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Iimura, Takahiko

60's Experiments

"Pursuing his own unique route. Although Taka was an active part of the New York avantgarde scene, he always remained an enigmatic, mysterious presence, pursuing his own unique route through the very center of the Avantgarde cinema. While the intensity and the fire of the American avantgarde film movement inspired him and attracted him, his Japanese origins contributed decisively to his uncompromising explor ations of cinema's minimalist and conceptualist possibilities. He has explor ed this direction of cinema in greater depth than anyone else."--Jonas Mekas (Takahiko Iimura Film & Video, Anthology Film Archives, 1990)

Junk
Music by Takehisa Kosugi. "The film is both 'a laceration of the home movie' reviewed by Koichiro Ishizaki and a celebration of the object, a key word at that time. Iimura films the cadavers of daily objects (junk) and animals without heads, cats, dogs or birds. While boats float calmly in the distance and children run along the beach, all kinds of larvae and insects move from old tatamis to old bottles under a "rain" of scratches caused by the numerous projections that the original film underwent. The object is thus rediscovered thanks to the images. It is not a question of showing "mono" (things), but rather "jibun no karada" (your own body)(Iimura) and the way in which you position yourself inrelation to these things."- Chtistpphe Charles. Takahiko Iimura, Film et Video, Jeu de Paume, Paris, 1999
1962, b/w, 10min.

Ai (Love)
Music by Yoko Ono. "This is one of the most beautiful and most introspective films ever made, Iimura has managed in this film to show us also the ugly that we are not aware of, while at the same time bringing to us an acceptance of it. Sometimes he even transforms it to beauty."- Peter Gidal (Ark, Spring, 1970, London)
1962, b/w, 15min.

On Eye Rape
"This time he uses bits of pedagogical films that show the birth of zebras and insects or the growth of plants, and places end to end making holes in thefilm : the original images are "hidden" by large areas of light appearing so violently that he calls this work "Shikan ni tsuite"(On Eye Rape). In certain places, Iimura introduced photogrammes containing pornographic scenes that were absolutely illegal in Japan at that time. This technique serves acinema that one could qualify as "suggestive" or "structural". One of its representatives, Paul Sharits, also inserts similar erotic photogrammes in his films "Word Movie" (1966), "N:O:T:H:I:N:G" (1968), and most of all "T:O:U:C:H:I:N:G" (1968), in order to flatter retinal persistence." - Chtistpph Charles ,(takahiko iimura, Film et Video, Jeu de Paume, Paris, 1999)
1962, b/w & color, 10min. silent

A Dance Party In The Kingdom Of Lilliput
With Sho Kazakura,Genpei Akasegawa. "Iimura's DANCE PARTY is a work of obvious appeal to the American sensibility. At once rollickingly humorous (its comedy is an elaboration on the classic films of Max Sennett and Charlie Chaplin, filtered through both the dada/surrealist cinema of the 1920s and the Japanese appreciation of those early experimental works) and rigorously intelligent, DANCE PARTY stands as a compelling pioneer effort of early 1960s Japanese avant-garde thought. While even Iimura has trouble placing the film in his own body of work-its ambitious experiments, hugely successful, were not to be taken up in his later films - it remains his most accessible production : witty, high-spirited and energetic, it is often mysterious but always delightfully provocative." -Sam McElfresh, Taka Iimura: Messaggero d'Oriente, Giappone Avantguardia del Futuro", Electa, Milano, 1985
1964, b/w, 12min. sound

DVD contains above 4 films and the reviews of the films by Jonas Mekas, Chtistpphe Charles, Peter Gidal, Scott MacDonald, Karl Soehnlein, Yoko Ono, Malcolm Le Grice, Stephan Dowskin, Sam MacElfresh, and Takahiko iimura in the DVD and a booklet inside the case.

