How not to think?

Tadasu TAKAMINE

2012
Performing Arts

大きなサイズで見る

In response to written instructions from the audience, entered via touch panel keyboards, performers behind a screen extemporaneously create a variety of shadow pictures.

The performers in this piece are about a dozen male and female residents of Yamaguchi, all in their 60s. Having the piece performed by people of this age group was a plan Takamine has been keeping in his drawer since the early planning stage. Following shows in Nagoya (Aichi Triennale 2010) and Croatia (Queer Zagreb, 2012), the performance in Yamaguchi is the first in which this idea is finally realized.

Accompanied by the music of an organist, the performers in union do their best to entertain the audience by creating silhouettes of anything they want - ranging from simple tasks such as "old man" or "dog", to reckless instructions asking for "Gundam", "Kintaikyo (bridge over Nishikigawa in Yamaguchi)", "AKB48" or "black person".

Profiles

Tadasu TAKAMINE

Contemporary Artist / Theater Director

Born in Kagoshima in 1968 and lives in Akita. Graduated from the lacquer work department of Kyoto City University of Arts and Music, and the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Science (IAMAS) in Gifu. Much of Takamine’s work awakens a feeling of non-verbal compassion and sympathy in the viewer through installations, media art techniques, and performances that emphasize the bi-directional relationship between a work and its audience. His practice also deals with issues related to American imperialism, the sexuality of handicapped persons, and issues facing foreign residents in Japan, highlighting the complex relationships between authority and subject, those implicated within a particular situation, and those who are not, often prompting the viewer towards a process of self-questioning. His works have been highly acclaimed both in Japan and abroad. Takamine participated in the Venice Biennale in 2003, and his solo show “Too Far to See” toured three Japanese museums between 2011 and 2012. He is also the author of “A Lover from Korea” (Kawade Shobo Shinsha,2008), a novel that examines issues related to identity and nationalism through his own personal relationship with an ethnic Korean woman resident in Japan, and an incident that took place at a manganese mine in Kyoto, where Takamine wrote the work."

Credit

Produce: Tadasu Takamine
System design: Junji Nakaue
Performers: Shimako Atsumo, Atsuko Aramaki, Nobuko Odamura, Kazue Kimura, Toshihiko Shiga, Mikio Tanaka, Shigetaka Fujiwara, Tamiko Fujiwara, Tokuko Masuda, Shu Mitsuo, Masumi Miyanari, Kazuko Muranaka, Kazuhiko Morita
Electronic organ players: Shoko Ota, Miyoko Sasaki, Miyuki Takeuchi, Yumi Ando