OptoSonic MayDay Marathon
This performance is a variation of Tomoko Hojo’s piece ‘touch’ (2020) which uses video score based on archival materials about Yoko Ono from the New York Public Library.
May 1, 2021 at 4 pm EST
This work is based on the theme of physical contact in the coronavirus disaster created by Tomoko Hojo and performed with Sergey Kasich.
How can we resist the current situation in which physical contact between people and objects is restricted, and the senses of touch and smell are being substituted by visual information? Thinking of new ways to “touch” without directly touching the object may cover contact not only with things that are separated geographically and physically, but also with things that are separated in time. In the archives of the New York Public Library, Yoko Ono’s ephemera was not allowed to be seen or touched due to the restrictions of the covid 19. By recording the physical interventions with its photocopy as alternatives, and then using them as the basis for further physical and acoustic interventions, this work attempts to twist the unbridgeable distance to the object.
The premiere of this original piece was in frames of Music From Japan Festival 2021, at Scandinavia House in March. This version is created specially for the OptoSonic Tea supported by the Harvestworks DMAC.
• BIOS
sergey kasich
Is an interdisciplinary artist, curator and producer with focus in sound arts, technological media and music. Since 2008 his artistic practice has focused on interactive and generative sound and multimedia art installations, performances and mixed media projects. Kasich also works as a composer and sound-producer across a broad spectrum of the performing arts from theatrical productions and performances to pop-music.
Tomoko Hojo
Tomoko Hojo is an artist working within the fluidities between Sound, Music and Performance. Based upon the theme of making historically silenced (women’s) voices audible, her recent projects in Tokyo, London and Berlin centred around Yoko Ono and Sadayakko Kawakami. As well as solo activities, she has an ongoing collaborative project with Swiss sound artist, Rahel Kraft. Their projects seek for hidden, faint and intimate sounds, which are often inaudible in the relationship between people and place.