DVD, 1962-1964, color/b&w/so, 47 min. Sale $150

DVD: MA: A Japanese Concept

I have produced 4 movies (including videos) about the concept of MA. The first one was _$B!c_(BMA (intervals)> (1975~77). In the general classification, it was a complete abstract film and a kind of experimental movie as well, I only used black film, which blocks light, and clear film, which is totally transparent, as the basic materials. These materials were measured in every second, a length of 1,2,3 seconds individually as a basic unit. The film was consisted in only four kinds: black, clear, black with a white scratched line in the center, and clear with a black scratched line in the center. I composed the intervals of < MA> according to the seconds between light (white), darkness (black) and the central straight lines, and tried to clarify _$B!c_(BMA> in an interval of their relations by giving a certain measure to the irrational time/space.

The second production was "MA: Space/Time in the Garden of Ryoan-Ji"(1989). It was commissioned by the Program for Art on Film (PAF) in New York, and was a collaborative work joined by Arata Isozaki (text) and Takehisa Kosugi (music). It was an art film in which I made a filmic interpretation of as a theme with the classic art of Ryoan-ji. In this production, I did not illustrate as an usual instructional art-film. It is a realization of experiencing by watching a film. Especially, the concept of "MA" as an indivisible state of time and space, I repeatedly used a camera techniques of the slow tracking shots with constant speed and also the slow zooming shots, not fixed (which shows space) nor panning(which indicates time) shots. My aim of the slow tracking shots was expressing an objective among stones and of the slow zooming shots was expressing a subjective between the stone (object) and the subject. Texts also emphasized and a part of them was written as follows.

Perceive not the object but the distance between them not the sounds but the pauses they leave unfilled The concept of was realized also in sound. The single sound stroked by two hands was heard with the long echo.Besides of this film, I produced (1989) as a video documentary. We heard the morning sutras with gongs in the background. What surprised the audience most, I suppose, was that the computer was used to control a certain slow speed of the dolly which moved on rail. Using a computer to control a speed of dolly made this process possible, since it was very hard by hands. showed not only the process of film-making, but also the creation of as a work. You could find this between the staff and the stone garden while they were making film. For example, the repeated dolly car scenes together with the ones, which were shot by the dolly, represent the relationships of < see/be seen > in .

My latest film was (2003-4), an animation film in which the outline of the image of stone garden was traced on computer. As the result while the camera-crews moved in actual film-making, the stone, the drew-line moved in animation. This changed entire point of view. This is because only the outline of stones was extracted, and the drawing of stone was animated without any background nor foreground picture.In the animated image, the outline of stones was drawn continuously like (one stroked drawing) with a breath and made fade-in/fade-out effects in every one second. There was a continuous rhythm like breathing. The rhythm of would be found in their pulsations of drawing with fade-in/fade-out effects.

Different realizations of would be found in the above-mentioned four films. (1) According to the conventional classification of film, these could be classified in abstraction, art, documentary, and animation. (2) Such kind of classifications is not important. The common concept of works in many different representations beyond the pre-established classification is the most significant.I made a DVD including these four films, and a booklet inside the cover. In conclusion, I would like to quote the phrase from Daniel Charles's text. In Iimura's works not only in filmic ones but also in multimedia, the above mentioned "ambiguity" is a key motivation of his experiments. Magritte's paradox below expressed very well about it:‹the invisible isn't hidden from sight. to be you must visible.›

Notes:

(1) This text was presented orally with film works for the 30th congress of Japan Soceity of Image Arts and Soceity at Tokyo Polytechnic University, 2004 (2) In the DVD, the order is _$B!c_(Bart, documentary, animation, and as the subtitle indicates. References:

(1)"Bringing Ryoan-ji to the Screen," Daniel Charles, Millennium Film Journal No. 38 (Spring, 2002): Winds From the East, The Millennium Film Workshop, New York, pp. 65-72. Translated from the French by Eleanor Mitch, copyedited by Nadine Covert. (Revue Esthetique, vol.39, 2001, Jean Michel Place, Paris, pp. 27-31) (2) "A Note for Takahiko iimura, Nagoya Zoukei University of Art and Design Kiyou (The Academic Journal), No.3,1993, pp.39-47 (In Japanese)

DVD $150