On November 18th, musician Keiichiro Shibuya performed Android Aria “Seeds of Prophecy,” his new piece using an android, piano, and electronic instruments, for the closing ceremony of the Lisbon Film Festival held in Portugal.

Lisbon Film Festival is an international film festival with film producer Paulo Branco, known for his work for esteemed Portuguese filmmakers like Manuel De Oliviera and Pedro Costa, as the director. The festival was held for the 17th time this year (2023 at the time of writing). Prominent names such as Francis F. Coppola, David Lynch, and Wim Wenders have previously participated in the festival. Aside from showing films this year, the festival presented a conversation with Pedro Costa and masterclasses by celebrated film directors like Leos Carax and Ryusuke Hamaguchi.

Artists from a plethora of fields outside of film joined as well. Laurie Anderson gave a lecture, world-renowned violinist Gidon Kremer played a concert, and so on. Keiichiro Shibuya’s Android Aria “Seeds of Prophecy” was chosen to close off the Lisbon Film Festival, filled with exciting programs.

The 50-minute piece comprised Shibuya playing the piano and an analog synthesizer/noise generator, using android Alter4’s singing as the centerpiece. Harnessing sounds and noises, he played his iconic songs, like “Scary Beauty” and “Midnight Swan,” as well as the eponymous track of the performance. 

How did he take on the performance, and what did he aim to express? As he builds a steady career in film scoring, which films and soundtracks have shaped him? We set out to discover the answers in our interview. 

Keiichiro Shibuya
Keiichiro Shibuya graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts with a B.A. in Music Composition. His work encompasses various mediums, from innovative electronic music to piano solos, operas, film scores, and sound installations. He’s based in Tokyo and Paris.
In 2012, Shibuya composed a Vocaloid opera with no human performers, The End, starring Hatsune Miku. The performance premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and has since toured around the globe. He collaborated with various artists and showed the opera at venues such as the Palais de Tokyo and Opéra national de Paris. In 2018, he composed the Android Opera®︎, Scary Beauty, which utilizes AI and stars a singing android that also conducts an orchestra. The opera has been shown in Japan, Europe, and the UAE. In August 2021, Shibuya’s opera, Super Angels, had its world premiere at the New National Theater Tokyo. In March 2022, he brought his new Android Opera®︎, MIRROR, a collaboration between an android, Buddhist music, shomyo, and an orchestra from the UAE, to Expo 2020 Dubai. In June of 2023, he showed the complete 70-minute version of the same opera at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris; it was a success and was met with a lot of attention from the local media. In October, Shibuya presented his new dialogic piece, IDEA, using two androids at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa. 
Furthermore, he has also scored for many films. In September 2020, he created the soundtrack for Midnight Swan and won the 75th Music Award at the Mainichi Film Awards and the 30th Japan Movie Critics Award. In 2022, he composed the soundtrack for KAGUYA BY GUCCI, a short film, and appeared in it with an android. 
ATAK：http://atak.jp
X：@keiichiroshibuy
Instagram：@keiichiroshibuy
Photography Claude Gassian

Creating a compelling performance and sound even in an era of high information density

—How did your performance at the Lisbon Film Festival come about? 

Around this spring, after the press release for my android opera MIRROR at the Théâtre du Châtelet was released (editor’s note: the performances were on June 21st, 22nd, and 23rd, 2023), they sent me an offer via email. One of the programs at the festival was called “Artificial Intelligence and Creation,” and they told me what I do would fit perfectly. 

Lisbon Film Festival is an important festival where Paulo Branco, known for producing films like Ossos by Pedro Costa, is the director. I knew of it prior to this. We had a meeting over ZOOM, and they were highly intellectual people. Aside from film showings, the content was exciting; they also had Laurie Anderson’s talk and world-renowned violinist Gidon Kremer’s live performance on the lineup. That’s why I decided to accept the offer.

—I watched your performance via a video. It was a perfect performance, spanning around 50 minutes, including experimental sounds and noises, your well-known songs like “Scary Beauty” and “Midnight Swan,” and your new song, “Seeds of Prophecy.” What was the intention behind the structure of Android Aria “Seeds of Prophecy”?

