Category: Artists

The German writer on music and composer, Walter Niemann, was a pupil of his father, Rudolph (Friedrich) Niemann, and of Engelbert Humperdinck (1897). From 1898 to 1901, studied at the Leipzig Conservatory with Reinecke and von Bose, and at the University of Leipzig with Riemann and Hermann Kretzschmar (musicology). He received a Ph.D. in 1901 with the dissertation Über die abweichende Bedeutung der Ligaturen in der Mensuraltheorie der Zeit vor johannes de Garlandia (published in Leipzig, 1902).

2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/artists/makoto-oshiro/>

He wrote The Garden of Orchid, which contains ten piano miniatures with oriental overtones. The eighth of which, In der Chinesenstadt, is the composer’s interpretation of elements of Chinese music. The piece uses repetition and displacement of melodic motives to present a fragmented melodic line and to create a tense acoustic effect. The chromatic structure of the progressions is present in abundance and the syncopated rhythm of the second half beat of the eighth note sets the melody apart from the traditional colours. There is not much of a pentatonic composition to be seen in Niemann’s piece, nor are there any other obvious Chinese musical elements. Niemann uses the title as a contextual guide to present his innermost understanding of the Chinese elements in the piece. Perhaps, in Nyman’s mind, these are the Chinese elements that he perceives.

In 1919, Niemann published another work, Alt-Chinese (Op. 62). On the title page of the publication Niemann wrote: “What is described here is in no way a portrayal of China through the intentional use of unguided pentatonic and whole-tone scales, as well as rare rhythms and other primitive devices in exotic music; the Chineseness here is only partly reflected in the fine, strange and exotic fairy-tale atmosphere from the far East and in the simple simplicity of the musical elements that may form the charm.” There is still not much Chinese musical material such as pentatonic tuning to be seen in this repertoire. Niemann tries to guide the performer and the listener through a mood to experience the Chinese elements, or rather to understand this so-called Chinese style of Western piano works.

Samson Young (b.1979) is a composer, sound artist and media artist. Young received training in computer music and composition at Princeton University under the supervision of computer music pioneer Paul Lansky. He is currently an assistant professor in sonic art and physical computing at the School of Creative Media, City University of Hong Kong. Young is also the principle investigator at the Laboratory for Ubiquitous Musical Expression (L.U.M.E), and artistic director of the experimental sound advocacy organization Contemporary Musiking. In 2007, he became the first from Hong Kong to receive the Bloomberg Emerging Artist Award for his audio-visual project “The Happiest Hour”. His brainwave non-performance “I am thinking in a room, different from the one you are hearing in now” received a Jury Selection award at the Japan Media Art Festival, and an honorary mention at the digital music and sound art category of Prix Ars Electronica.

Fkawdw.nl. 2022. Samson Young – Participants – FKA Witte de With. [online] Available at: <https://www.fkawdw.nl/en/participants/samson_young>.

I did some research on him after listening to Thursday’s lecture. I found that his compositions are often created in a musical context, meaning that music is the language in which he interprets the abstract world. His work extends from music and sound to a variety of media, constantly expanding the degree and possibilities of access to abstract issues. Composing from different dimensions, the listener is left to savor the social and cultural dimensions they imply, and as Samson Young himself says, “I often respond to the surrounding context, and that never changes.”

I think this video gives us a better understanding of his creative ideas and process. In this video he also thinks about the arrangements and possible situations that could happen in order to complete his final piece. This video also make me feel that the creation of a piece of art is similar to the steps of a science experiment.

Japanese musician, composer and performer Ryuichi Sakamoto’s score for The Wilderness Hunter won many awards at the 69th BAFTAs, including Best Film and Best Sound, and was nominated for major awards including Best Original Score.

When I was researching him I found a documentary about him called < Ryuichi Sakamoto: CODA>. I’ve recommended it to my friends and I think it’s a very interesting film and I’ve learnt a lot.

This is a personal documentary by renowned filmmaker and director Stephen Nomura-Skipper. The film follows Ryuichi Sakamoto’s work and personal life after his throat cancer. The main part of the film features Ryuichi Sakamoto’s work on the soundtrack for the film “The Wilderness Hunter”, and the soundtrack for “The Wilderness Hunter”, which is also included in the film, became the original soundtrack for the documentary. The soundtrack of The Wilderness Hunter is the original soundtrack of the documentary, serving both as a documentary and as a reality check. The audience is treated to a glimpse of the musician’s life while watching the production of the soundtrack.

In his works, Ryuichi Sakamoto has arranged a large number of realistic ambient sounds, turning the world of cinema into a mirror of reality through the mapping of sound and film, bringing the film score into the realm of humanistic thinking. For example, in Ryuichi Sakamoto: The Finale, a piano was used to play the music that was washed away by the tsunami after the earthquake in Japan. This way of combining reality and touching the true nature of the world transcends the music itself, elevating the act of film scoring into the realm of humanistic expression, and even extending it into a kind of performance art, fulfilling a realistic concern beyond the musician’s voice. In addition to the above-mentioned choice of ethnic instruments and the arrangement of natural sounds, Ryuichi Sakamoto’s musical compositions also often include a deep sense of cross-cultural exchange. In his film score, The Wilderness Hunter, Ryuichi Sakamoto, in a departure from his usual style, makes extensive use of the original ambient sounds of the Nordic ice fields, with the addition of electronic melodies, resulting in a score that both fits the context of the film and reflects his personal interests, laying the foundation for the film’s intention and narrative. It is worth noting that Ryuichi Sakamoto experimented with film scoring in Asia in the late 1980s, and that the 1987 film The Last Emperor, directed by the Italian director Bernardo Bertolucci, was scored by Ryuichi Sakamoto on location in the Forbidden City in Beijing, a historic move to have a foreigner tell the story of China. Ryuichi Sakamoto, who had never visited China before the film was made, and had never been exposed to Chinese culture, was able to produce the film’s score and performance through a detailed exchange with a Chinese composer. This example demonstrates the cross-cultural possibilities of musical exchange, and the possibility of ‘mother-topic’ expression. Intercultural communication is not a deliberate search for the boundaries of ‘self’ or ‘other’, but rather a search for ‘cultural matrices’ that follow from the ‘cultural imaginary’. It is a search for the “cultural matrix” after the “cultural imagination”.

