This piece presents the stream of thoughts which questioning our perceptions and understandings regarding the surroundings and societies that we are living in. Let’s imagine, we – as individuals have been automatically constructed all these palaces of cognition in our mind. However, to what extent could we be sure about the cognitive constructions in our mind would reflect the reality?
Those works are included in the exhibition along with a new site-specific installation, in which a single sakura petal, made from washi paper and suspended on a thread, hangs above a mound of salt and 108 glass petri dishes, each containing its own washi petal. A dazzling light projection, created by Maria Takeuchi, and contemplative soundscape, composed by Alec Fellman, accompanies the installation. “Memento Mori” is dedicated to the victims of the Tohoku disaster and of Covid-19, and is a reminder of nature’s formidable power — as well as its resilience. “Memento Mori” is on view through April 18, 313A Harvard Street, Brookline, Mass., read more…
Working with sound artist Alec Fellman and light artist Maria Takeuchi, Shimojo has created a site-specific installation “Petal Mori.” Petri dishes, each with a paper cherry blossom petal, are assembled on a circle of salt on the floor. Gentle music plays as dishes are illuminated in remembrance. Praise Shadows has storefront windows, and “Petal Mori” is best viewed after sunset. That makes sense; when it comes to reckoning with what we have lost, we are still in darkness. read more…
There's something eerily beautiful about Maria Takeuchi & Frederico Phillips' as·phyx·i·a. The low, ambient music and otherworldly nature of its protagonist make for intriguing viewing, but it's perhaps the new-world, technological way in which the duo created the film that landed them a spot on this year's New Directors' Showcase. They captured it using the Xbox One Kinect motion capture device. LBB's Addison Capper caught up with Maria and Frederico to find out more read more…
US-based Japanese audio-visual artist, Maria Takeuchi, better known as ‘ÉMU’, sets stunning visual effects to ambient noise that hum and brim with a disarmingly naturalised energy. The artist creates works that command attention and instigate contemplation; Takeuchi’s sounds are hypnotic, and perfectly complement her visuals, which tend to move, breathe and transition at a calm pace, confidently dictating their more stimulus-saturated audience members’ internal tempos, and bringing them in sync with their own meditations. Engaging with Takeuchi’s work requires viewers to dislodge themselves from wholly material associations, and instead, attempt to connect with her shifting forms on a more visceral level; a process that has a curious aspect of time-dilation to it, and may leave audience members feeling quite as weightless and suspended as the art they interface with is. It is likely no overreach to say that this is art one gets lost within.
Takeuchi’s visual art is code-based, and the formations of pixels and gradients she creates move in mathematically driven paths. However, this does nothing to address the apparent randomness that appears within some of her work. Many pieces by Takeuchi possess a certain entropy to them, which feels highly atypical for works that fall within the broad ambit of generative art. Yet, there is also a distinct sense of order within the chaos, tying neatly into the aspect of ‘naturalised energy’ referenced earlier. This is a product of the ethos behind Takeuchi’s coding of visual noise, which she carries out on Touchdesigner. She explains, “Combining multiple sets of visual noise can create complex forms of lines and shapes. It's interesting that the results may become very organic, such as what exists in the natural world”. Referencing the Japanese aesthetic philosophy that seeks beauty within imperfection and transience, Takeuchi says, “It may have led to the philosophy of wabi-sabi. Rather than perfect symmetrical shapes, I am more interested in the imperfection of beauty”.
read more - by Manu Sharma
If I start telling you about an exciting new artist who's proposing to add a dose of spirituality to visually-based instrumental music experiments... you'll promise not to run in the other direction, right? Good, just checking.
Through a series of unlikely collaborations, artist Maria Takeuchi has given New York something we least expected. An insertion of the mysterious and appreciation for spiritual distance in new EP “Doppelgänger.” The record feels like the soundtrack to an unreleased David Fincher film, complete with dense noise-scapes and percussive vocoding. As she’s prone to: Takeuchi creates music for “Doppelgänger” you can see as much as listen to.
