Surreal Live Elecronics No.1 "No more ballerina"
Performance and sound installation, Solo, 2019
Performed at X-music Exhibition Vol.0, Ebisu KATA
Material: Mixed-media, Stepping motor, Nylon thread
"Surreal Live Electronics" is a live performance that combines sound sculptures and musicians. The sculptures are composed using the technique of "assemblage," where Keisuke Tsuchiya, as a bricoleur, gathers belongings and waste to create the sculptures. These sculptures are designed to react to sounds, becoming kinetic and autonomously improvising with the musicians during the performance.
Performed at X-music Exhibition Vol.0, Ebisu KATA
Material: Mixed-media, Stepping motor, Nylon thread
"Surreal Live Electronics" is a live performance that combines sound sculptures and musicians. The sculptures are composed using the technique of "assemblage," where Keisuke Tsuchiya, as a bricoleur, gathers belongings and waste to create the sculptures. These sculptures are designed to react to sounds, becoming kinetic and autonomously improvising with the musicians during the performance.
X-music Exhibition Vol.0 was held by X-music Lab I belong to. This work was installed and active during this exhibition. At the end of the exhibition, I played the piano with the kinetic sculpture performing.
Caption at the Exhibition
"Objects gathered from our daily lives swarm together, moving on their own and emitting sounds, as if asking, 'Who should be the player? Is this role reserved only for humans?' I feel anxious, but I am determined to answer the question. By combining the melody of a piano played by humans with the rhythm of strange mechanisms, graceful sounds will hang in the air, evoking a sensation similar to the scent of marijuana.”
"The inspiration for this work originated from various sources, including Group Ongaku in Japan, Fluxus, the experimental film 'Ballet Mecanique' (1924) by Fernand Léger, and the avant-garde ballet 'Parade' (1917) by Jean Cocteau, Erik Satie, and Pablo Picasso. 'Ballet Mecanique' depicts the movement of a machine imitating a ballerina with the theme of human mechanization, embodying the futurist concept of humans being seen through machines. The work is titled 'No More Ballerina' as a tribute to these influences.”
Caption at the Exhibition
"Objects gathered from our daily lives swarm together, moving on their own and emitting sounds, as if asking, 'Who should be the player? Is this role reserved only for humans?' I feel anxious, but I am determined to answer the question. By combining the melody of a piano played by humans with the rhythm of strange mechanisms, graceful sounds will hang in the air, evoking a sensation similar to the scent of marijuana.”
The process of creation
"For the creation of the work, I held a workshop in collaboration with members of the x-music lab, to which I belong. We began by practicing assemblage, which is a form of bricolage in art. During the workshop, we strolled around the Keio University Shonan Fujisawa Campus where the workspace was located, or on the way back to my home, gathering materials such as buckets, mugs, chains, hoses, antennas, and more. Without envisioning the final form, we connected these materials using nylon zip ties to create a mixed-media sculpture. The technique we used was inspired by the surrealist practice of "le cadavre exquis," where multiple people co-create a painting or sentence without sharing their individual thoughts."
After assembling the sculpture, we manually added movement to it to explore the kind of sounds it could produce. We attached nylon thread as a handle to the sculpture and made sounds by manipulating it manually. At the same time, musical instruments such as pianos, trumpets, violins, and guitars were played to collage noise with graceful melody. We responded to the sounds created by rubbing and striking objects such as the mug cup, flower pot, glass, and iron fragments, ultimately deciding on the movement and sound of the sculpture and the instrument played. Throughout the process, I was inspired by noise art, musique concrète, the idea of a sound object, and the removal of boundaries between music and sound to listen purely to the sounds.
Finally, we integrated physical computing into the sound sculpture, enabling it to move autonomously and transform into a kinetic sculpture that emits sound through multiple stepping motors. Using software such as Max/MSP and Ableton Live, I implemented a system that autonomously reacts to the performance of the instrument and movement of the sculpture.