The prolific and perplexing Tatsumi Orimoto first gained recognition for his Bread Man performances where he travelled the world binding his head in baguettes, but more recently he has been developing his ‘Art Mama’ body of work, in collaboration with his Alzheimer’s-suffering octogenarian mother, Odai.

When he was rejected from artschool and discouraged by everyone around him, it was his self-determined mother who relentlessly encouraged his work. Now after a 30-year career he has moved back to Japan to live with and take care of her, and she remains his biggest fan.

Just in time for Mother’s Day, Orimoto is coming to Sydney for a one-off performance of his Oil Can work on May 13. With his unique brand of uncomfortable hilarity, it will see the artist and 15 volunteers standing solemnly in 44-gallon steel drums, everyone in close proximity but disconnected from one another. Want to volouneer to stand in a can? Contact the gallery.

John Cage discovered there was no such thing as silence when he sat in a noiseproof anechoic chamber and heard for the first time the cacophonous sounds of his own body, including the ‘high’ sound of the blood’s circulation and the ‘low’ sound of the nervous system. In 1952 he wrote what he considered to be his best composition, 4’33”. Although commonly perceived to be four minutes and thirty-three seconds of silence, it actually consists of the perpetual sounds of the surrounding environment, which the audience is made sensitive to as the performer creates as little noise as possible.

In a similar vein, Mamoru Okuno is interested in making people aware of the sounds they hear all the time but never listen to. His recent exhibition at YUKA CONTEMPORARY in Tokyo had him preaching the unique sonic values of orange juice and soda, as well as continuing to spread the good word about the instrumental possibilities of plastic drinking straws. The show was part of his ongoing live, participatory series ‘etude for everyday objects and practices’, which have in the past involved listening to things like melting ice cubes or scrunched-up clingwrap, and usually include shared consumption of food or drink in some form.

Mamoru says his work is informed by the likes of Michel de Certeau and Nicolas Bourriaud, but also by Japan’s ancient art of the tea ceremony, as reformed by Sen no Rikyu in the 16th Century. Rikyu advocated the use of humble, everyday materials, which would be invested with high spiritual and aesthetic tenets through their inclusion in the rituals. Incorporating anything from performance to architecture, garden/interior design, flower arrangement and ceramics, The Way of Tea is founded on unscripted human exchange and could be considered one of the truest forms of multidisciplinary, interactive and ephemeral live art.

If people react to Mamoru’s work with “I could do that”, he knows he’s on the right track. His simple aim is to facilitate new experiences of everyday objects, and thereby position the individual as creator of their own experience.

Mamoru is currently growing his own vegetables in his room at Tokyo Wonder Site (where he has a one-year residency) for his 36th etude, ‘water and dry earth / variation for growing plants’, based on the subtle, fleeting sound of dry plants being watered; and at the end of April he will be hosting a three-day show in his hometown, Osaka, at projectroom ift.

Image rights reserved by Mamoru Okuno / YUKA CONTEMPORARY.

In Tuvan overtone singing, two or more harmonised pitches sound simultaneously from deep in the throat. Ethnomusicologists trace the rise of the style to the pastoral animism that has been practiced in the region since antiquity and continues to this day. The geographic characteristics of the region are also integral to the artform; Tuva’s open landscape allows for the sounds to travel at great distance, and singers are said to roam far into the mountains or countryside looking for the proper setting. Khoomi – the most common strand of Tuvan throat singing – is said to be founded on human mimicry of nature’s sounds, including those of animals, wind and water …

Fuyuki Yamakawa is an ‘avant-garde khoomei singer’ and performance/installation artist who works with bare light bulbs, yogic breath, medical equipment, modified musical instruments and the beat of his heart. Likened to a ‘shamanistic ritual from the 23^rd century’ (Washington Post), his hallucinogenic performances involve outputting his bodily functions (like his heartbeat, amplified with an electronic stethoscope) in synch with external sound and light so the space becomes an extension of his body. He controls his breath and the velocity of his heartbeat – and for his climax he momentarily stops his heart all together, creating a terrifying sense of suspended time.

I saw him at Ensembles in October 2009, where he gave a mesmerising khoomei performance at dusk, and a series of musical improvisations with a bare lightbulb and a several homemade instruments, including a modified skateboard.

