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"Spirituality is among the things awakened within us through
sound. It is found, for example, not in the compositional elements
such as melody or harmony of Western music, but in the non-musical
animism mediated by natural phenomena such as wind or waves. Max Eastley,
the most senior of the artists contributing to this exhibition, creates
kinetic sound machines that run either on the natural power of wind
or water or by motor. He met his current collaborator David Toop in
the early 1970s. Toop has been active in the fields of improvisational
and experimental music and engaged in research and critical writing
on ethnologically oriented field work and music ranging from the experimental
to the popular. Their record collaborations date back to the LP "New
and Rediscovered Musical Instruments," released from Brian Eno's
"Obscure" label in 1975.
The installation they have created for this exhibition is a combination
of Eastley's sound machines and Toop's recitation, ambient sound,
and video projection. The two do performances together with the installation,
but by creating a "maps of sound" as performance in Toop's
terms, they are trying to create a kind of mysterious imaginative
landscape through sound, a narrative that takes form within our emotions
through the unvisualizable phenomenon of sound. When the delicate
micromotions woven out of the highly minimal movements of Eastley's
whirling sound machine evoke further images and beckon us into that
narrative we are likely to find animistic emotions awakened somewhere
inside our memory. The kind of vision evident in titles of Eastley's
work such as "NIGHT SPIRITS" is overflowing with a spiritual
inspiration that throws the obscure lineaments of invisible sound
into visible relief.
(HATANAKA Minoru / Assistant Curator, ICC)
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