Takahiko Iimura, a pioneer of Japanese experimental video, started video in the early 1970s, inspired by Nam June Paik and other video artists. Coming to New York City from Tokyo for the first time in the 1960s, he was then a filmmaker, having made such works as LOVE (1962) (music by Yoko Ono), which was highly praised by Jonas Mekas in the Village Voice at the time. He found video quite different from film, discovering it to be a valuable medium for examining the relation between image and language. Because video is able to record and playback immediately, one may use it to view the observer and the observed simultaneously. Thus the observer becomes the observed, and vice versa; or the subject turns into the object and vice versa. He applied this theory to practice.
The result is a video trilogy of CAMERA, MONITOR, FRAME (1976); OBSERVER/OBSERVED (1975), OBSERVER/ OBSERVED/OBSERVER (1976). These works have now been included within another trilogy of Concept Tapes, 1, 2, 3, after reassembling the first trilogy and adding other tapes. Most of the works are excerpted from the originals, showing selected parts from the series.
Especially notable is Concept Tapes 3, an anthology of performance tapes which examine the relation of performance and language. This work includes not only his performance, but also the piece JOHN CAGE PERFORMS JAMES JOYCE (1985).
The above works have been widely reviewed and are highly regarded: "discovering their great complexity and profundity" (John G. Hanhardt, Curator, Whitney Museum), "elegance which defines complexity" (Daryl Chin, art critic), "refresh our ability to perceive" (Scott MacDonald, film critic), and "most significant" (Peter d'Agostino, Professor, Temple University).
Takahiko Iimura's website: http://www.takaiimura.com/
The original film was rescued from a Tokyo trash bin. It is an American sexual education film in which plant and animal sex are explained. I, together with an artist friend, Natsuyuki Nakanishi, punched big holes in almost all of the frames. It was a protest against Japanese censorship of explicit images of sex, particularly pubic hair which the censors would cover with black marks. I inserted a few subliminal frames of pornographic imagery from magazines several times throughout the film. At the end, I even punched holes in these subliminal pictures, thereby 'censoring' the censored image.
"Moving beyond JUNK, which itself was already in response to, or an effort to surpass the much-appreciated 'Junk Art,' Iimura endeavoured to continue his investigation into the waste object. Here, he uses the remains of educational films, which treat the birth of zebras and insects, or the growth of plants. He edited this found footage, and then pierced the film with holes. The original images are 'hidden' from view by large splashes of light, which appear so violent to the spectator that Iimura named this work ON EYE RAPE. Indeed, he also intercut the original footage with single images culled from pornographic movies, which were then banned in Japan. This subliminal technique serves a quintessentially 'suggestive' and structural cinema. In that, it has affinities with the work of Paul Sharits, who also includes erotic single images in his films, WORD MOVIE (1966), N:O:T:H:I:N:G (1968), and above all T,O,U,C,H,I,N,G (1968), in order to gratify the phenomenon of retinal persistence." - Christopher Charles, Les Arts de l'image dans le Japon contemporain: Iimura Takahiko, in Takahiko Iimura film et vidèo, 1999.
1962, 16mm, b&w/si, 10 min, $40; also VHS copies for sale
"I have seen a number of Japanese avant-garde films at Brussels International Experimental Film Festival, at Cannes and at other places. Of all those films, Iimura's LOVE stands out in its very beauty and originality, a film poem, with no usual pseudo-surrealist imagery. Closest comparison would be Brakhage's LOVING or Jack Smith's FLAMING CREATURES. ... [A] poetic and sensuous exploration of the body ... fluid, direct, beautiful." - Jonas Mekas, Film Culture
Note: The soundtrack should be disregarded. - T.I.
