomes the material, subject and art itself. Within 3:4 itself there are six instances of the gallery progressively getting smaller towards the center, each one constantly changing color and texture independently. Through 3:4 I am attempting to explore an idea I’ve had for quite a while about the art, space, time and stories. As White Cube Gallery curator Elynn Finny put it, each moment in the installation is a story waiting to be discovered. Happily, this is exactly the direction I hope to be heading through my artwork in sl.

Auxiliary on Composition 3:4
Composition 3:4 or (”3in1″ as I call it) is a mixture of three of my ambient tracks. From the start to minute 7:30 it’s a special composition for the installation “4″ of Juria Yoshikawa. While making this track I is was thinking of people living miles away from each other having the same dream of finding each other and realizing their dreams.

The second track I made after I had seen the birth of a butterfly in our garden. I think even with music its hard to express the beauty of such a happening.

About the last track i dont have many words - i hope u enjoy it - its called Silvester.

Overall I want to take the audience on a mental voyage while relaxing.

May all beings be happy

Contact Auxiliary at: info@dyna-mics.de

The gallery transformed into art

As seen from below

Juria in the installation

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Week 4: Installation 4 by Juria Yoshikawa and musical composition by AldoManutio Abruzzo

4:4 is Here!
Down the rivers Regen and Tamagawa, in a library of data unseen, through a dark Scandavian night, across the real oceans deep, the number 4 calls us, the end awaits in ominous white. After 3 weeks, 3 installations and 3 compositions; the final and last attempt is here.Together, Juria Yoshikawa and AldoManutio Abruzzo face the abyss to create an installation and soundscape, a final exclamation point. In Japan the number 4 sounds like word death. In 4:4, we seek closure to a series of experimentations, brief flashes of inspiration, gatherings of sounds and scripts, transformations of the art space to art, words moving across our screens and discussions of future exploits. 4 has come quietly and explodes into SL in a violent silence.

View of the full installation, 4 times the height of the original.

Juria on Installation 4:4
An installation for 4. A place and time that marks an ending. In making this I imagined a situation climactic yet pristine. Like a supernova, magnitudes greater than the star in its normal life, expelling all final energy. In logical terms, the cube gallery has been multiplied by 4, rising toward the heavens. There are tables with 4 chairs, some right side up others upside down. There are bowls of fruit on each table. When viewers fly through the tables fruit rise and fall. The rise and fall of empires, friendships, economies, and lives. Why should art be any different? 4 has been a journey we all have been a part of. This installation celebrates ending of all kinds. Emotionally, I am sad to see it draw to a close. And yet, I feel an expectation. The kind which comes from imagining the next beginning. The end.

Aldo on Installation 4:4

4 … it’s just a number, right?

Wrong.

Four is the smallest composite number, its proper divisors being 1 and 2. Four is also a highly composite number. Four is the second square number. 4 is the first non-unitary square prime (2^2). It has a aliquot sum s(n) 3 which is itself a prime. The aliquot sequence of 4 has 4 members (4,3,1,0) this number being the 1st composite member of the 3-aliquot tree.

Four is the only number in the English language for which the number of letters in its name is equal to the number itself. This is also true in several other languages.

Four is the smallest composite number that is equal to the sum of its prime factor

Four (pinyin sì) is considered an unlucky number in Chinese, Korean, and Japanese cultures because it sounds like the word “death” (pinyin si).

# Greek classical elements (fire, air, water, earth).
# Four seasons : spring, summer, autumn, winter.
# Four parts of a day : night, morning, afternoon, evening.
# Four cardinal directions : north, south, east, west.

“4/4″ is the last musical offering to accompany the installation by Juria Yoshkawa … this one is by AldoManutio Abruzzo.

Literally composed in the musical time signature of 4/4 (4 beats to the measure) with four sections and built around four voices, it considers some of the “mythological” associations of the number. As noted above, four is considered unlucky because of it sounding like the word for death. Death is a transformation … a closing … and yet, by some, a beginning and not an end.

“4/4″ considers the open-endedness and cyclicity that this latter idea entails. Each of the four sections build and develop only to cycle, in turn, to the next section in an ongoing wheel of music.

A visitor interacts with the sculpture in a unique way - catching some winks under the upside down bowl.

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Thank You and Goodnight

I’d like to take the chance to thank all of you who visited the show each week, making it all worth while. I’d also like to give a big wet kiss to the wonderful curators of the White Cube Gallery who gave us total freedom to transform their lovely art space. Last and certainly not least, I owe the 4 musicians - Miulew, Bingo, Auxiliary and Aldo a huge hand for sharing their amazing talent and collaborating with me.
Thank you and good night, JY