A live audiovisual performance by Noriko Okaku & Helen Papaioannou (approx.30-35mins)
The continuous exchange of words between different languages through online translation disrupts the meaning and sound of words and it gives us the opportunity to consider where true mutual understanding takes place.
Our work combines the powerful deep tones of Helen's baritone saxophone with Noriko's surreal collage visuals, creating an experience that feels as if you've stepped into another world. Yet, the content is deeply rooted in our cultural heritage, with a structure that intertwines fantasy and reality, much like a myth. This experimental piece, which uses both English and Japanese, incorporates the mistranslations that arise from online translation tools as a key element, making it particularly resonant for those interested not only in audio-visual performance but also in language, digital art and experimental music. I believe this work will provide a unique artistic experience that offers new insights into the digital culture we inhabit.
"That Long Moonless Chase" is a live AV performance featuring mixed media animation and live electronic music with a baritone saxophone, including sound design samples by Başar Ünder. This performance is based on an exchange between a folk tale from Kyoto, Japan, and one from Sheffield, UK.
The work delves into collective memory, historical events, and key city sites, with a focus on two old folkloric texts describing the experiences of Sheffield's Gabriel Hounds and Kyoto's weeping ginkgo tree. The exchange between these tales is mediated by looping the Japanese and English texts through online translations, distorting the legends into a bizarre and spectacular new mythology. This also illustrates the relationship and alternation between words (concepts) and images (abstractions).
The continuous exchange of words across different languages through online translation engines and sites disrupts the meaning and sound of words, prompting us to contemplate where true mutual understanding occurs.
That Long Moonless Chaseは、京都の民話とイギリスのシェフィールドの民話をベースに、ミックスメディア・アニメーションとバリトンサックスによる電子サウンドトラックを使ったライブAVパフォーマンスです。Başar Ünderからのサウンドデザインのサンプルを含んでいます。
この作品は、集合的な記憶、歴史的な出来事、および主要な都市の場所を調査し、シェフィールドのガブリエル・ハウンズと京都の水吹き銀杏という2つの民話に焦点を当てています。物語と物語の交換は、日本語と英語のテキストをオンラインの翻訳を通じてループさせることで仲介され、伝説が奇妙で壮大な新しい神話に歪められます。そして、それは言葉（概念）とイメージ（抽象）の関係や交互性を表現しています。
オンライン翻訳エンジン／サイトを通じて、異なる言語間で絶え間なく交わされる言葉は、言葉の意味や響きを乱し、真の相互理解はどこで行われるのかを考える機会を与えてくれるのです。
Our work highlights the historical importance and folkloric legacy of two landmarks which still stand today, Honganji Temple & Sheffield Cathedral, through revisiting the visual/soundscapes of these sites in our present day photos & field recordings (which are embedded within the animation & music), and considering how folklore surrounding these sites connect to contemporary events at the time of the tales (e.g. Sheffield's great flood of 1864, and Kyoto's disastrous fire in 18th century) and also the multicultural origins of these stories (e.g. Gabriel Hounds is an offshoot from folklore deriving outside of the UK).
We were interested in how the sights, sounds & myths of specific sites might conjure ideas in the imagination emanating from features of the surroundings, as well as the collective memory of what has come before. We took photographs of the sites, and also audio recordings of this and other notable 'haunted' sites at the centre of ghost stories from the same era in the UK. These recordings were woven into the musical materials, characterising the acoustic space throughout the piece as a way both to connect to the past, but also link it to present day experiences of the site. Similarly, a present-day recording of monks chanting at Honganji temple inspired the drone-based music and rhythms.
Interest in the interweaving of factual events & folk tales - which we can't say are imagined or not -in literary works that we found a written text, but also in the oral traditions of storytelling which run through generations. Today, the processes of passing on stories is particularly active and influential within digital culture, especially social media: while the medium & tools are different, many aspects remain the same.
And we also reflected on the mirroring of folk stories across cultures, noting the way that misunderstandings, cultural and/or linguistic has propagated different variations of tales between cultures, not for better or worse, it's just something that continues to grow.
この作品は、現在も残る2つのランドマーク、本願寺とシェフィールド大聖堂の歴史的重要性と民俗学的遺産を、現代の写真とフィールドレコーディングで再訪し、（アニメーションと音楽の中に組み込まれている）これらの場所を取り巻く民間伝承が、物語が生まれた当時と現代の出来事がどう結びついているかを考察することによって、浮き彫りにしています。
（1864年のシェフィールドの大洪水や18世紀の京都の天明の大火など。また、これらの物語の多文化的起源（例えば、シェフィールドの『Gabriel Hounds』は英国外に由来する民間伝承の分派である）についても考察した。）
私たちは、特定の場所の光景、音、神話が、周囲の特徴や過去の集合的な記憶から発せられる想像力をどのように呼び起こすかに興味を持ちました。私たちはその場所の写真を撮り、またこの場所や、同時代のイギリスで怪談の中心となっていた他の有名な「幽霊の出る」場所の音声を録音しました。
これらの録音は音楽の素材に織り込まれ、過去とつながりながら、現代のこの場所での体験とリンクさせる方法として、作品全体の音響空間を特徴づけています。同様に、本願寺の僧侶の読経の録音も、ドローンを使った音楽とリズムにインスピレーションを与えています。
私たちは文字として残っている文学作品だけでなく、何世代にもわたって語り継がれてきた口承の伝統の中に、事実の出来事や想像かどうかわからないような民話が織り込まれていることへの関心があります。今日、物語を伝えるプロセスは、デジタル文化、特にソーシャルメディアの中で特に活発で影響力があるように変化してきましたが、メディアやツールは違っても、多くの側面は同じままです。
また、文化的・言語的な誤解によって、文化間でさまざまなバリエーションの物語が広まったことにも触れ、それが良くも悪くもなく、ただ成長し続けていることに注目し、文化間の民話の反復について考察しました。
Commissioned by Sensoria Festival, UK
Performed at: Sensoria Festival Oct, 2021
Cardiff Made, Cardiff May 2022
Cobalt Studios, New Castle, June 2022
Wharf Chambers, Leeds, August 2022
Cafe Oto, London, August 2022
Digital Redux #3 Watermans, London +
WRO Art Center (Wrocław) February 2023
The Cube, Bristol, February 2023
21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, July 2023
UrBANGULD, Kyoto, July 2023
Kobo Chika Contemporary Art Gallery, Tokyo, July 2023
Nuit Blanche, Paris, June 2024
Le Guess Who?, Utrecht, Nov 2024
PDF project detail download here
PDF tech spec download here
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