TTM:IGNITION BOX 2015

“A museum where new art and new ideas are born”
In 2015 the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum launches TTM: IGNITION BOX. With this new program, the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum becomes a nexus where film, music and media art intersect, showcasing the rich variety of artistic performances launched in Tokyo. Under the direction of four experts, all specialists renowned worldwide for their unique activities, dynamic, experimental works that cross-cut conventional genres will catch fire in the IGNITION BOX.

Masayuki Kawai=Video Art｜Takashi Sawa=Video｜
Maia Barouh=Music｜Chiaki Soma=Performance

Program Ｄ is in the Main Building; all others are in the Annex.
Admission: Free with admission to the Fantaisie Merveilleuse: Le Classicisme dans l’Art Déco français exhibition (January 17 – April 7, 2015).

Cooperation｜WOOX INNOVATIONS

PROGRAM_A｜LIVE/VIDEO/PERFORMANCE
Video Art as Live Performance

February 7 (Sat) 14:00–17:30
Venue: Gallery 2, Annex
Maximum seating: 80

Shyuya Abe, who was Nam June Paik’s engineer, Takahiko Iimura, an experimental film and video art pioneer, and Ko Nakajima recreate historic video performances from the early period of such work. This program also introduces performances by contemporary video artists, including Masayuki Kawai with Ryota Hamasaki and Shuhei Nishiyama, who reflect on the history of live performances in video art and base their work on it.

Direction

• Masayuki Kawai ［video artist］
  Kawai is an artist who develops his broad-ranging style and activities that crosscut video, contemporary art, and media art.
  He has presented his work at video art festivals and exhibitions throughout the world, winning many prizes. His work is in the collection of the Queens Museum in New York, the National Museum of Art, Osaka, and other institutions. He served as the representative of the Videoart Center Tokyo in 2001-2004. Kawai is currently engaged in a project to launch a new media culture base on the concept of a “visual philosophy.”

Performance

• Ko Nakajima［video artist］
  A live performance with the ANIPUTER, jointly developed by Nakajima and JVC in 1982.
• Shuhei Nishiyama［video artist］
  A live video performance with real-time digital and analog editing.
• Takahiko Iimura［video artist］
  A re-performance of Outside/Inside, a video performance presented at Cross-Talk Intermedia in 1970.
• Masayuki Kawai［video artist］＋Ryota Hamasaki［video artist］
  A live video feedback performance, using an analog video device.

• Shyuya Abe［artist and engineer］＋Kentaro Taki［video artist］
  A live performance using the Paik-Abe Video Synthesizer that Nam June Paik and Syuya Abe developed in 1969.

PROGRAM_B｜SCREENING/LIVE/TALK
Two Dawns: Century of the Lens, Century of the Generator

March 22 (San) Part One/Part Two 15:30–19:00
Venue: Gallery 2, Annex
Maximum seating: 80
*Talk will be in Japanese.

Great discoveries often appear as almost coherent wholes at their dawn. By contrast, today many discoveries could be said to be only one of an array of possibilities. This event will lets participants experience techniques of video expression used in twentieth-century work and techniques of video expression utilizing calculations, through the many innovations appearing in Japan, in the twenty-first century, in two sessions on the same day.

Direction

• Takashi Sawa［curator and video artist］
  While active as a video artist, Sawa has also served, between 2000 and 2010, as program director at the ImageForum Cinematique and ImageForum Festival. He has also provided programs for international film festivals in Rotterdam, Berlin, Vancouver, Locarno, and other locations and for the Aichi Triennale 2013 and other events and museums in Japan. His major works include the video Tokuhain (2000).

1st SESSION: From Vaudeville to Animation (tentative title)
Performance

• Hiromichi Hosoma
• Kotobuki Shiriagari
• Takashi Sawa

2nd SESSION: In the Groove Between Improvisation and Calculation (tentative title)
Performance

• SjQ++
  Yuta Uozumi（piano）、Tadashi Yonago（trombone）、Nakagaitoisao（guitar）、Wataru Asada（drums）、Shuhei Otani（bass）、Kezzardrix（video）

• Takashi Sawa

PROGRAM_C｜MUSIC/LIVE
Maia Barouh LIVE

March 28 (Sat) , April 4 (Sat), 5 (San) 19:30-20:30
Venue: Gallery 2, Annex
Maximum seating: 80

The first live performance in an art museum of “Roots & Future Sound,” a mixture of Japanese folk songs and music from around the world, by a special unit.

Direction

• Maia Barouh［musician］
  Barouh, whose father is a musician, grew up with the stage as her place to play from early childhood. She started her career in Tokyo at the age of 16 and has collaborated with artists in many genres, including Neo-Chindon, jazz, world music, and rock. The first album she produced, an omnibus album entitled Kusamakura, was released in France, Canada, and Japan in 2005. Since 2007, she has produced her Cabaret Shinjuku events, which bridge Japanese and French music. She has also created a stir with powerful performances in the band that, for the first time, she leads. She is currently based in Paris, where she is engaged in a project to arrange Japanese folk songs using electro sound. She was scheduled to release a new album in France, Britain, and Japan in December, 2014.

Performance

• Maïa Barouh［vocalist, flute］
• Minh Pham［keyboard］
• Anthony Fresneau［drums］
• Leo Komazawa ［percussion instrument］

• Michelle Michina［chorus］

PROGRAM_D｜AUDIO DRAMA TOUR
After the Symposium

Daily, during the Fantaisie Merveilleuse: Le Classicisme dans l’Art Déco français exhibition
January 17 (Sat) – April 7 (Tue) 10:00–18:00
Venue: Main building
*This program can be experienced with earphones or hi-fi headphones. Drama is in Japanese.

The Main Building of the Teien Art Museum was the residence of a branch of the imperial family before the war, the official residence of the Minister for Foreign Affairs after the war, and, during the postwar period of rapid economic growth, was used as the state guesthouse. The program treats this historic structure, which was an important setting for events in modern Japanese history, as a vessel of memories, creating a fictional work in which possible pasts, presents, and futures mingle. Guests are invited to tour the museum’s interior at will, wearing headphones and experiencing, through a dialogue with the people, spaces, and memories that may exist there, their own “After the Symposium,” in which they themselves are the audience and the performers, connecting their own history and future.

Direction

• Chiaki Soma［art producer］
  As the first program director for Festival/Tokyo, Soma was responsible for its overall planning (2009-2013). She also founded and directed Yokohama Arts Platform: Steep Slope Studio (2006-2010). Since 2012, she has been the director of r:ead (Residence East Asia Dialogue); she is also a member of the Cultural Policies Committee of the Agency for Cultural Affairs.

Performance and Text

• Hikaru Fujii［artist and film director］

Text

• Koji Fukada［film director］

Music

• Haruyuki Suzuki［composer］

For more information: Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, 03-3443-0201
E-mail：info@teien-art-museum.ne.jp