Friday May 2, 7pm
Takahiko iimura
Live Augmented Reality performance
introduced by Julian Ross
admission $10
© Image courtesy of Takahiko Iimura
Microscope is very pleased to present the US premiere of the first Augmented Reality performance by New York/Toyko-based artist Takahiko Iimura. The visual & sound performance is based on and translates into augmented reality a previous video installation by Iimura AIUEONN Six Features, a work in which the artist associates Japanese vowels and phonetic symbols with distorted images of his face emitting the corresponding sounds.
In this new incarnation, Iimura holds an iPhone equipped with a special AEIOUNN AR App and moves it across 3 different sets of cards (Faces, Japanese Hiragana, and alphabetical) aligned on a table. The 3D reality generated by the app and and its interaction with the cards is projected from the iphone screen as video and the sounds amplified.
Iimura says about the underlying piece AIUEONN, “The effect of these exaggerated sounds and images is both funny and confusing, underlining the experience of being lost between two cultures, illustrating the slippages and misunderstandings which occur when one feels ‘foreign’. By working in two languages, the piece also illustrates the relationship between the linguistic sound and the alphabet character representing it, which is conventional rather than natural.”
A screening of short video documentations of previous performance works by Iimura will follow the live performance. The evening will be introduced by researcher, curator and writer Julian Ross. Ross is the author of “Circle the Square: Film Performances by Iimura Takahiko in the 1960s” recently published on MoMA’s Post (full essay available HERE).
Video Program:
ANMA (The Masseurs) (1963) with Tatsumi Hijikata
FLOWERS’ ORGY (1968) with Yayoi Kusama
FLUXES REPLAYED (1991) with Fluxus artists
WHITE CALLIGRAPHY PERFORMED (1967/2015) with Tomomi Adachi
CIRCLE AND SQUARE (2011)
“Between 1963 and the 1970s, Iimura Takahiko, an experimental filmmaker and video artist, challenged conventional experiences of cinema by putting an emphasis on the performative aspect of film projection through activities he called film performances.” – Julian Ross, from “Film Performances by Iimura Takahiko in the 1960s”
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Takahiko Iimura is a Japanese pioneer of experimental film and video, working with film since the 60s and video the 70s and sharing his time between Toyko and New York. In more recent years, he has integrated new technologies into his works. Iimura has exhibited and screened widely in Japan, the USA, and Europe including at MoMA last year in conjunction with the exhibit “Tokyo 1966-1970: A New Avant-Garde” Takahiko Iimura’s works have also appeared in solo exhibitions, installations, screenings and other events at institutions including: The Whitney Museum, New York; Cinematheque Francaise, Paris; Centre George Pompidou, Paris; the Hara Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo; the Saison Museum, Tokyo; The National Gallery Jeu de Paume,Paris; Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid, 2000 and many others.
© Image courtesy of Takahiko Iimura