I think it would be best if I let Kiiiiiii introduce themselves. Kiiiiiii according to Kiiiiiii:

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drums…..lakin’ a.k.a REIKO TADA

lakin’ the Kiiiiiii loves….

Queen!

PERRY&KINGSLEY, Jackson5, Ramones, mute beat, KRAFT WERK, C-C-B, Yoko minamino….Ra-men, TV programs for Children(like SESAME STREET), Stickers and her cat(named “NYAN”)!

Lakin’ is a illustrater ,a designer and liryc & song writer in Kiiiiii.

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vocal…….ut a.k.a UTAKO TAYAMA

ut loves…..

MICHAEL JACKSON!

RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE, NEU!, tama, Miho nakayama…..SPAGHETTI, macaron, pho, Cosmetics(Paul&Joe,anna sui…e.t.c) and her dog (named “STOMP”)!

u.t. is an actress in TETSUWARI ALBATROSKET.

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When we met each other for the first time, we were 12 years old. Since then,we have been special friends like DJ & KIMMY in “FULL HOUSE”!

++We play songs by……The Wiggles, Chip munks, Roco’s modern life by NIKELODEON, Hooley dooleys, Michael Jackson, and kiiiiiii ( Almost all songs are written by Lakin’ except for cover songs.)!

Live footage and video works by Kiiiiiii will be featured at the Kirin Big In Japan event (CarriageWorks, December 2) and exhibition (Black & Blue Gallery, December 5-19), so you can get yourselves properly acquainted with the self proclaimed “masters of girl magic”.

Illustrations by Tada Reiko of Kiiiiiii.

The act of carving a traditional noh mask is referred to as “omote wo utsu” (to strike the surface). The sacred and supremely refined art of noh – which is said to be the world’s oldest form of theatre and to have remained unchanged for over six centuries – has at its heart the notion of masks and illusion; and the impulse towards complete body transformation is carried through to many areas of performance and life in contemporary Japan.

With choreography by Yuka Kobayashi and costumes by Taisuke Abe, She de cusu oh chee! is another Japanese performance troupe based on disguise and escapist alter egos – watch out for their super kawaii public interventions which can happen anywhere at any time …

It seemed like a pretty standard uptight fashion week party at TRUMP ROOM last night, until the Trippple Nippples exploded onto the dance floor with screams, water pistols, glitter bombs, fake blood and feathers, whipping everyone up into a messy mania before disappearing as quickly as they appeared. You better brace yourselves for these guys before they perform at our event in December!

“Everything is under surveillance of KATHY. Orders are constantly issued by KATHY. And the 3 are due to get their duties done.”

So their bio makes it hard to figure out exactly what is going on here but when you see their live shows you’ll understand. Actually, wait, their shows are even more obscure and bamboozling … But that’s ok because they are also mind blowingly amazing.

Classically trained as ballerinas, the unnamed dancers of KATHY collaborated extensively with the legendary Nagi Noda and share her love of strange cuteness, surrealist-pop, and hair. Always clad in identical blond wigs with black pantyhosed faces, they render themselves completely featureless (and fingerless) because anonymity is the ideal point of surveillance. Their eerie and ritualistic performances are like nothing else; think Moulin Rouge meets Victorian morality meets Lucifer rising.

And … they are one of our first confirmed guests for the huge Kirin Big In Japan event that is taking place this December at CarriageWorks. We are very excited to be announcing that KATHY will be on our program, along with the Trippple Nippples and others to be announced very soon. It’s shaping up to be a very special night of Japanese performance artists, experimental musicians, DJs and visual artists who have never been brought out to Australia before.

KATHY, you might be watching us but we’re watching you back, we can’t take our eyes off you. The girls are cooking up some big surprises for the event but for the time being lets just say I bags not cleaning up all the pigeon shit. Stay tuned.

First image by honagayoko, last image by Yumiko Inoue (D-CORD)

Meet the Trippple Nippples, your new best friends / favourite Tokyo performance group. They are coming to Sydney as one of our guests for the massive Kirin Big In Japan event this December, bringing their unhinged DIY aesthetic, an inimitably intense live energy and a song about teaching your nipples to speak. We can’t wait to see them ‘express’ themselves!

