Nobuhiro Masuda (1), Yasuharu Akiyoshi (2), Kazuhiro Jo (1, 3), Juppo Yokokawa (4), Yosaku Matsutani (5)
1 : Kyushu University [Fukuoka]
2 : Kyoto Seika University [Kyoto]
3 : YCAM [Yamaguchi]
4 : Tokyo University of the Arts [Tokyo]
5 : Otemon Gakuin University [Osaka]

The history of Western civilization has been one of resistance and domination over the forces of nature. As the culmination of this project, modern media technologies have been used to “embalm” time and preserve the living voice or performance permanently beyond death and decay [Bazin 1960, Sterne 2003]. The act of composing, as an expression of human ideas and intentions, has also been transformed by this impulse to control audiovisual data at will. Artists can now (re)compose sounds and images almost indefinitely against the decomposing forces of nature.

However, as a result, capitalist markets have generated a plethora of irreducible byproducts that have been deposited in natural ecological systems [Gabrys 2011]. This phenomenon has not only triggered political issues such as e-waste and extractivism, but also catalyzed debates such as media archaeology, which excavate historical strata for critical reflection: zombie media [Herz, Parikka 2012].

As this planet becomes inundated with an abundance of artifacts, this panel will undertake a critical examination and devise strategies to surmount such predicaments through three media art practices: A Record Without Prior Acoustic Information, Chromatophony and Making Soil. These audio-visual works will generally seek to decompose the materials and energies implicitly extracted by human society and open them up to nonhuman agencies.

The initial case study will center on Kazuhiro Jo’s A Record Without Prior Acoustic Information, examining the materiality and social implications of the sound recording medium. Since 2013, Jo has amalgamated Bauhaus master Moholy-Nagy’s ideas with personal fabrication tools to create a novel type of sound medium utilizing a diverse array of materials: wood, paper, metal, and porcelain. By contemplating the composability and decomposability of these records, the case study will reevaluate the political ecology of traditional sound media [Devine 2020].

Secondly, Juppo Yokokawa’s Chromatophony is an audio-visual composition that utilizes sound as an electrical stimulus to alter the chromaticity of a squid’s body. Squids possess pigment-containing cells, known as chromatophores, on their body surface. To achieve this performance, an electronic probe was employed to transmit an electrical signal that conforms to the biological characteristics of the squid’s chromatophores, thereby generating a colorful organic display. The work converts biological tissue into a visual device, but is it composed by the artist or decomposed by the squid? We will consider this work as a decomposable display, in contrast to conventional displays that are composed of non-degradable silicon.

The final case study of our panel is Making Soil by Soichiro Mihara, which literally decomposes natural and artificial products. In our contemporary society, where production and consumption are incessantly repeated, a plethora of objects is in circulation. Many of them are processed (crushed, incinerated, discarded, etc.) by machines as waste or left as they are. Making Soil, which disseminates composting videos on the web indefinitely for 24 hours, is a work that intervenes in this scenario. In the work, microorganisms compose soil as well as decompose objects. In such a decomposed world, the object remains a recursive source in a state of metastability.