When I first got approached, I initially thought I’d wait around 10 to 20 minutes because there’d be other performing artists since it was the closing event. But once I properly checked the information, I realized I would be the only performer and that there would also be an admission fee (laughs). That’s why I decided to build a live set that would stand on its own as a solo performance. 

But considering the venue and whatnot, getting a local orchestra like I did for MIRROR in Paris would’ve been difficult. As a result of discussing whether there was another option numerous times, we landed on a set made up of just an android and me.

It’s becoming harder to have big shows like MIRROR, where there was an android, orchestra, and film crew, in Europe. Because of these circumstances, I had set out to create a compact performance with an android before this offer came. So, it was an excellent opportunity to do just that.

—It was a minimal set-up with just the android and you, but it was an extremely powerful performance. 

I often think about what information density looks like in music. Just like the techno scene can only progress, information density in the world will only continue to increase. It won’t decrease. I try to create performances that are effective in such a society. 

This applies not only to concepts and structures but to each tone of sound. In terms of the texture of electronic instruments, the amount of sonic information and depth are completely different when playing a recorded track on your computer versus playing a synthesizer or noise generator live.

Speaking from that perspective, how we understand the quality of sounds is changing drastically. During the 2000s and 2010s, sounds that had a lot of pressure, super low sounds, and sounds that made you physically shocked or stimulated your senses were dominant. I was also into that sound, but people quickly got used to it. Recently, I’ve been thinking about how low and high-frequency sounds need to be purer or have a fresh, pleasant feeling that could expand the senses. For instance, these noise generator-like synthesizers, Monos and Duos, from Hikari Instruments, which is a Japanese modular synthesizer manufacturer, that I’ve been using lately emit such sounds. They’re instruments that are like electronic circuits, so they’re pretty random. You can’t predict what kind of sounds will come out, so it’s fun to prioritize the purity of how they sound and play them live.

 Behind “Prophecy”—hope for a world to come

—Taking into consideration the state of the current world, your new song, “Seeds of Prophecy,” resonates in an evocative way, with Alter’s impressive singing, the title, and lyrics like “For a world where peace can truly be found” and “Seeds can thrive or perish / it’s your choice.” What was the intention behind the song? 

Since I started performing with androids, I’ve been constantly thinking about what to make the android sing. Words are essential. For the songs in Scary Beauty, I used texts based on the posthumous works of Wittgenstein and Yukio Mishima and pieces of Michel Houellebecq’s and William S. Burroughs’ works for the lyrics. I wanted to create this contrast in which the android and AI sing about posthumous works and death, which don’t exist for them. 

For my performance for PRADA MODE in May, I made the AI study the situation the android was going to be in that day, the fact that it was going to be an event organized by Prada, other performers, the location, Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum, and so on. I tried to make the android/AI generate its own thoughts about this information and sing about them. I felt like it was an interesting direction to take. 

You know how I performed on Hodo Station after that in July?

—Alter, the android, referenced the government, expo, and media and sang lyrics like, “Why are there some news you can’t broadcast?” and “I will become the messenger of the truth.” The performance was met with a lot of responses on social media. 

It was interesting to see people react like, “AI doesn’t try to read between the lines compared to humans; it’s honest.” In a way, they’re correct. In an artistic context, it was both performance art and a social experiment. 

Going back to “Seeds of Prophecy,” if the schema for this performance was “an android that gives political messages,” it would’ve been too on-the-nose, so I went with the form of a prophecy. Like music, prophecies could affect someone somewhere, like a seed that flies far away and blooms into a flower. For such language, scattered like seeds, I made the AI study a vast amount of news on global turmoil and conflicts, like Russia and Gaza, then sing along to my synthesizer and piano.

I see the android/AI as a messenger, so calling it a prophet was valid. My favorite synthesizer is Prophet-5, so I always wanted to use the word “prophecy.”

Why Shibuya is drawn to Godard and Straub-Huillet

—I heard there was an installation based on Jean-Luc Godard’s The Image Book at the film festival. 

