Summary
*An Expression* is a work from Naoko Tosa’s early video art practice that fundamentally reconfigured the relationship between image, sound, and the body. In this work, images collected from facial expressions are arranged along a temporal axis. A system is constructed in which changes in their brightness are read by light sensors and converted into sound in real time. What is important here is that the image is not subordinate to the music, nor does the sound merely complement the image. The two are causally connected: changes in the image become sound, and the sound in turn alters the perception of the image. In other words, this work does not represent the relationship between vision and hearing; rather, it presents the mechanism through which that relationship is generated. Furthermore, although the work takes “expression” as its theme, it does not depict emotion. Each individual face does not carry meaning or narrative, but is treated simply as a distribution of light, and its changes are transformed into sound. Here, emotion is not something to be read, but a phenomenon that emerges within the system. In this respect, *An Expression* already contains the idea of “generation” that would later appear in *Sound of Ikebana*. In *Sound of Ikebana*, sound acts upon fluid and gives rise to form; in this work, changes in light and time become sound, and sensation itself comes into being. Thus, *An Expression* is not simply a video work. It is a process through which the invisible relationships among vision, hearing, and the body are gradually exposed over time. If Tosa’s later works address “the moment when nature is born,” this work, as their point of departure, addresses the moment when the relationships within emotion and the body are generated as perception.
Music Tatsuro Kondo
A work presented in a special exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art, New York. Using light sensors, the work synchronizes with the brightness of the video image and automatically generates music from the brightness levels of sampled video footage of various facial expressions. Rather than constructing visual images, the system itself gradually becomes exposed. The structure is such that higher tones are generated when the brightness of the image decreases, while lower tones are generated when the brightness increases. Five types of sound sources were prepared and controlled using Roland’s SYSTEM-100 analog synthesizer. Because the video images change so rapidly, the music emerged as something like a radical living organism.
Reference
Reference
Exhibition
|
Collection
作家蔵
名古屋市美術館
MoMA (The Museum of Modern Art)