Minimal Techno by Physical Phenomena. FUJI||||||||||TA

On 20 March, Japanese composer FUJI||||||||||TA presents the live performance of his research project Minimal Techno by Physical Phenomena, which he is developing during a one-month residency at Hangar. This residency is possible thanks to the To Be Made Instrument grant, part of Hangar’s Politics of Listening research and action line.

However, it may not be what is typically associated with minimal techno. Instead, FUJI||||||||||TA approaches the genre in a profoundly unique way to articulate long-held desires. And we say “radically” in the sense of going back to the primordial –physical and material– root of the genre’s rhythm.

Despite—or precisely because of—the name of the grant defining his stay at Hangar, Fujita is neither an instrument builder nor a craft maker, nor does he aim to become one. First and foremost, the composer identifies as a lover of sound. It is through listening—and observing, as he might point out—that he constructs compositions designed to challenge and shift conventional attention regimes.

While his music does not exist as a physical instrument, it functions as an instrument of a different kind: one that measures time and space through rhythmic structures. These structures, composed of intricate combinations of measures, embody Fujita’s exploration of rhythm as a tool for reimagining our perception of temporal and spatial experience. The artist immerses himself in the sonic environment around him. As a result, the music he composes reflects the behaviour of sound and the listening strategies with which we actively and passively engage in everyday life.

FUJI||||||||||TA is a Japan-based sound artist and composer with a holistic approach to the practice of sound, making no distinction between the aural and the visual. His music draws from various natural phenomena that respond to his interest in hearing unheard sounds and noises. In 2009 Fujita made a DIY instrument, a pipe organ based on an ancient Japanese forging system called “gagaku”. It has 11 pipes and no keyboard. Fujita made it from his own imagination, without any specialist knowledge. It was designed to create atmosphere rather than function as a musical instrument. More recently, Fujita has added the element of water to his repertoire by incorporating synthesised water tanks with sound, along with the pipe organ and voice.

His work has been presented at Rewire Festival (NL), Big Ears Festival (US), Pioneer Works (US), Bourse de Commerce (FR), Send+Receive (CA), MODE (UK), Variations (FR), Tectonics Glasgow (UK), among others. She has collaborated with ∈Ｙ∋ (Boredoms), Akio Suzuki, Keiji Haino, and Rashad Becker.

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Over the last few months we have been engaged in a profound reflection on the need to rethink the role that other forms of sensibility should play, particularly in relation to the listening and sound practices traditionally anchored in Hangar: contexts, communities and support. This exercise has given rise to an implementation of Hangar’s already consolidated sound scholarship, previously called Audioformal, which from this year onwards will be called To Be Made Instrument. The intention is to create a context for research and specific work on sound and listening practices, based on the realisation that they are as necessary as they are lacking in the local and international context. To Be Made Instrument explores the experience of listening as a poetic and political practice of resistance, solidarity and community in the face of neoliberal individualisation and its bio-geopolitical effects.

Practical information
Day: 20 March
Time: 7:30 pm
Venue: Sala Ricson, Hangar
Admission: 5 €