A selection of eight compositions by the Japanese artist and composer Ryoko Akama. Written with varying degrees of economy, indeterminacy and ambiguity the compositions explore language, material and the deconstruction of contemporary composition with humour and wit.
Ryoko Akama Koso Koso *SOLD OUT*
Object Performance
こそこそ [koso koso]
Fade In and Out Procedure for Sine Tones and Percussion
Con.de.structuring
Grade Two
Grade Two Extended
tada no (a set of 18 cards, printed on 250gsm A7 recycled stock)
e.a.c.d (printed on 100gsm A3 newsprint)
“Akama’s scores tend to be made up of sets of instructions couched in economical language. Although worded in a fairly direct manner, all of them embrace indeterminacy of some variety. Some of the instructions are unambiguous and only require the performers to set the values of certain parameters, such as duration or instrumentation. Others call for a greater leap of interpretation and ingenuity. For example, the score to Object Performance consists of verbs scattered across a page, each of which names a specific action to be taken in relation to the objects, but the types and the exact number of objects each performer should use are left open to the performers’ discretion. With a wry touch of humor, Akama also throws in the instruction “whatever” as a kind of open variable for the performer to fill in. Less ambiguously but still leaving choices up to the performers, Fade In consists of a single page of instructions for a twenty-five minute additive/subtractive performance in which four or five sine tones are faded in sequentially and then faded out in reverse order. The duration piece Con.de.structuring asks its three or more performers to select and play three sounds they consider soundless. Here Akama sets up a koan-like paradox in calling for a medium to represent something that by definition defies that medium. Akama’s taste for enigma is further displayed in tada no, a set of eighteen cards each of which contains a simple instruction for an action, a formula in need of creative decryption, or a description of a situation.”
Avant Music News
Ryoko Akama is a sound artist / composer who works across sound installation, performance and composition. Her aesthetics approach empty field – silence (time) and space, and pursue the quality of the minimal, abstract and cumulative in multidimensional sonic experience. She explores sound objects and electronics, and also employs texts in order to create scores.
She is the co-founder of Reductive Journal and runs Melange Edition.
www.ryokoakama.com
www.melangeedition.com
BORE issue 3 is kindly supported by the Sonic Arts Research Unit (SARU) at Oxford Brookes University
borepublishing.com 