Academics at UWS are key artistic collaborators of an international exhibition taking place in Tokyo later this month.
The exhibition, Azimuth: Sound/Image, is being held at the IA gallery, Tokyo Metropolitan University from 21 April to 28 April, and Miraikan National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo from 22 April to 24 April and explores the creative tension and interplay between sound and image.
The works, many of which were created by UWS academics, experiment with narrative in sound and video art. Artists explore the possibilities, whether guided or enhanced, of narrative being altered or disrupted through the sound and image interface. For example, Paul McGeechan’s Irresolute, 2016, which is featured in this exhibition, was composed to signify a feeling of non-resolution. The work reflects the lack of resolute balance throughout the reoccurring experience. The work moves through slow stages and develops by adding atonal sounds to underlying drones. In conclusion, a melodic structure is added but once again does not truly resolve and leaves the listener with the lack of resolution.
Featuring artists include Alison Bell, Alison Clifford (with Graeme Truslove), Rachael Flynn, Tony Grace, Paul McGeechan , David Scott and Steven Sherlock all from UWS along with Paul Holmes, Ronald McMeekin, Verl Adams, Tetsuaki Baba, Paul Haimes, Yuki Kikutake, Toshihiro Konma and Kumiko Kushiyama.
This exhibition is organised in association with the research project, Engaging the Human Sensorium through Art and New Technologies, funded by the Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation that builds on uses of digital technologies in contemporary art, creating opportunities for new knowledge, artistic, and technological exchange. This project also raises awareness of emergent methodologies used by artists and industry working with contemporary multisensory media in Japan, Scotland and beyond, providing new impetus for sustained cross-sectoral developments.
In 2012, Professor Katarzyna Kosmala of UWS attended the 16th Japan Media Arts Festival to promote her research monograph Imagining Masculinities, accompanied by PhD researcher Emilia Sosnowska, investigating Interactive Device Art. This visit laid the foundation for co-operation between Tokyo Metropolitan University’s IDEEA Lab and UWS.
Professor Katarzyna Kosmala, a key member of the curatorial team of this exhibition and project leader, said: “We are delighted to be contributing and participating in this exciting research project and international exhibition which will examine the interplay and interaction between sound and image.”
The Exhibition and the Symposium, Exploring the Human Sensorium through Art and New Technologies, held on 22 April at TMU, will officially launch the newly signed cross-institutional co-operative partnership between the School of Media, Culture and Society at University of the West of Scotland and the Faculty of System Design at Tokyo Metropolitan University.
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Photo Credit: Steven Sherlock