1962-1963, 16mm, b&w/si, 13.5m (18fps), $40
"In my view the most interesting of Iimura's early films - at least those I've had a chance to see - is the one least characteristic of this period: WHITE CALLIGRAPHY. To make this abstract film, Iimura drew the Japanese characters for the Kojiki, 'the oldest story in Japan,' directly onto dark leader. Since each frame contains a different character, the finished film creates a continually changing retinal collage, which is interrupted intermittently during the final minutes of the film by movements of dark leader. All in all, WHITE CALLIGRAPHY is a sort of filmic concrete poem ...." - Scott MacDonald, Afterimage
1967, 16mm, b&w/si, 15m (18fps), $45
"This film and in particular the function of sound within it will vary freely from moment to moment, viewer to viewer. Totally different in its physical surface from most of the sound films of the 1970s, the film's openness of articulation of sound stands as an emblem for the new investigations of sound-image relationship during this period. Allowing the full force of its meaningful symbolic oppositions between black and white, silence and sound, to resonate, the film brings these issues forth within [the] larger context of its (and the viewer's) probing of the nature, the limits and the possibilities of human consciousness." - Larry Gottheim, 10 Years of Living Cinema
"Both in terms of its examination of time and space, of light and darkness, of visuals and sounds; and in terms of its demands and potential rewards for an audience, 24 FRAMES PER SECOND is the quintessential Iimura film." - Scott MacDonald, Afterimage
1975 (revised 1978), 16mm, b&w/so, 12m, $40
"Iimura, who is Japan's most important filmmaker, was involved in the New American Cinema developments in the early sixties. His work has continued to open up new ground in a way which few of his contemporaries from that period managed to sustain." - Malcolm LeGrice, Time Out
"The achievements of Iimura's recent films, particularly when combined with his many videotapes (themselves an interesting topic for extended discussion) and his numerous film and video installation pieces, make him one of the most interesting and prolific artists around. Like Carl Andre and Richard Serra in sculpture, Emmett Williams and Richard Kostelanetz in poetry, and Frank Stella and Josef Albers in painting, Iimura is able to refresh our ability to perceive and understand all film by reducing the variables vying for our attention so fully that we can concentrate completely on crucial elements of the film experience we often ignore." - Scott MacDonald, Afterimage
1977, 16mm, b&w/color/so, 12m, $40
A private performance by John Cage realizing his "Writing for the Fifth Time Through Finnegan's Wake" in three ways: reading, singing and whispering.
Text:
Rufthandlingconsummation tinyRuddy Newpermienting hi himself then pass ahs c e i n flumdered e w myself s ct making Hummels set life's she to east time the thesion br is m thosen southsates i over thg the he an ndby fluther's see e as brown ou a as m her i i The Voltexglad soil for he's hisBut at milkidmass nightfallen useawhile under the pudemascope heartbreakingly i town eau And onedimbeofforan furrow follower withNon plus ulstra to get enough for anyonea prodigal heart would h be u'a m a oebelt p t l ofder wraugh e ai farmo i north eve jest, to h i ntand sllyc ch mizFu zie showed ti em ae n Ishook s e bite msh (to right side)
1985, VHS, color/so, 15m, $100 home use; DVD $100 home use, $200 institutional use.
MA, a unique Japanese concept for time and space, is examined in two films: one in the famous Zen garden of Ryoan-ji, and the other in totally abstract film.
MA: SPACE/TIME IN THE GARDEN OF RYOAN-JI: Text by Arata Isozaki. Music by Takehisa Kosugi. Commissioned by the Program for Art on Film, a joint venture of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the J. Paul Getty Trust. "A fine introduction to a classic Japanese garden and the concept of MA." - Scott MacDonald, Afterimage
MA (INTERVALS): Consists of black and clear spacings and a line between them.
1975-1989, VHS, color/so, 40m, $90 home use; DVD $90 home use, $180 institutional use.
Music by Takehisa Kosugi.
New York is seen through the Japanese concept of MA. In two parts: DAY, the sky over buildings is seen from near and far capturing the negative space (MA); and NIGHT, darkness is seen through the streets and parks where light and shadow speak and negative space (MA) turns to the positive. (MA is a Japanese word used originally to define the distance between two points or spaces. Importance was attributed to the emptiness or silence - the space between.)
1989, VHS, color/so, 56m, $50 home use
Destroying a violin by Nam June Paik, and rolling up with bandage all over the body of the players in a concert by Yoko Ono, with such radical actions Fluxus (an art group organized by George Maciunas) shocked not only art world, but also a society at large. A historical document of international avant-garde group, Fluxus performances in New York, 1991, which reproduced the performances in early 1960s, an origin of art-performance, with the works of the main artists: Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, Dick Higgins, George Brecht, Allison Knowles, Ben Patterson, Jackson Mac Low and Emmett Williams. --T. I.
