Ryuichi Sakamoto: seeing sound, hearing time
seeing sound, hearing time
The sensational exhibition hosted by the Museum of Contemporary Art in Tokyo (MOT) was a comprehensive glimpse into Ryuichi Sakamoto’s career of pioneering music and creativity. Focusing entirely on large-scale installations dynamically constructed inside and around the museum building, this exhibition reflects on his most well-known experimental pieces and new works he envisioned before his passing.
I’m ashamed to say that before the exhibition, the only piece of Sakamoto I recognised in a heartbeat was Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence, the opening title of the 1983 movie of its namesake. As much as I enjoy having instrumental pieces and original soundtracks on while I work, few stick with me.
The anticipation at the museum was palpable, everyone buzzing with excitement for the exhibition dedicated to the legendary artist. We were in town during the last week before the show closed, and we lucked out in having the foresight to get online tickets in advance; it took 50 minutes alone just to scan everyone who already had a ticket in, and an additional 100 minutes if you were waiting to buy a same-day ticket on the spot.
If you’ve been to the MOT, you’ll know they have a massive foyer space spanning the entire museum. Despite this, the queue still snaked through the whole space and overspilled into the courtyard. That’s how viral the exhibition was, even on its final days. But with the Japanese being Japanese, everything was a tidy, orderly affair. The crowds waited patiently, slowly inching forward. It helped that it was a sunny day, with the foyer’s incredibly high ceilings and expansive glass facade inviting light and curiosity that provided fascination amongst boredom.
Ryuichi Sakamoto
Ryuichi Sakamoto (1952-2023) is a prolific Japanese composer, musician, and producer whose career spans over four decades and has been marked by innovation and artistic exploration. Sakamoto first gained international recognition as a member of the groundbreaking electronic music group Yellow Magic Orchestra (YMO), which helped pioneer the sound of synth-pop in the late 1970s. His eclectic style incorporates classical, electronic, and world music elements, showcasing his versatility and creativity.
Sakamoto has composed scores for numerous films, earning accolades for his work. His music often reflects his deep concern for environmental issues and humanity, intertwining themes of nature and technology. Beyond his film work, Sakamoto's solo albums and operatic endeavors also exemplify his commitment to pushing artistic boundaries and exploring new soundscapes.
Only roughly half of his exhibited pieces permitted photography, of which I’ve tried my best to document my reflections and the stories behind them.
Installations
async–immersion tokyo
Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani
2024
Sakamoto's album async, released in 2017, is a profound exploration of sound that reflects both his experimental roots and an introspective approach to music. The album is characterised by its ambient textures and minimalist compositions, featuring a blend of piano, electronic sounds, and field recordings, weaving an atmospheric soundscape that evokes tranquility and unease. Thematically, async reflects Sakamoto's contemplation of life, time, and mortality, influenced by his experiences with illness and the fragility of existence.
Starting with async–drowning in 2017, Sakamoto and Takatani created installation works exploring their concept of “installation music”, music placed three-dimensionally in a space. async–immersion was first exhibited at AMBIENT KYOTO 2023, after Sakamoto’s passing, that develops on his async series works and has now been adapted for the Tokyo gallery.
Music from the async album plays from fourteen channels on high-precision speakers, surrounding viewers from all sides, as images by Takatani play on an 18m-long LED wall. The images composed by Takatani are based on footage of Sakamoto’s instruments, belongings and other objects at his New York studio, with new elements added for this installation, including texts recited from the songs “fullmoon” and “Life, Life.”
“Because we don’t know when we will die
We get to think of life as an inexhaustible well
Yet everything happens only a certain number of times
And a very small number, really”
As the images on the LED wall change steadily in one direction, they transform into a unified landscape where countless thin lines is slowly scanned, before reverting one pixel at a time to horizontal lines that stretch into sediment-like layers–much reminiscent of the original async album cover. The deliberately un-synchronised mismatch between the ever-evolving visuals and the music creates an infinite loop in the gallery space, lending a cinematic feel to guide listeners through an immersive auditory experience.
LIFE–fluid, invisible, inaudible…
Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani
2007
Sakamoto's opera LIFE, created in 1999, is a groundbreaking work that reflects his deep engagement with themes of existence, nature, and the human condition. This ambitious piece on the theme of symbiosis merges music, visual art, and performance, creating a multi-sensory experience that challenges traditional operatic forms.
In 2007, the opera was deconstructed into a video and sound installation by Sakamoto and Takatani. Employing fog as a medium, the artists explore the boundaries between perceptible and imperceptible things, as the piece’s subtitle indicates.
“...Can we redeem the damage we have done? Is salvation possible?”
In an otherwise pitch-black space, nine water tanks in a 3 x 3 grid are equipped with speakers and suspended from the ceiling, with videos projected on fog generated inside the water tanks. The images and sounds are derived mainly from the opera LIFE, comprising over 400 sequences categorised according to the taxonomical system and algorithmically combined to generate an infinitely evolving installation. The images emerge distinctly when thick fog filters through the water and swells like floating on the floor.
The water tanks hang overhead like floating gardens and formidable pools as the light flickers from white to blue and green. Below, visitors mill about slowly, pausing to observe the changes accompanied by a hauntingly beautiful score. Of the entire exhibition, LIFE–fluid, invisible, inaudible… felt like the most immersive installation: the piece had no definitive beginning or end, which, when placed in the vast darkness, seamlessly blurred into an expanse of space-time that evokes introspection and emotional depth. Much like LIFE, it’s more a meditative exploration of what it means to be alive.
