Risa Hatayama
Drift
In collaboration with Mathieu Bouchard
From march 23rd to may 27th 2007
Opening march 22nd from 5pm to 9pm
They cry probabilities, pile-driving,
deep into the world space's very seams,
wedges of shrieking (where bird-cries wing
unbroken as men go into dreams).from Sonnets To Orpheus, II, 26
Rainer Maria Rilke
(translated from German by Robert Hunter)
credit: Risa Hatayama
Originally from Japan, young artist Risa Hatayama presents, in collaboration with computer programmer Mathieu Bouchard, a video and interactive sound environment. The spectator is immersed in a poetic world inspired by Sonnets to Orpheus, the famous work by poet Rainer Maria Rilke. Seven individual video pieces and seven amplified soundtracks are arranged in a loop. An eighth track incorporates the room's ambient sounds picked up by microphones.
Equipped with wireless headphones the visitor experiences this multi-sensorial collage in a personal way: their movements and orientation through the space determines the intensity of sound they hear. The visitor passes through varied ambient environments, giving them the impression of entering another's intimate thoughts.
Engaging a meditative mood, the images suggest interiority by exploring recurring themes in the artist's work: those of death, love, time, and memory. A bird cage, a flame, a weeping-willow, a torso, a musical score, a piano, flowers of magnolias compose an open narrative, allowing the work to be understood through the imaginary.
The encounter between human movement and the virtual universe creates an interface, making the real and the invisible, the perceivable and the immaterial coexist.
Esther Bourdages
in collaboration with Fanny Franceschi