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Design

Exhibit Of Japanese Earthquake-Inspired Tech-Art Pays Homage To Nature's Power

From making trees talk to fog that sings, check out some of these innovative projects coming out of Japan.

Before the Great Tohoku Earthquake hit offshore Eastern Japan in 2011, alert systems designed by national seismologists and government officials gave a minute warning to citizens in Tokyo. Nationally, some heeded the warning, while others, accustomed to the sudden natural turmoils inherent of living on an island, regarded the warning without much concern. But what ended up surging through towns like Sendai and crippling nuclear power plant systems in Fukushima was a beast of nature unpredictable–and unprecedented–even by earthquake experts in a country historically known for its earthquake frequency.

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Both the 9.0-magnitude fissure and its subsequent tsunami wave still have geologists the world over scratching their heads. What can a very-well-prepared country do to better prepare? But for Japanese artist, musician and composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, it inspired a desire to revitalize our respect for nature, especially in lieu of Japan’s reconstruction process, which doesn’t seem to be nearing an end anytime soon.

Hence the basis for his contributions to the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM)’s 10-year anniversary series. Sakamoto’s exhibit, “Art-Environment-Life,” is comprised of three installations created with long-time collaborator, Japanese artist and Dumb Type founder Shiro Takatani. Each installation interacts with their surrounding environments to communicate Sakamoto’s belief that "the civilization and art of tomorrow must emerge from a deeper understanding of nature."

And by interaction, I literally mean a vocalized communication. The main installation, Forest Symphony, collects bioelectric data from trees worldwide and translates their wavelengths into a multilayered audio experience. Working together with YCAM’s InterLab team, Sakamoto created Arduino processor-based recording devices which suspend from tree branches and communicate streaming information back to the installation’s hub at YCAM. These audio components are also available online, where users can experience the sound installation “that continuously transforms in response to seasonal and climatic changes,” according to YCAM’s website.

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Data from individual trees being recorded.

Check out some of the devices below. Also just a heads up, when you listen to the recordings you’ll realize trees sound exactly like John Cage.

While the two other installations are less fresh, they’ve been reformatted and revitalized in lieu of YCAM’s decade celebration. In LIFE – fluid, invisible, inaudible… 2, Sakamoto and Takatani collaborated to create a room filled with 9 ceiling-suspended, down-facing water tanks, equipped with screens looping projected clips from Sakamoto’s 1999 opera LIFE. All this goes on while sheets of artificial fog flood the screens, lightly veiling each of the visualizations.

The YCAM website explains the concept in more depth: “The piece further incorporates sounds raining down on the audience in concert with the ever-changing imagery, in complex interactions of repeated synchronization and variance. Visitors surrender to the fleeting scenery of lights and sounds, while gradually opening their perception toward the environment.”

Although based on a 15 year old production, this second interpretation (hence the “2” finalizing the installation’s name) incorporates newly designed imagery and sounds, which intimate Sakamoto’s take on the relationship between man and nature following 2011’s catastrophe.

For the third installation, water state 1, Sakamoto and Takatani worked with YCAM’s InterLab team once more to produce a sandbox-like receiver which turns the sound of water droplets into a harmonic symphony–similar in concept to the Forest Symphony piece mentioned above. You can get a look at the piece–as well as the two aforementioned installations–by watching the video below.

Ryuichi Sakamoto "ART-ENVIRONMENT-LIFE" from YCAM.

The installation lasts until March 2, 2014.

All photos courtesy of YCAM.