Ryuichi Sakamoto Archive
2024
Ryuichi Sakamoto explored cross-disciplinary artistic expression for over half a century in the late 20th to early 21st century. The archival material, which consists of unpublished materials, publications, and simulations by generative AI, sheds light on his trajectory of creative development and provides context to the exhibition.
Music Plays Images X Images Play Music
Special exhibit from archive
Ryuichi Sakamoto x Toshio Iwai
1996-1997/2024
This work was originally a collaborative performance by Sakamoto and Iwai using music and images, first performed at Art Tower Mito in 1996. For this exhibition, two songs from Sakamoto’s performance at Ars Electronica in 1997, preserved among Iwai’s archives, were selected to be presented along video data captured at the time.
The piece was my favourite from the exhibition, as it goes back to Sakamoto’s roots as a pianist and showcases his frontrunning ideas on blending auditory and visual elements with technology. Early on, he experimented with MIDI so his piano performances could be recorded and reproduced accurately, and even deployed live broadcasting via the Internet, which, although very common nowadays, was virtually unheard of almost two decades ago.
In the narrow hall, a hologram video of Sakamoto playing on his favourite MIDI piano was reflected onto a glass pane in front of an actual piano, recreating an illusion of his legendary recital in modern day. Iwai reconstructed the same programming to instantly translate notes into visuals that bounced off the piano–crisp chords held triangular shapes like staccatos, sustained notes columns of fireworks shooting into the sky, not unlike the now passé but once popular beat rhythm games in reverse.
LIFE–WELL TOKYO, Fog Sculpture #47662
Ryuichi Sakamoto + Fujiko Nakaya + Shiro Takatani
2024
Nakaya is known for her Fog Sculpture, which engulfed the Pepsi Pavilion at the Osaka Expo in 1970 using artificial fog generated from pure water, and has since undertaken more fog projects worldwide.
At twenty-minute intervals, fog emerges from both sides of the sunken outdoor terrace, colliding and swirling towards the sky in a convection current. Its movement is captured by a camera and converted into Sakamoto’s music, while a mirror upstairs tracks the sun to reflect light onto the fog. It starts gently, with light puffs of white that billow and tease the crowd into the terrace’s centre. But if the staff wearing hooded raincoats are an indicator of anything, the fog intensifies in waves, ultimately swallowing anyone who dares venture into its eerie, dreamlike state.
Sensing Streams 2024–invisible, inaudible (MOT version)
Ryuichi Sakamoto + Daito Manabe
2024
Sensing Streams was first presented at the Sapporo International Art Festival 2014: City and Nature, where Sakamoto served as Guest Director. At MOT, the original video display has been upgraded to an elongated LED display 50 centimetres wide stretching 16 metres along the courtyard wall behind the museum shop and cafe, accompanied by five sets of outdoor speakers.
Electromagnetic wave data, imperceptible to humans but used by mobile phones, Wi-Fi, and radios, is collected by antennas installed outside the museum and converted into images and sound in real time. In this way, Tokyo’s invisible (and inaudible) infrastructure materialises into white noise and seemingly random clusters on the screen. There wasn’t much action when we were in the courtyard, but the pleasant setting gave a refreshing break from the indoor art and provided plenty of opportunities for people-watching.
Thoughts
The exhibition can only be best described as an immersive sensory realm transcending traditional gallery boundaries. It’s a celebration of a career that spans decades, showcasing Sakamoto's evolution as an artist and thinker. No wonder the public reception has been overwhelmingly positive, with many moved by the powerful intersection of sound and visual art.
Sakamoto’s work, known for its profound emotional depth and experimental spirit, has an incredible tendency to fuse disciplines into a cohesive statement that effortlessly invites introspection. Installations were designed to encourage viewers to engage with sound–or the lack of it–in new ways. I found myself lingering in front of pieces with an electronic hum in their ambience that forced me to truly listen to the nuances of sound and, for lack of a better word, endure the quiet passage of time. How often do we spare the time to dissect how the fog moves or to analyse how small, sensory details in life make us feel?
As I wandered through the exhibition, it was undeniable that Sakamoto consistently had his philosophy permeate every aspect of his art. This is a man who, in his compositions, weaves together themes of nature and humanity while also highlighting the seemingly mundane in the broader context of life. His dedication to environmental issues underscored a belief that art should serve a purpose beyond mere aesthetics, emphasising our interconnectedness in an increasingly fragmented world. In a society prioritising the tangible, Sakamoto reminds us of vulnerability and uncertainty, the beauty and fragility of existence itself.
The echoes of Sakamoto’s compositions lingered in my mind long after I left the museum. I knew I had discovered new favourites from his music collection, but on top of that, seeing sound, hearing time was more than an exhibition; it explored the symbiotic relationship between sound and experience, a meditative exploration of what it means to be alive. It’s a testament to a visionary who has continually pushed boundaries, a gentle nudge for us all to listen more closely and reflect on our world. In this age of distraction, Sakamoto’s art offers a sanctuary—a reminder to pause, breathe, and truly hear the sound of our existence.
Related Posts