So, please don't be afraid. The music may exist in it's own world, but it's a place you'll want to visit too. - Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)
As imagens que resultam do projecto as•phyx•i•a, do português Frederico Phillips e da japonesa Maria Takeuchi, são hipnotizantes e de uma beleza fantasmagórica. Milhares de linhas unidas por outros milhares de pontos desenham o movimento de um corpo que dança, criando uma espécie de nuvem. O desafio de experimentar e usar ferramentas tecnológicas para fins pouco habituais levou a dupla a escolher o Kinect, sensor de movimentos da consola Xbox, para mostrar como um computador “vê” uma pessoa e como é possível ser “expressivo sem limites”.
Asphyxia is an experimental film project directed by Maria Takeuchi and Frederico Phillips. Artists explore human movement through motion capture technology. The team used two Xbox Kinect sensor to capture the movements of the dancer Shiho Tanaka then rendered the data produced in a photo-realistic environment. By Valentin
Along todays theme of minimal composition Maria Takeuchi presents a soulful piece that harnesses an elusive power within the first movement of the song only to set it lose in the second. Contrast within a single track is often felt on a tonal level. To achieve compositional contrast, the ‘Karma Train‘ employs a dynamic shift not once, but three times to minimize any individual effort in favor of unity. The track is spirited. Originally scored for film, it’s no wonder the track sets not only an auditory, but visual scene. @Dingusonmusic
In as·phyx·i·a, a new collaborative effort and experimental film by Maria Takeuchi with Frederico Phillips, dancer Shiho Tanaka transforms into an evolving, pulsating cloud of 3D data. "The performance is centered in an eloquent choreography that stresses the desire to be expressive without bounds," its creators explain. Like onformative and chopchop's unnamed soundsculpture, Takeuchi and Phillips use motion data and dynamic simulations to re-envision Tanaka's body as a wobbling mass of particles. Inside an environment specially-created for the film, a single, white spotlight follows her movements, casting a shadow on the ground beneath her abstracted figure.
A close encounter with a utopian future, Sled Island Day 1 had a late night set by Maria Takeuchi(aka ÉMU aka Maria Japyellow) that released a cascade of light and sound that spread through Commonwealth like the mercurial white rabbits of Izumo. Twisting dials and crooning softly into her microphone, the multi-instrumentalist, who makes her home in Brooklyn, New York having moved from small town Japan, fused modal loops and quavering beats while imaginary birds chirped from their metallic branches. Perched before a screen of shapeshifting animated faces and fronted by a sinuous chrome mannequin, Takeuchi’s inward-gazing creations conjured the multifaceted gateway god, Janus. Surreal yet intuitively laid-out, her delicate, feathery vocalizations combined with the careful tending of her digital dreamscapes made for a Zen-like yet visually Blade Runner-esque listening experience.
Set to an original soundtrack also created by Takeuchi, the result is an abstraction that is at once as fluid as it is writhing and roaring with information. Could it perhaps be the way a sentient computer might watch a performance? We'll have to wait for one advanced enough to tell us. Until then, immerse yourself in the liberating dream of datafied motion that is as·phyx·i·a:
The project, created by Maria Takeuchi with Frederico Phillips, uses inexpensive sensors to capture motion data, which was then crafted by various computer tools into the incredible images and as well as an experimental film.
