A new ‘mixed reality’ concert of Ryuichi Sakamoto’s music by the production company Tin Drum, ‘Mirror’ is a breakthrough in virtual reality that expands the visual limits of recorded performances and promises to be a profound experience. Intended. It actually feels like a wake at a laser tag arena. In a way it is inevitable. Sakamoto, one of Japan’s most internationally recognized artists, passed away in March, so it’s hard to avoid a funeral-like paleness in releasing his music so early. This man cannot escape his fate.
For the occasion, the Shed Griffin Theater welcomes guests in an antechamber lit by tomb-like light and adorned with wall-sized photographs of Sakamoto’s life. A scene from the 2017 documentary “Ryuichi Sakamoto: Coda” Mute on the opposite wall — Sakamoto collects rainwater in a bucket. Samples the sound of drift ice in the Arctic. Ignoring the context makes it look more oblique than it actually is.
The actual performance takes place in an empty black box theater behind a curtain, but virtually as it is. Nothing but the necessary vaguely steampunk headset and a friendly attendant who will set you up with a possibly very expensive virtual projector. No live performers, no props, no screens. You sit in a circle and stare at a glowing virtual red cube in the center of the room. This suggests a seance run by an AV club.
Blinking to life in a taped-out zone, Sakamoto appears to have light shining in from what is usually called the uncanny valley, but perhaps more accurately translated. as “uncanny valley”. This version of Sakamoto winces and grimaces just like the real thing. Light shines from the silver of his elegant central part. From late ’80s hit film scores and his ’90s preliminary piano arrangements to late textured ambient his Requiem, a virtual tour of his lively 50 minute tour through his solo work Grand hears the hammers on his piano twitch. Sakamoto doesn’t look completely human, even though he’s close to human. His skin is too smooth, making it look like his body is emitting an unnatural glow. He is there and he is not there at the same time. It’s like he sees a ghost, so to speak.
Tin Drum did a similar thing with “The Life” in 2019, losing Marina Abramović’s three-dimensional avatar in a roped pen at London’s Serpentine Gallery. Here we have slightly improved the scene. Whereas “The Life” was a relatively simplistic representation of Abramović’s movement, “Mirror” incorporates a series of flashy visual effects that accompany Sakamoto’s performance. A grid of fluorescent beams overhead, the so-called “tron”. Anodyne postcard view carousel. Most of these, while beautiful to look at, are either headaches, distractions, or both. For example, the entrance to the winter forest that opens during “Energy Flow” projects a shaft of light on Sakamoto’s back and makes way for the floor. In “Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence,” a shimmering universe appeared, allowing him to stand on an infinitely spinning earth. Their participation, as if Sakamoto’s lucid playing wasn’t enough as a gift of some kind, suggests a concession to those experiencing a shift away from smartphones (although smartphone camera shots are of little use here). , a small blessing).
Like air travel, the technology behind the Mirror is both miraculous and stupidly unsophisticated. The headset’s 5-pound battery pack hangs on a strap around his neck, and the sound of Sakamoto playing competes with the sound of straining the battery’s fan to keep the system from overheating, but this sometimes fails. sometimes. In that case, the error his message will be displayed in full view. This is funny, but it also removes some of the magic.
This is not James Turrell’s Ganzfeld. It’s a useful safety feature, as the material boundaries of the room never completely disappear, and the piece encourages the audience to walk around the theater (an act that would be unforgivable in a traditional recital, and not here). , you don’t need to add much other than enabling a clever trick of watching a virtual gold dew drop pass through your hand. So if you can see the other participant’s feet, you can (in most cases) avoid collisions.
All of these may sound like minor inconveniences necessary to progress. But is this progress? Being in a room with a mirage view while music is playing is nothing more transcendent than watching a standard video recording, but this is what it is anyway. Tin Drum filmed Sakamoto over three days in Tokyo in December 2020, capturing both his performance and his body contours with 48 cameras, recording an enormous amount of data that took five months to process. . By their calculations, the result represents the invention of about a dozen technological processes completed by many of the city’s designers, scientists, and engineers—a huge undertaking by any measure.
“But it was never the technology that mattered,” Mirror director and Tin Drum founder Todd Eckert wrote to me. “We were trying to find a way to connect artists with audiences who would never meet.” It’s an indisputably lofty goal, if not strictly democratic. This special connection requires an enormous amount of specialized equipment, and a virtual movie ticket costs between $31 and $60.
In many ways, “Kagami” is just the latest collusion at the intersection of art and technology, a place with less interaction than a speed trap. The appetite for immersive art experiences shows no signs of abating, but concept realization is still more social media fodder than innovation. More of a financial vehicle than a new art form, NFTs have been blazing fast, largely replaced by AI imagery that has hitherto largely produced a uniform, bland style of photorealism. Art is subject to idiosyncratic trends and is easily confused with human progress.
There is something strange about the portrait of Sakamoto, a lifelong anti-capitalist, projected inside the Shed, an arts center as a cultural embellishment of Hudson Yards, New York’s largest private real estate development. (“Mirror” will also premiere at the Factory International in Manchester, UK). But if this bothered him, it did not outweigh what he perceived as a merit. Sakamoto was also a populist, rightly believing that music was for everyone (he composed the score for the Japanese chain Muji, originally written for a vitamin commercial). wrote the hauntingly delicate piano ballad “Energy Flow”).
Sakamoto’s willingness to work on this kind of technology has a certain meaning. Electronic Pop Regarded as the godfather of his music, he loves to tinker with gizmos and yellow his magic Japan’s futurism was metabolized. Its unnatural sound was an expression of his belief that all music is man-made, that nature was forced to shape it. It’s easy to imagine him seeing virtual reality as just another tool.
“Pianos don’t sustain notes,” Sakamoto mutters on “Coda.” “I am fascinated by the concept of an eternal sound that does not disappear over time. I think it’s something.”
“Kagami” means “mirror” in Japanese, but in this work, rather than a reflection, it gives the impression of an eternal afterimage. It’s a performance, a record, a memory that will last as long as the battery lasts. It almost always becomes an influential meditation on grief in spite of itself. Sakamoto cannot improvise, nor can he absorb the energy of the audience. He exists only in the past. The theater is momentarily overwhelming, but never completely overwhelming. It’s like a person’s memory fills a room and then quickly disappears. “Kagami” is not really that kind of story. It’s all about cool technology. It effectively transcends death, but so does any audio or video recording, photograph, or any work of art. Good art like Sakamoto does it with or without a light show.
Mirror
Until July 2nd, Shedd, 545 West 30th Street, Chelsea. (646) 455-3494; theshed.org.
