Toshiya Tsunoda & Luke Fowler
22 Jan - 05 Mar 2011
TOSHIYA TSUNODA & LUKE FOWLER
Ridges on the Horizontal Plane
January 22 - March 5, 2011
In the last week of August 2010 Toshiya Tsunoda (Japan, 1964) and Luke Fowler (Scotland, 1978) arrived in Cologne to begin production of a new film installation. The work builds on the impetus of their past works, in particular Composition for Flutter Screen (2009). Ridges on the Horizontal Plane (2011) creates a series of cracks in the traditional experience of cinema going. The artists allow elements of chance into their installation employing a complex set of agents, each acting upon their own internal logic and rhythm.
‘The screen is like our retina. When the screen is fluttered by the fan, it touches the vibrating wires and alters the sound‘.*
In Ridges on the Horizontal Plane the artists fix their attention on breaking film down to two basic tenets; ”Light” and “Air Pressure”
‘The level and quality of light is intrinsic to how we perceive a space; as light levels fluctuate, the temperature and air pressure are simultaneously changed. These constantly shifting factors effect and create our perception of a place.’
For the first time the artists have combined 16mm film with a 6x6 slide carousel, creating a bi-polar projection.
‘Our sight chases the object that always moves. However,the images that occupy our memories are often a still image. Why? Perhaps its related to how we define ‘action’. So, we adopted not only 16mm film but also the still, slide photographs’
A continual presence in the installation is the titular 'Horizontal Plane'. The line defines several thresholds; between the image and black, stillness and motion, the self and other and the sound and silence; the two thin wires dissecting the projection being in continual oscillation between excitation and mutability.
The other room in the gallery presents a series of photographic works made by the artists, independently of one another. Tsunoda presents a series of 4 photographs and texts titled Temple Recordings. He considers the possibility of describing ‘the experience of landscape’ as the most important aspect of his field work. For Tsunoda landscape is like a moving sculpture.
His work describes new ways of making field recordings. Tsunoda and a friend observe different landscapes; the ‘field recordings’ are then made with two single stethoscopes attached to each of their temples.
In All Day Monday and Tuesday (after Richard Youngs) Fowler presents new collages which draw on his archive of diary photography. For 5 years Fowler has been working with a half-frame camera to document his daily life; events, friends, family, work etc. Due to the camera’s unusual frame size being rendered obsolescent – when printed with a standard 35mm frame - an accidental pairings of two images is now created. With these larger collages Fowler begins to compose over an expanded time frame and canvas.
Tsunoda is respected in Japan as a "field recording sensei", his work is widely known in the field of experimental music. Tsunoda’s concern with field recording is not towards the orthodox, aesthetic motivation of capturing rare and exotic sounds. Rather Tsunoda is asking philosophical questions about the nature of place and our perception of landscape. His previous works have concentrated on single phenomena for example solid or air borne vibrations and his conceptual albums often take a structural approach in collecting a “catalogue of physical vibration”.
Luke Fowler is known for his film portraits of socially radical figures; from the avant-garde composer turned political activist Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981) to the Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing (1927-1989) who rendered the experiences and behaviour of schizophrenics intelligible. By employing dense layers of archive and auto-biographical material, Fowler’s films questions the language and inherent ideologies of documentary filmmaking.
Luke Fowler and Toshiya Tsunodas previous collaborations include Composition For Flutter Screen, commissioned by Yokohama Triennial (2008) and also shown at The Serpentine Gallery (2009) and this years British Art Show (2011). A Grammar For Listening Part 3 (2009), the album Familial Recordings (Edition T, 2010) and Helen (part of the series: Tenement Films, produced and transmitted on Channel 4).
*All quotations are taken from unpublished texts, written by the artists.
Ridges on the Horizontal Plane
January 22 - March 5, 2011
In the last week of August 2010 Toshiya Tsunoda (Japan, 1964) and Luke Fowler (Scotland, 1978) arrived in Cologne to begin production of a new film installation. The work builds on the impetus of their past works, in particular Composition for Flutter Screen (2009). Ridges on the Horizontal Plane (2011) creates a series of cracks in the traditional experience of cinema going. The artists allow elements of chance into their installation employing a complex set of agents, each acting upon their own internal logic and rhythm.
‘The screen is like our retina. When the screen is fluttered by the fan, it touches the vibrating wires and alters the sound‘.*
In Ridges on the Horizontal Plane the artists fix their attention on breaking film down to two basic tenets; ”Light” and “Air Pressure”
‘The level and quality of light is intrinsic to how we perceive a space; as light levels fluctuate, the temperature and air pressure are simultaneously changed. These constantly shifting factors effect and create our perception of a place.’
For the first time the artists have combined 16mm film with a 6x6 slide carousel, creating a bi-polar projection.
‘Our sight chases the object that always moves. However,the images that occupy our memories are often a still image. Why? Perhaps its related to how we define ‘action’. So, we adopted not only 16mm film but also the still, slide photographs’
A continual presence in the installation is the titular 'Horizontal Plane'. The line defines several thresholds; between the image and black, stillness and motion, the self and other and the sound and silence; the two thin wires dissecting the projection being in continual oscillation between excitation and mutability.
The other room in the gallery presents a series of photographic works made by the artists, independently of one another. Tsunoda presents a series of 4 photographs and texts titled Temple Recordings. He considers the possibility of describing ‘the experience of landscape’ as the most important aspect of his field work. For Tsunoda landscape is like a moving sculpture.
His work describes new ways of making field recordings. Tsunoda and a friend observe different landscapes; the ‘field recordings’ are then made with two single stethoscopes attached to each of their temples.
In All Day Monday and Tuesday (after Richard Youngs) Fowler presents new collages which draw on his archive of diary photography. For 5 years Fowler has been working with a half-frame camera to document his daily life; events, friends, family, work etc. Due to the camera’s unusual frame size being rendered obsolescent – when printed with a standard 35mm frame - an accidental pairings of two images is now created. With these larger collages Fowler begins to compose over an expanded time frame and canvas.
Tsunoda is respected in Japan as a "field recording sensei", his work is widely known in the field of experimental music. Tsunoda’s concern with field recording is not towards the orthodox, aesthetic motivation of capturing rare and exotic sounds. Rather Tsunoda is asking philosophical questions about the nature of place and our perception of landscape. His previous works have concentrated on single phenomena for example solid or air borne vibrations and his conceptual albums often take a structural approach in collecting a “catalogue of physical vibration”.
Luke Fowler is known for his film portraits of socially radical figures; from the avant-garde composer turned political activist Cornelius Cardew (1936-1981) to the Scottish psychiatrist R.D. Laing (1927-1989) who rendered the experiences and behaviour of schizophrenics intelligible. By employing dense layers of archive and auto-biographical material, Fowler’s films questions the language and inherent ideologies of documentary filmmaking.
Luke Fowler and Toshiya Tsunodas previous collaborations include Composition For Flutter Screen, commissioned by Yokohama Triennial (2008) and also shown at The Serpentine Gallery (2009) and this years British Art Show (2011). A Grammar For Listening Part 3 (2009), the album Familial Recordings (Edition T, 2010) and Helen (part of the series: Tenement Films, produced and transmitted on Channel 4).
*All quotations are taken from unpublished texts, written by the artists.