"Taka Iimura is a senior figure among contemporary Japanese artists and
has been working with film, sound and video since the 1960s. He was one
of several Japanese who, coming from a 20th Century tradition of
avant-garde intervention,1 contributed to the Fluxus group in the 60s.
Like many media artists, Iimura made recordings of contemporaries and
their work. Alongside his film and video artworks, (the video
Observer/Observed reviewed in Leonardo 35.1), portable video enabled
documentation, (and general note making), more economically than film.
As the cycle of experimentation moves through another generation,
glimpses of precursors through archive recordings of this kind help
ground artists surviving words and artworks".
-Mike Leggett, Leonardo Digital Reviews, MIT Press
DVD, 1991, b/w, 30m, $100 for home use, $200 institutional use
This is a Region Free DVD.
Produced by Takahiko Iimura. Utilizes "System G," Real Time Three-Dimensional Texture Mapping developed by Sony.
Combining the comical and the absurd, I created six funny faces to animate the images of Japanese vowels in the difference of "Image," "Letter" and "Voice."
"Iimura deconstructs our coherence as he shifts between the English Roman alphabet and Japanese characters, injects spoken Japanese and manipulates the computer images of his features. The images often take on geometrical shapes, others recall the classical images from Japanese woodcuts of a Samurai warrior grimace." - Robert West, Curator, Mint Museum of Art
Awards and Exhibition: One Minute World Festival, São Paulo; many other festivals.
1994, 16mm, color/so, 7m, $30
VHS Sale: $45 home use
DVD 15min. $70 home use, $140 institutional use
See description above.
1994, VHS, color/so, 3m, $30 home use
"Interactive: A I U E O NN Six Features", a new CD-ROM, has been developed from the video "A I U E O NN Six Features" (1993) by adding the interactivity to the video while retaining its basic character. Six exaggerated faces were originally created to animate the Japanese vowels, A I U E O and an extra NN, using computer hardware and software on "System G" by Sony.
"This is the game that Iimura plays, not only in the installation of the same name, but also again with this CD-ROM. The 'difference' is for him an example of multiculturalism, a connection of unity in diversity, in which Iimura plays with the expressive and indicative function of a sign, in sound and in image" World Wide Video Festival, Amsterdam, 1998
1998, VHS $70; CD-ROM $150
A video trilogy of "Camera, Monitor, Frame", "Observer/Observed", and "Observer/Observed/ Observer" is to create a semiology of video as a video work rather than a written text.
The main aim is a study of the structural relationships of video and language using English. Based on the feedback system of video, I assigned the system into the relation of the observer and the observed using the words as "I" and "YOU". What I am concerned is the structure of "seeing" involved for both the observer and the observed as in a sentence of "I see you", which is posited by the closed-circuit system of video. The video is the remake of 1975-76 version in shorter length without changing the concept. The CD-ROM version is a multimedia piece combining with text (English and Japanese), graphics and CG animation in addition to video. Hybrid for Mac/ Window.
"In fact, Takahiko Iimura isn't really a theoretician, if we mean by that his theory could be shown for itself, separate from the object. On the contrary, object and theory are mutually activated, or even interpenetrated without obstruction. One could say in this sense that Kegon Buddhism's logic, long ago apprenticed to John Cage by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki, grows in depth - a depth not reached by Nam-June Paik's TV-Buddha- in Iimura's art." - Daniel Charles, philosopher, author of John Cage.
1998, VHS $70; CD-ROM $150
A compilation program of films by Taka iimura made in 60s which includes followings: Kuzu(Junk), On Eye Rape, Ai(Love ), and A Dance Party in the Kingdom of Lillliput. "From the early sixties, though Japanese, Iimura was well known as one of the first generation of the New York Underground - for many years, Japanese experimental film was Takahiko Iimura." Malcolm Le Grice
"IN Junk surreal imagery is used effectively to dramatize the slow ecological destruction brought about by a wasteful industrialized society." Scott MacDonald
"Iimura's Love stands out in its beauty and originality, a film poem, with no usual pseudo-surrealist imagery. LOVE is a poetic and sensuous exploration of the body ... fluid, direct, beautiful." Jonas Mekas
"A Dance Party in the Kingdom of Lillliput may well be one of the first 'conceptual' film ever made nywhere in the world. It was a rather slow, but clearly defined daily motions of Kazakura, a mysterious underground figure of Japan." Nam June Paik
"A playful irony attenuates and lightens the conceptual weight of Iimura's art, always poised between abstract and concrete, Zen spirituality andtechnology, utmost spareness and complex mechanicalness of seeing." Bruno Di Marino
"MA: Space/Time in the Garden of Ryoan-Ji" "Original, personal,
disciplined approach to the subject, seeking to convey the aesthetic
experience of the artwork and to integrate a philosophical agenda
with a visual one. Takes a difficult concept and explore it, making
it visual. Very reductive, flat, and simple.
