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HITOSHI KOJO
Hitoshi Kojo is a Japanese artist who currently lives in Belgium.
He has been working with multiple media - music composition, installation, performance, painting, sculpture, video, photo and those mixtures.
The extensive activities are based on his animistic sensitivity that all the matters and the spaces have their own memories.
Touching the objects, Talking to animals and plants, Resonating with atmosphere in the space. Such daily activities since the childhood are the basis of his works.
Since the move to Europe in 2004, the sound works such as making compositions, concerts, recordings have been placing more weight than other activities.
His sound works are typically formed by dense layers of textures and tones, that are carefully arranged in the space.
The sound of nature, noise, voice, instruments, etc. all the sounds are equally treated, and become elements to forming a molecular harmony in the sonic space that presents micro and macro-scape at the same time.
His music physically osmoses into the body of listeners and makes continuous fluctuations to their physical barrier. In that sense, the listeners can become a part of the sonic universe while listening to it.
Therefore he does not consider his recording only as a piece of composition nor as a document of a work, but also as a prepared material that can unfold a sound installation in any location.
His sound compositions have been released by experimental music labels such as Drone Records (Germany), Mystery Sea (Belgium), Kaon, Taâlem (France), Helen Scarsdale Agency, Alluvial Recordings, Olde English Spelling Bee, Peasant Magik (USA), etc, as well as his own label Octpia (until 2006) and omnimemento.
Several compositions were released by aliases, mostly as Spiracle until 2010.
He has been also creating experimental folkloric music with his wife Carole as Jüppala Kääpiö since 2006.
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Most of the objects and environments in our daily life are made for some purposes and are given a role.
Even most of the 'natural world' that we encounter in our daily life is being converted for our convenience, or is at least in a converted environment, or is abandoned after fulfilling its role.
If those objects and environments are used in a totally different manner or put in a totally disconnected situation from their intended role, the concreteness will be extremely apparent and a 'parallel world' will appear.
This method was experimented with by many surrealists in the early twenties, and is also well established as 'musique concrète' within music history.
Even though I use the same method, I am more interested in entering this 'parallel world' through action, to experience a 'molecular communication' with the objects and environments through all my senses, rather than to make the 'parallel world' appear.
If I dare say, the purpose is to summon a 'primal world' from 'nature' that is filled with the swirling energy of the elements, such as water, fire, wind, earth, and void, through 'molecular communication'.
Such nature is often thought of as an imaginary product in a utopia which doesn't actually exist. However, since it is based on concrete matters in daily life, it should more accurately be called 'crucial reality'.
The expression 'crucial reality' may remind you of the cruelty of reality. However, when I enter into reality through 'molecular communication', I feel that the 'primal world', which is woven with elemental energies, is incredibly beautiful. Therefore I accept it rather as the 'crucial beauty of reality'.
Although beauty always exists everywhere, it is quite difficult to feel it in daily life, since it is covered by the showy brightness of practicality.
It is similar to the fact that we cannot see beautiful stars in the daytime.
The 'crucial beauty of reality' is omnipresent in daily life. Is it useless to record the action, to summon it into the sensuous world?
At least, there is no useless matter in this 'crucial reality' that is released from the spell of practicality.
2011 February, Vevey (Switzerland)
I'm a man, who loves women,
that once I was wrapped in, that once I was a part of.
I'm an adult, who loves babies,
that once I was, that I can never return again.
I'm a flesh, however I love plants,
that I eat everyday, that I can not become yet.
I'm an animal, so I love forest,
that I feel I should look like, that I can only aspire from a distance.
My despair, love and blessings are twisted
together into a dense resonance, while emitting like a fog.
Swimming arms in the air are trying
to spin the fog into something like a cloud.
The sea and the sky, the things which always stay together
but never cross each other.
The clouds, which can transparently weave them together.
I wonder if we can become a forest one day,
which grows by rains from the clouds.
2009 May, Vevey (Switzerland)
Myself, home, country, the conscious borders we have. I am interested in the process by which these borders are transformed through various experiences.
For instance, when somthing calmly touches the skin, I feel this strongly, but with a fuzziness of the border in same time. I think it is an experience of taking out "I" from the outside from me rather than feeling the "I" in me.
I often use sound as an element of my art work. One of the reasons is that the sound can soak directly into the listener, and it has a property to dissolve piled and stiffened remembrances.
an excerpt from the text for the pamphlet of "9th Abiko Open-air Art Exhibtion"
2006 October, Chiba (Japan)
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CHRONOLOGY
Here is my brief chronology of cultural influences, meetings, and other experiences that might have influenced my current works.
The feeling of my time line is not straight at all. It's spiraled, repeated, and discontinuous in the same time.
That's why the invention of a straight time line is sometimes helpful to know or to let you know where I am now. Although I no longer need to confirm it now.
1969
Born in Ibaragi, Japan
1972/73
Making drawings of monsters, ghosts, and spirits
1974
Sister's birth
1974-78
Affected by villains of anti hero stories of Manga and TV programs
1979/80
Sound improvisations with a younger sister, using child's instruments and objects
Fallen into the total friction of the human relation
Found the books of Indian philosophies, Buddhism and aboriginal cultures
1979-84
Piano practice
1981
Began to listen Techno, New Wave
1982/83
Consciously began to make illustrations and paintings, influenced under Trans Avan Garde
1983/84
Discovered Surrealism and Dadaism
Began to make multi-track recordings with a synthesizer, a radio, etc...
1985
Began to listen Ambient Music and Ethnic Music
Began to study painting for the examination of an art university
1986
Discovered Greek philosophies, French post-modern philosophies and literatures
Began to listen Noise, Experimental Music
1988
Move to Tokyo to enter a preparation school for an art university
Interested in so-called Occultism
Sister's death
1989
Entered to "Tokyo National University of Fine Arts" - Faculty of Fine Arts - Oil Painting Course
1990
Began to play and sing in my band called "Obscure Organs"
First sound installation
1992-94
Noise rock group "Maboroshi Genjin" (Phantom Primitive Man)
1992
Met Kanae Kasahara and Wataru Kasahara (Nobu Kasahara), collaborative freaky improvisations
1993
Graduated from the art university
1994-95
Noise folk rock band "1000000 Suns"
1995
Visited Yaku Island, shocked by the nature
Consciously began to do Field Recordings
1996
Moved to Kagoshima where is the origin of my parents
Material Actions, Field Recordings, Meditations, etc... as a self psychotherapy
1998
A mystic experience, succeeded to escape from long depression since sister's death
Began to release recordings from self-publishing label "Vyakura" (white spiral)
First trip to Europe to look for an opportunity to move
Met Hermann Nitsch
1999
Trip to India and Nepal where I had unavoidably been influenced since 10 years old.
2000
Returned to Tokyo from Kagosima
Changed the name of self-publishing label to "Octpia"
Began to use a pseudonym "Spiracle" for drone music releases
2004
Began to wander in Europe
Participated in "120th Das Orgien Mysterien Theater" of Herman Nitsch
Met Michael Northam, began to collaborate as "Kodama"
2006
Met Carole Zweifel, began to collaborate as "Jüppala Kääpiö"
2007
Stayed in Canada with Carole, had inspirational experiences in vast forests.
2008
Stayed in Mongolia with Carole, met Nanjidiin Sengedorj, visit a shaman and reindeer herders in taiga forest
Marriage to Carole Zweifel
2009
Settled in Switzerland
2010
Changed the name of self-publication label to "omnimemento"
2011
Moved to Belgium
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