We have only just uploaded exhibition view photos of Atsushi Koyama's The Reverse Rotation onto
our home page and now we need to pack the works up again. This time, we are bringing the show to a world that has everything to do with rotation: the world of techno. Techno is a rotation of pairs around a
void: high and low pitch, sharp and dull sound, ascending and descending tones revolve around the hole. This dynamic is what the physical form of the techno record races to reveal.
Koyama strives to grasp and visually present the point excluded from the field of parity, the place where the world is not yet split into left or right, high or low, plus or minus.
Techno, by rotating opposites that are formalized and purified of any
meaning, generates in audio dimension and gives us the experience of this same kind of space: a point of non-duality, brief and shimmering, opening up within the matrix of our very “reality.”
We already have mesmerizing collaborations with techno DJs and producers—Stefan
Goldmann, C.Love,
Ntogn—under
our belt. Now, we are taking our first step into the hole, into the techno cave, under the ground… and this descent won't be our last. We are called to move deeper into this contact.
Rodion TR
Frantic Gallery Director
"Live" Painting by Atsushi Koyama Sat., October 5, 2019, 22:00-28:00 SubCulture
feat.Maayan Nidam, Contact
Tokyo Japan, Tokyo, Shibuya-ku, Dogenzaka 2-10-12 Shintaiso Bldg No.4, B2F
It is a common practice by now to host live painting at techno nights and music
festivals. We have decided to present our own version: Koyama brings the Machine to the club.
XY Axis Plotter with Z Axis rotation | original drawing control | 227 x 181 cm maximum canvas size/up and down | usage of stylus on semi-dry paint background | stepping motor drive | operating range
approx. 350 x 250 cm | Wifi communication | PIC micro-controller in plotter | wireless LAN | programmed in C Language
The Machine—accompanied by techno beats—will be creating a painting, executing the mechanism motif atop a hand drawn figure of a human being. Four paintings from the Parity Violation series
will be shown alongside the “live” painting, as well as three drawings, one projection on the floor, and one video loop, displayed on a monitor, showing the work in progress. We are planning a
mechanical Gesamtkunstwerk, a total work of art, constantly evolving visually and audibly, drawing the visitor into its scheme.
We invite you to enter this apparatus-space with its unfolding and circulating logic, this wheel of gradually unfolding causes and effects. Isn't the first step on the way to ultimate freedom
to accept that we are wired, and to explore this—cultural? universal?—mechanism? Neither the DJs performing over the course of the evening, nor Koyama, nor the organizers have forgotten about the
final goal here: to find the true spirit in the grid and live beyond scare quotes.
Maayan Nidam
When friends call Maayan
Nidam, she often says, “Sorry, I'm rewiring.” Well, so does Atsushi Koyama. This is what brings them together: they are both Manmachines. Nidam, with her passion for hardware, doesn't go as far as
Steam Punk or Tetsuo, of course, but her sound has a body. In an interesting twist, Nidam's drive towards the machines in-corporates - I mean incarnates - the abstract repetition of Techno. Her
bricolage of analogue handiwork de-digitalises the beat. Would it be too abstract if I say that what we hear from her has an expiry date working in it, an insistent deadline? The objectified presence of
Nidam's vibration automatically opens the prospect of decomposition. And so her Techno-Transformer moves, building and rebuilding itself, plugging in and offloading what it has processed, inhaling and
exhaling... until it stops.
SubCulture is a series of parties digging the cultural tunnel between Japan and Israel: beyond just "name value"
exchange, reconstructing "the general image", alternative to "mainstream" and overcoming the preconceptions of what music/art event should be. Supported by The Embassy "SubCulture" promptly
becomes an example of the fair collaboration between Politician and Night Organizer working on installing another dimension - less exposed and more cool - for the interaction between two
nations. Subculture is brought to night by Tai T Ram: Dj, co-organizer of Rebirth Music Festival and Terminus party series in past and a person who is planning to brake
dozen(?) more limitations of music industry in future. With 10 years experience of taking care of international artists in Japan it seems he is serious about bringing The Content into Party: "It
is not going to be Dj+alcohol any more." Whether with such amusing shifts like "Museum Night" or with more serious mutations of Clubs into Night Cultural Centers (C12 (Brussels), Mutabor (Moscow) and -
while almost nobody noticed - Berghain (Berlin)) Art is showing us that it is in mood to move back into Night... where it belongs. We meet it in on half a way and frantically follow its steps,
this time in SubCutlure.
Monster in the belly of Shibuya, banging all night two floors beneath the ground with
the entrance through the parking lot. It takes couple of minutes to scroll down the list of artists already performed in Contact and it doesn't look it is going to stop. Peter van Hoesen, Ken Ishii,
Eric Clotier etc. are booked for October and many more are to come. Organized by people who know what they are doing with two dance floors and and a room with a stage this time with an art exhibition on
it.
Atsushi Koyama, Parity Violation 2, oil on canvas, 90x130x3cm, 2018
Frantic Good(s)
The SubCulture event at Contact will also serve as a celebration of the launch of our
Frantic Good(s) project. We want to share Frantic artists’ visions with a larger audience, which is why we have decided to take a deep dive into all the media that could possibly (or impossibly) convey our
message. Our exploration of materials and techniques will be guided by the dignity of “Made in Japan”—which we are looking forward to sharing with you. Online shopping options are on their way as well.