The photographic simplicity gives clarity to what we see, the rigid linear camera movements give us a feel for the dimension of the garden but also flatten space. The aesthetic of the film is the message, it has the quality of experimental film, conceptual film-an artwork itself. Good balance of music/visuals/titles. If not compelling for some viewers as for others, still rated as very effective. Makes one want to visit the actual garden and experience its spiritual energy."
Nadine Covert ed. "Art on Screen, A directory of films and videos about visual arts," Program for Art on Film, New York, 1991
2002, DVD $100 home use, $200 institutional use
Three short films all shot in New York were compiled. The first, "New York Scenes," 1967, is sketches of certain scenes and portraits of the filmmaker's friends and other people. It is divided into five "chapters" including, a famous filmmaker, Jack Smith with his film "Flaming Creatures." The film is made with one scene per chapter, and the chapters are "Linda with a lens," "Jack Smith with his film "Flaming Creatures," "Fire hydrants on Broadway," "Akiko on the roof," and "A Hippy in the Central Park."
The second film, "New York Hot Springs," 1984, was made with the steam coming out of manholes, a typical scene in the winter on the streets of New York, which reminded him of the Japanese hot springs in volcanic mountains. Consisting of shots of various steam at 10 locations in the city, the film is edited with each shot (5 seconds) in successive order and is rotated 10 times. A kind of Structural Film you might say. Since the form of the steam changes every moment, you are looking at new steam even at the same location.
The third film, "Talking in New York," 1981, is a kind of first person cinema where Iimura is the cameraman as well as the actor. Acting like a total stranger in the city who does not speak or hear the language, he walks with a camera to such sight-seeing spots as Times Square, and the top of the Empire State building, etc., only listening to himself speaking the words: "I hear myself at the same time that I speak" in two languages: Japanese and English. The words are a quotation from the book by Jacques Derrida, French philosopher, which he calls "phenomenological essence." (T.I)
DVD, 1967-1984, total 29min; $80 for home use, $160 institutional
This is a Region Free DVD.
Includes: CAMERA, MONITOR, FRAME; OBSERVER/OBSERVED; OBSERVER/OBSERVED/OBSERVER; TALKING TO MYSELF; DOUBLE IDENTITY; NEW YORK HOTSPRING; TALKING TO MYSELF AT PS1; DOUBLE PORTRAIT; and I LOVE YOU.
A compilation of Takahiko Iimura conceptual tapes made during 1975-1987. The first three works are made in series on the relationships of "observer" and "observed" using a double feedback set up, which ... studied the structural relationships of language and video ... in the closed circuit system (which is self-referential), a camera (observer) is fed back by the monitor (observed), so that the image not only refers to the object which is shot, but is also able to refer back to the subject - the observer who is shooting. This constitutes a sentence-like structure.
TALKING TO MYSELF and TALKING TO MYSELF AT PS1 are a realization of Jacques Derrida's sentence of phenomenology taken from "Speech and Phenomena." DOUBLE IDENTITY and the last two works are conceptual portraits of Iimura questioning their identity.
"Iimura is a significant and singular filmmaker, but also one of the most important conceptual artists working in any medium." - Malcolm LeGrice, Studio International, London
1975-1987, VHS, b&w/color/so, 48m, $70 Home Use Only
A document of the Yoko Ono retrospective art show with John Lennon as guest artist, "this is not here" held at Everson Museum, New York, 1971. The film begins with Yoko's speech at the press conference that continues throughout the film as she talks about "radical art", a non-violent one, anadavocates "total communication". Many important art objects and installations of Yoko's are seen as the camera goes along with Yoko and John through the installations. Allen Ginsberg and George Maciunas were among two of many guest artists who partipated in the exhibition. At the end a "piano piece" by Yoko in which people including John and Yoko are just hitting continuously the surgace of a closed piano is overwhelming.