as·phyx·i·a’s goal is to combine tech with other fields without many of the common commercial limitations, an idea that’s reflected in the choreography’s “desire to be expressive without bounds,” according to the project’s website. By Jack Linshi
Working with performance artist Shiho Tanaka, Maria Takeuchi and Frederico Phillips created an experimental film called “as•phyx•i•a,” with Takechui composing the music and Phillips directing the visuals. Takechui, 29, is a multidisciplinary musician and composer from Japan. Phillips, 25, is a 3D artist from Portugal. They both live in New York, which is where they created “as•phyx•i•a.” By Soraya Nadia McDonald
Asphyxia is an experimental film project by Maria Takeuchi and Frederico Phillips that explores human movement through motion capture technology. The team used two inexpensive Xbox One Kinect sensors to capture the movements of dancer Shiho Tanaka and then rendered the data inside a near photo-realistic environment. By Christopher Jobson
Once compiled and edited, the resulting video entitled "as·phyx·i·a" is beautiful to watch and also a reminder of just how far consumer technology has come. By Thomas Tamblyn
You’ll like it if…
…Biophilia was so cool, but you’d like something darker
Maria Takeuchi’s “Doppelgänger” shows us the inner link between visual and audio, in a brief and yet absorbing six-track album. “Karma Train” is a journey through the process of creation, in which visual imperfection clashes with beating electronic pulses and cliffhanger atmosphere, creating Björk-esque ethereal wave references. Electro basses go tribal in the post-wave “Grey Water”, in which vocals and backing echoes become part of this unconventional prayer, inspired by the exhibition “INDEPENSENSE, Fabbrica Eos” held in Milan by Giuseppe Mastromatteo. The concept of harmony vs disharmony is carried on by merging orchestral and electro-flashes (“Cobblestone”), enriched by fragile violin notes. The lack of euphony is emphasized by the noisy and robotic interferences of “Empty”, reinterpreted by 80s samples in the less grabbing “Noise”. Personal favourite is the nail-biting “Psycho”; Roll the Dice-like bass and synth interaction create an almost sci-fi imaginary, drawn in spiritual evocations.
“Doppelgänger” is a spellbinding clash between ancient and futuristic, electronic and classical, merging the synth-pop trend with a refined avant-guarde touch.
by Fab Electra
Maria Takeuchi is a Brooklyn-based composer of synthaestic ambient works. Her compositions crest upon the shores of visualization, a place where you can hear the smell of low tide, smell the sound of dawn breaking on sand dunes. An avant-garde, minimalist composer with a background in playing bass, Takeuchi is also a visual artist of note. Ambient works are hard to put into verbiage, but a shorthand for her stature might be her contribution to the work As•phyx•i•a, where she applied her multi-sensory instinct to a piece involving music, film, choreography and 3D rendering. With media arts (EMMEDIA, PARTICLE + WAVE) and ambient music (Shaking Box recordings, musicians like Valiska and Yankee Yankee) being a focus point in Calgary, it’ll be interesting to see how Takeuchi co-mingles during the festival. by Colin Gallant
If I start telling you about an exciting new artist who's proposing to add a dose of spirituality to visually-based instrumental music experiments... you'll promise not to run in the other direction, right? Good, just checking.
Through a series of unlikely collaborations, artist Maria Takeuchi has given New York something we least expected. An insertion of the mysterious and appreciation for spiritual distance in new EP “Doppelgänger.” The record feels like the soundtrack to an unreleased David Fincher film, complete with dense noise-scapes and percussive vocoding. As she’s prone to: Takeuchi creates music for “Doppelgänger” you can see as much as listen to.
So, please don't be afraid. The music may exist in it's own world, but it's a place you'll want to visit too. - Mike Levine (@Goldnuggets)
During the session, Takeuchi showcased her latest project AS.PHYX.IA - a cinematic blend of choreography, music and motion capture technology. Inspired by the powerful concept of a “mother in a battlefield,” the film explores themes of struggle, isolation and maternal love, thus, refuting ingrained gender stereotypes that underestimate women, while unapologetically embracing femininity and its strengths. by EUGENE SONG
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Maria Takeuchi is a Brooklyn based multi-instrumental music producer who experiments with synesthetic compositions that transcends the hearing sense to stimulate emotions and appeal to philosophy as if to “paint on canvas by colored sound.”
“I have had grapheme-color synesthesia since I was a kid, and also sometimes experienced smell as in taste from imagining,” Takeuchi tells BTRtoday. Her music videos are “sound visualized,” which creates visceral sensations. “Some of my music is created based on visual images, and listeners have told me my music is imaginable.” by Elizabeth Wakefield
Panelists showcased their signature projects, of which my favorite was Asphyxia by Maria Takeuchi and her collaborators, where they translated thousands of point clouds from two Xbox kinect motion captures into a particle simulation, and through rendering and compositing in 3ds Max, a stunning visual experience communicating spiraling emotions. by Jie Zhang