In 1984 Kyoto, a group of students at the City University of Arts committed to experimenting with new forms of art: video, painting, sculpture, music, architecture, dance, and theatre, but with no use of spoken word. One of the founders, Teiji Furuhashi, remarked how they “doubted word as the main conveyor of human communication” and how they wanted to “explore deeper levels of communication.” In the 1980s, Japan was growing as a global powerhouse: ranking second in GDP per capita, high-tech industry everywhere, primacy in the automotive industry, though all within the context of political apathy risk. The group adopted the name Dumb Type to highlight the shallowness of Japanese society viz. human and social factors. Another co-founder, Shiro Takatani, will present Tangent as part of the Venice Dance Biennale programme at Malibran Theatre on July 25 and 26. A “Show on liminal zones that challenges the limits of the perceivable” where the accent is not on the immediately visible, but on the whole landscape/spectrum of visual and sound stimuli.

Time reminded me immediately of Dōgen waka Kyōsei utekisei, though in several interviews you distance yourself from traditional Japanese culture. What role did you play in your growth as an artist?
I was interested in science when I was a child. The Dōgen waka Kyōsei utekisei (poem) that you gave as an example also sounds like an explanation of quantum mechanics to me now. “Utekisei” means “voice of raindrops.” It teaches Zen thought in this way: “The me who is listening and the raindrops being listened are not two (not separate). Because I listen, the raindrops make a sound, and because the raindrops make a sound, I listen.” We can only hear what we want to hear. Similarly, we can only see what we want to see. I didn’t understand the true meaning of Japanese culture and philosophy when I was young.

Walter Benjamin maintained that unlimited iconographic production and mass consumption, the concept of aura, the mystical-religious feeling of art, would be lost forever. Yet, your art seems to try to recreate it. What is your point of view on this topic?
I am not trying to recreate such a “concept of aura” or “mystical-religious feeling of art,” but rather I want to see something beyond that. In reality, we consume far more images than Benjamin imagined, and each of us carries so many images on our smartphones that we cannot see them all.

For me, creating a real experience in my work is most important

Your performances seem to grow on installation-like explorations, then turn into theatre shows. In your production, is there any ‘technical’ difference in design? The use of different media, light bars, strobe lights, colour, text, sound, motion pictures, on-stage architecture… How does your art come into being? Let’s take Tangent as an example: how was it born? What did the creative process behind it look like?
At first, I started making the work with ​​my creative team based on the producer’s open-minded and understanding idea, who said that even if it wasn’t in the form of a performance, it would be fine as long as it was created using theater. Although I had no clear idea about creating a “performance” at that time, I accepted the producer’s proposal.
“Theater” is always an experimental studio for me for the production process. On the stage of Tangent, the lights move like trying to copy the movement of the sun, and the spherical speakers rotate automatically. Moving the lighting equipment itself and moving the speaker itself was something I wanted to experiment with from the beginning. Because it’s not a virtual experience, it’s a real experience. For me, creating a real experience in my work is most important.

There’s a lot of talk about AI, today, even in the art world. If your art was fed into a computer to create something similar, what elements, in your opinion, would surely be missing? Do you see a possible use of AI?
For me, I still only see AI as a tool for organizing information. Using tools is very important in my work. For example, chairs, ladders, mirrors, etc. are all nice tools. However, unlike those tools, AI is a black box for me. It allows you to input a large amount of various information and get the results. I still don’t know how to use it.