"Takahiko Iimura is not an ordinary artist. He is undoubtedly one of the first Japanese artists, along with Yoko Ono and Ryuichi Sakamoto gain substantial international reputation... An emotionally moving film documentary of Yoko Ono and John Lennon." —Carl Eugene Loeffler, Artcom, President, San Francisco
This is a Region Free DVD
DVD $100 home use, $200 institutional use
This DVD contains following 5 videos in excerpts.
Total 23 min.
Here is one of the starting points of Japanese video art.
After coming back from New York in 1969, Taka Iimura started video production in Tokyo. Working in experimental film since the early 1960s, he first combined the art of film with video thus making a kind of flicker effect in video in two pieces: "A Chair" (1970) and "Blinking" (1970). These videos are experiments in perception, and are very minimal in form consisting of a single object which requires a lot of attention. "Time Tunnel" (1971) is an attempt at time travel in a very conceptual sense. "Man and Woman" (1971) shows full body shots of a naked man and woman shot from above without movement: stills. They are shown alone as well as together one over (or under) the other symbolizing in words at the same time, their positions. "Visual Logic (and Illogic)" (1977) shows visual logic (and illogic) of sign combining with limited movements of camera for panning and zooming. These early videos signify very early experiments of a particular "conceptual video, " that almost no other video artists had ever tried at that time. Furthermore this is an important collection to clarify later developments of the art of iimura's video. (T.I.)
DVD $70 home use, $200 institutional use
This DVD contains "Anma (The Masseur)" (1963) b&w, silent, 20 min. and “Rose Color Dance “(1963) b&w, silent, 13 min. Total, 33 min. "Anma (The Masseur)" by the Butoh dance creator and a legendary figure, Tatsumi Hijikata, is a classic piece of Butoh of Japan. Butoh, an original style of modern dance in Japan, had begun with his performance. The film was realized not only as a dance document but also as a Cine-Dance; performance with a camera. The filmmaker "performed" himself with a camera among the dancers on stage in front of the audience. Also with a duet by Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the main characters of Butoh, this film had a rare appearance of them in Butoh history.
“Rose Color Dance “, another document (or what I call "cinedance") of Tatsumi Hijikata's Butoh dance with Kazuo Ohno. All of the male dancers are dressed up with evening suits and move gracefully, yet an intruder breaks up the whole scene abruptly. The film is worth seeing, even if just to see a memorable gay duet of Hijikata and Ohno. Overexposed, washed out images are sandwiched among normal ones.(T.I.)
"(Through this film,) it became clear that the Black Butoh Dance created by Tatsumi Hijikata is closer to the neo-dada movement taking over the provocative, cynical and absurd forms rather than the German expressionist dance usually connected." -- Nicolas Villodre, curator of Cinematheque Francaise, Paris.
Collection of Lincoln Center, Performing Arts, New York
DVD $80 home use, $140 institutional use
This is a film portrait of filmmakers whom I was most interested in at the time; Stan Brakhage, Stan Vanderbeek, Jack Smith, Jonas Mekas, Andy Warhol, and Takahiko Iimura, shot during my first visit in U.S.A., 1966-1968, and then completed in Japan, 1969 with "comments" literally pointing out in words what I see in the picture at the moment (like an English lesson). Each filmmaker's part is about 5 minutes (200 feet) (except Iimura, 50 feet) without editing but in camera, most is shot without looking through the viewfinder. A part of Jonas Mekas is shot by himself and Akiko Iimura. Intentionally the film "borrowed" the technique of the filmmaker in his part (ex. frame-by frame shot at the part of Jonas Mekas as he has often employed it in his film). (T.I.) Collection of Anthology Film Archives, New York.
DVD $100 home use, $200 institutional
A multimedia DVD with text, video, graphics, and animation, 2002
Conceived, Produced, Directed, Edited, and Played by Takahiko Iimura.