“We find beauty not in the thing itself but in the pattern of shadows, the light and the darkness, that one thing against another creates.” (Jun’ichirō Tanizaki, In Praise of Shadows, 1933)

Before coming into the world dance at the ripe old age of 20, Hiroaki Umeda had been studying photography, which helped him cultivate an acute understanding of light and shadow. Recalling that he always found photography stressful, he explains how he became drawn to performance: “With photography I felt I had to be away from the environment and situation I was photographing. I couldn’t experience the situation. I think I wanted to experience and to be there more. I was also interested in changing time and space, but if I had to be away from a situation, I couldn’t feel or experience the change. So I was looking for a style of expression that could give experience and a changing space/time.”

He studied various dance styles before realising none of them really fitted the movements he wanted to do, and after less than a year he abandoned all formal training. Now one of Japan’s most acclaimed young performers/choreographers, and director of his own company S20, he continues to work in a highly independent and autonomous way – not only doing all the choreography and movement in his shows but also designing the sets, lighting, video projections and musical scores. “I cannot think only of dance,” he says, “in my thought, dance is to be made with the surrounding elements because the body is an element of the environment. For me, to make a dance piece is to make a space, including choreography, sound, light and so on.”

Hiroaki will be making his first trip to Australia in September to present his While going to a condition and Accumulated layout for four nights only at the Sydney Opera House, as part of their Spring Dance program.

Stepping into a Hiromi Tango instillation is like seeing the results of her chaotic/kawaii soul stripped bare and laid out, in all its lo-fi psychedelic glory. There’s origami, balls of wool, faux flowers, needle-crafts, nick-knacks, letters, sequins, dolls and every shade of pink.

Hiromi’s art is one of intimacy and conversation. She temporarily occupies public spaces like shop windows with her personal things and her self, and from there she interacts with anyone who passes by, swapping letters and gifts, even having them sleep over.

Currently on show in the IMA’s Fresh Cuts exhibition is the most recent incarnation of the Japanese-born Brisbane-based artist’s Hiromi Hotel series, which dissolves the line between public and domestic spaces, as well as the artist/spectator divide. A caravan is filled up with bits and pieces produced by her and collected by others, and several artist friends have been invited to pitch tents around the space, and fill them with their own found and created objects.

Hiromi is spending her days on-site engaging with visitors for the duration of the show, and she kindly took the time out for a quick chat with us about her work. As her responses suggest, there’s a lot more going on here than saccharine decoration …

Can you tell me about the Hiromi Hotel project?

Hiromi Hotel explores the desire and anxiety to interact with others fetishisticly and obsessively.

And this particular instillation includes friends who you have invited to camp with you …

I have invited artists I have met through my previous projects in the last three years (while I occupied shop windows or Perspex boxs) to pitch their own tents. Some flew from Sydney, Tasmania and Melbourne to attend the Hiromi Hotel, and one artist, Maddie from Melbourne, is 15 years old, and I had to get the consent letter from her parents. I wanted to keep a personal contact with the  audiences and artists I have met through the project, and I wanted to generate a dynamic dialogue.

How important is collaboration and communication with other artists in your work and your life?

I am consciously pushing myself to collaborate and communicate so it might be a survival instinct. I have been trying hard to coexist with “you” in earth, but I wonder what it is this empty feeling … the harder I try to communicate with others, the more anxious and tired I feel. I am interested in human interaction, and I desire to make a perfect world, which is the Hiromi Hotel for me. But Hiromi Hotel exhausts me and I am not sure what I am doing.

What are you working on next?

My family is coming to travel around Australia for 2 years from November, so I am cleaning the house and my mind everyday.

Do blank canvases make you nervous? Why not make like Ushio Shinohara and show them who’s boss with a few good punches in their blank faces?!

Shinohara, who is affectionately known as Gyu-chan (‘The Bull’), was a prominent figure in Japan’s post-war avant-garde movements, especially as a regular participant in the legendary Yomiuri Independent Exhibitions in the ’50s and ’60s, a founding member of the Neo Dadaism Organizers, and a pioneer of ‘junk-art’ assemblage. His recent boxing paintings have made clear that his subversive spirit and intense energy are as potent as ever.

Images courtesy of the artist and Ethan Cohen Fine Arts