After watching this documentary, I felt that the film score is both an expression on the world stage and an emotional support on the road of life for Ryuichi Sakamoto. The important musical works that he has composed in the fertile soil of Asian culture with a true heart represent the East, belong to the East and express the East, and make the unique charm of the East in the soundtrack in the process of world cinema exchange. In Ryuichi Sakamoto’s scores, the multiplicity of reality is intertwined with the realism of cinema, and the Orient in film is thus unfolded.

Makoto Oshiro (b. 1978, Okinawa) is a Berlin Tokyo-based performer and artist. His primary medium is sound, but he also combines other elements including light, electricity and movement of objects. In live performances, he uses self-made tools and instruments that are based on electronic devices, every day materials, and junk. His installation work handles sound as a physical and auditory phenomenon, and focuses on characteristics such as vibration and interference.

2022. [online] Available at: <https://www.cafeoto.co.uk/artists/makoto-oshiro/> .

This is the work of Makoto Oshiro that I found when I was looking for information about him. The name is ‘Mono-beat Cinema’ and it was shown in 2010.

A sine wave is produced by a loudspeaker placed in front of a cathode-ray tube TV display. The frequency produced by the loudspeaker is heard as sound, but the loudspeaker’s vibration can also be sensed as a visual phenomena. Simultaneously, when the screen image of the TV monitor is examined from the standpoint of phenomena, it may be interpreted as a fast flashing light. The flicker of the TV display interferes with the vibration of the loudspeaker in this piece, affecting the visual appearance of the loudspeaker. 

The combination of this kind of work with light reminded me of an exhibition I saw in London in 2019, which also had something to do with light（factory 180）. I was quite interested in this at the time and looked for artists in the country to research.

Factory 180

Yan Jun born in Lanzhou in 1973, graduated from Northwest Normal University with a degree in Chinese and now lives and works in Beijing.

Yan Jun is a multi-faceted musician who has been active in music criticism, music and art event planning, improvised music performance, and even poetry writing for many years. As a music critic, Yan Jun has written around one million words of music criticism and was one of the main promoters of underground rock in China in the 1990s; as an independent music and art event planner, Yan Jun has devoted himself to the creation and promotion of experimental music and sound art in recent years, founding the Throwing Mustard Music Studio and being the planner of the earliest music festival Mini Minidiscover in China; as a sound artist and improvising music performer, Yan Jun has created As a sound artist and improviser, Yan Jun has founded several bands such as Tie Guan Yin and the perfidious Pisces Man.

This was my favourite piece in his lecture. Here is how I felt about it after seeing it. When I first saw the video I thought it was very new, both visually and aurally. The combination of the closed lift and the highly saturated colours gave me a feeling of danger and oppression. There is a sense of distortion and the whole space feels abstract. I love the sound effect, in fact I love any artwork with vocals. The immersion and self-importance of imagining your own voice as a note played on an instrument is great.

Fair Bradley

Bradley (b. Iran) is an artist engaging with listening, language and the environment.  Her research-based practice spans the mediums of performance, broadcast, installation and sculpture. Core methodologies revolve around experimentalism, deep listening and exercises in modes of communication and reception.

Bradley’s works employ treated found objects, textiles and electronics. Her live performances stage interplays between architecture, public space and history, provoking and repositioning the listener, questioning our sense of self and our place within both society and nature.

Faribradley.co.uk. 2022. About – Fari Bradley. [online] Available at: <https://www.faribradley.co.uk/about> .

This was one of my favourite pieces from the lecture. First of all, the music was very appealing and interesting to me. The music is different for the left and right channels. The electric light makes the whole piece look interesting.

Felisha Ledesma is an artist and organizer based in Portland, OR. Felisha is the Executive Director of S1, an artist-run center that strives to provide engaging, relevant, and critical visual art, performance and education programming. In 2015 Felisha cofounded Women’s Beat League throwing workshops, lectures, and parties focused on representing the female-identified and nonbinary views in electronic music. In 2016 Felisha cofounded the S1 Synth Library, dedicated to providing education and access to local, national, and international artists by hosting regular workshops, open library hours, and an artist-in-residence program. Felisha’s focus has been providing low or no cost access to art and education in a supportive, nontraditional learning environment. As a sound artist she constructs cathartic and minimal pieces with a patchwork of field recordings, synthesizers, tapes, and voice.

CascadiAvant.com. 2022. Felisha Ledesma. [online] Available at: <https://www.cascadiavant.com/artist/463/felisha-ledesma>.

My favourite part is the final section from about 9:49 or so, from where the music sounds intertwine with the ambient sounds.

Wysing Art Centre more of an avalanche presents work produced, researched, shared or discussed at Wysing in 2017 when we developed our programme under the theme Polyphonic (many voices).The exhibition considers what it takes for people in marginalised positions to speak out and the mechanisms that get used to stop them from doing so. Looking back at 2017, the exhibition includes the ephemeral “work” produced at Wysing alongside traditional material forms.Photos, posters, mixes, furniture and a collection of writing reference the informal discussions,DJ sets, meals, workshops, experiments and events that shaped the year.