Ami Yamasaki performs Christian Marclay's Manga Scroll
Performance, La Centrale, 4pm
Christian Marclay made this hand scroll using onomatopoeias found in Manga cartoons originally published in Japan but translated for the English speaking market. These black-and-white serialized newsprint comics have been cut and collaged into a 20 meters hand scroll. This type of scroll, which was invented in Japan during the 11th century, is considered the antecedent of the contemporary Japanese graphic novel. Having been stripped of their dramatic context, the sound effects are strung together into one long composition meant for interpretation by voice.
Ami Yamasaki
Born in Matsuyama City (JP)
Lives in Tokyo
Ami Yamasaki is a visual and vocal artist. She uses her ears, vocal cords and skin to perceive her own voice and the echoes it produces. Using a method similar to echolocation to recognize a space, she transforms that space through a kind of acoustic shading.
Through her performances and installations, she questions how the world is made and how the human body extends itself through listening. In recent years, she has collaborated with people with audiovisual impairments to investigate how the world can appear differently in the same environment due to physical differences and differences in the purpose of actions. From 2023, she will be taking part in Fundamentalz, organized by the Japanese Association of Communication for Science and Technology, to establish dialogues between astronomers and theoretical physicists (particle theory).
Ami Yamasaki is the 2017 recipient of a grant from the Asian Cultural Council and the Japan Foundation Asia Center in 2018. She exhibited and performed at the Setouchi International Art Festival in 2019, as well as in WAYS OF TELLING (Tokyo Shibuya Koen-dori Gallery, 2021), Yokohama International Performing Arts Meeting (BankART KAIKO, 2021), KYOTO STEAM 2022 International Art Competition (Kyoto Kyocera Museum of Art, 2022), JAPAN. BODY_PERFORM_LIVE (Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milano 2022), the Groundbreaking Ceremony (Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, 2022) and the G&A Mamidakis Foundation Art Prize (2023). She performed Christian Marclay's Manga Scroll for the 1st time at the Enoura Observatory in 2021, during the "Found in Odawara" event linked to the "Translating" exhibition, and at the Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art in 2022 during the exhibition.
Credits :
Photos 1-2: Ami Yamasaki performing Christian Marclay's Manga Scroll, September 16, 2023, Usine de Chandoline, Sion, © Biennale Son, photo: Olivier Lovey
Photo 3: Christian Marclay, Manga Scroll, 2010 (detail), Lithography on rice paper, 41 × 2,000 cm Ed. 2/5+1 AP+1 USF (ed. Graphicstudio, University of South Florida, Tampa), Courtesy the artist and Paula Cooper Gallery, New York Photo: Will Lytch