Co-produced with The Institute for Electronic Arts, Alfred
University, New York,Euphonic Inc., Tokyo and Tokyo Institute of
Polytechnics, Tokyo. The project was made possible in part with a
grant from New York State Council on the Arts.
A multimedia/interactive DVD: "Seeing / Hearing / Speaking" has two
parts: a new video, "Seeing/ Hearing / Speaking", 2002, and three
"Other Related Videos" produced during 1978-2001. The total running
time of the video is 33min., which may be seen continuously by
clicking "Autoplay" at the menu.
Based on a sentence taken from the seminal book of Jacques Derrida, French philosopher, "Speech and Phenomena" translated by David B. Allison, I produced first video "Talking to Myself" in 1978(revised in 2001). The video was highly appreciated as "the strongest, most effective statement one could make from the work of Derrida" by Professor Allison. The sentence I quoted, that Derrida calls "phenomenological essence", is that I hear myself at the same time that I speak. The new DVD, not just a transfer of video, extends further with text, and graphics, which works interactively. In "Hearing / Speaking", for instance, you can choose among the monitors with the picture of face, head, ear and mouth in the video-installation, and can read/see different programs. So that you can perceive and localize "Hearing / Speaking" with the organs. Together with "Seeing" in this DVD, I could combine the perception of "Seeing" with "Hearing / Speaking". Besides "Talking to Myself", other related videos are "Talking in New York"(1981, revised in 2001) and "Talking to Myself at PS1" (1985).
Throughout these videos I have examined the validity of an identity in video, which is different from the actual voice, between "the I who hear" and "the I who speak." It extends also to "the I who see" and "the I who is seen". The text includes "A letter to Takahiko iimura" by David B. Allison, and "On Talking to Myself" by Takahiko Iimura
"Talking to Myself (1978) seems almost preposterously ambitious; its beauty (I say this, of course, only on examining the script) seems to lie in a kind of vertigo, an infinitization of replications, mirroring, suspected detours, half-forgotten and neglected stops, arrests, reconfirmations and confusions. It surely is the strongest, most effective statement one could make from the work of Derrida." - David B. Allison, Professor of Philosophy, State University of New York at StonyBrook and the translator of "Speech and Phenomena" by Jacques Derrida.
" 'Seeing / Hearing / Speaking' DVD, which I have enjoyed very much indeed. It is, I think, a true masterpiece...because through your DVD one becomes able to grasp not only the theoretical or intellectual aspect of your relationship with Derrida's thought, but the ' vertigo' (as Allison says) of the 'deconstruction' (to use Derrida's jargon) of your own identity, i.e. a feeling, not an abstraction: a pre- or proto-theoretical full way of understanding and of living, i.e. an intuition of the 'difference' or 'differance' in Derrida's sense." - Daniel Charles, the author of "John Cage"
2002, DVD sale: $150 Home use, Institutional use, please inquire.
Point your browser here for purchase.
Includes essays, papers, and scripts with many photos and diagrams written between 1974 -1999, on Experimental film, Video art, Installation, Performance, and Multimedia of the artist.
Paperback, 200 pages. Sale price: $19.95
Questions, please contact:
Wildside Press
9710 Traville Gateway Dr. #234
Rockville, MD. 20850, USA
Phone: 301-762-1305
Wildside Press © 2004. All rights reserved.
"Taka Iimura has been making films since the early 1960s. His work has
gone through a series of relatively clear, consistent developments:
from 1962 to 1968, Iimura was largely involved with surreal imagery, with
eroticism, and with social criticism; from 1968 through 1971, he
continued to use photographic imagery, but worked with it in increasingly
formal ways; from 1972 until 1978, he devoted himself very largely to a
series of minimalist explorations of time and space. During the years
since, Iimura has been more fully involved with video than with film."
--Scott MacDonald
"Although Taka was and continues to be an active part of the New York
avant-garde scene, he always remained an enigmatic, mysterious presence,
pursuing his own unique route through the very center of the
avant-garde cinema. While the intensity and the fire of the American avant-garde
film movement inspired him and attracted him, his Japanese origins
contributed decisively to his uncompromising explorations of cinema's
minimalist and conceptualist possibilities. He has explored this direction
of cinema in greater depth than anyone else."
-- Jonas Mekas