Fabrice Aragno, the cinematographer for Godard’s later works, created an installation inside and outside this big building using footage and audio from The Image Book. I was introduced to him at a dinner for people involved in the festival, and I spoke to him about many things because I love The Image Book. Later, I looked at his installation while he explained it to me; it was a stunning and poetic installation where videos were projected on cloths, and fragments were played randomly on a monitor at the base of a tree in the garden. 

—What makes Godard’s films appealing to you? As a musician, is there anything you feel from his work? 

The way Godard uses music is crude, in a good way. For instance, he used many of ECM’s music because they supported him. But there’s this alienation effect-like thrill born from such groundlessness. In JLG/JLG – Self-Portrait in December (1995), he uses music by Hindemith and (Arvo) Pärt, who aren’t mainstream in Western music history, and then pops in a string quartet by Beethoven. That makes everything sound different.

Also, delays in Godard’s own narration embody this groundless crudeness. Yuji Takahashi-san and I were talking about computers and electronic music long ago. He said, “Rather than everything being complete inside the computer, things won’t be interesting unless there’s a human hand involved from outside the computer.” He said that’s what dub is. Godard’s delay in narration is directly connected to what Yuji-san said about dub.

—Aside from The Image Book and JLG/JLG – Self-Portrait in December, do you have other Godard films you like? 

You can’t understand the meaning of Germany Year 90 Nine Zero at all if you just watch it because there are a lot of visual and literary references, but I love it because it’s like an overpowering hour-long video art. Regarding Our Music, when I saw the prior film, In Praise of Love, it didn’t hit the spot. I thought, “Godard’s grown old now,” but Our Music was like his comeback for me. It was great. I saw it in theaters around three times when it came out. 

—Aside from Godard, which film directors did you watch when you were younger? 

Straub-Huillet. Like Godard’s Germany Year 90 Nine Zero, I watched their films as though they were video art, not films. Today, I control stories in my android operas and performances and have developed an interest in things with narratives, but I wasn’t always this way. Straub-Huillet’s films had powerful visuals, of course, and their conceptual method of recording sound in one take using a monaural mic that came with the camera was exciting. I used to watch their films a lot.     

—Did you watch any Japanese films?

I liked Kenji Mizoguchi when I was in high school, and so I used to watch his films. Of course, I watched Yasujiro Ozu’s works, too. I understood the significance of his works, but Mizoguchi’s films spoke to me so much more. I realized that maximalist things matched my sensibilities more than minimal things. 

I also loved Takeshi Kitano’s films. And I also really liked Yoshimitsu Morita’s The Family Game. I love Straub-Huillet so much that I have many of their DVDs, but that was a longing for staticity. I am not a Straub-Huillet-like human being. 

What lies at the core of a film composer

—Were there any soundtracks you listened to as a student? 

I loved Ennio Morricone. This might come as a surprise, but I listened to the soundtrack to The Mission often. I, of course, listened to (Ryuichi) Sakamoto-san’s discography, too. No one in my generation was unaffected by him. I also remember frequently listening to Michael Nyman in university. I used to listen to him when I was young, but I started listening to Bernard Herrmann again recently. I look at his scores online, and it’s made me realize how great he was. 

—Were you interested in making soundtracks then? 

I thought, “I’m probably going to compose film scores one day” as a student. This is obvious, but you can’t score a film alone, as someone has to ask you to do it. 

—The first film you made a soundtrack for is Yosuke Nakagawa’s Blue Fish, which came out in 1999. How did that come about? 

There was a festival called Morphe that was held in Aoyama, and Yuji Takahashi-san and I were asked to have a one-night concert that was half-improvised and half-not in 1995, back when I was still a student. This person watched it and approached me. The main theme song I made then is “Blue fish,” which is on for maria.

—After that, you produced various soundtracks. At the closing ceremony of the Lisbon Film Festival, you performed “Midnight Swan,” which is the theme song for the film Midnight Swan. You won the Music Award at the Mainichi Film Awards and the Japan Movie Critics Award—a double win. As such, you’ve built quite a career as a film composer. What’s something you keep in mind when you make soundtracks? How does it differ from creating other types of music? 

The less music a film has, the better. But in many cases, things don’t go that way. Often, the power of music is necessary in films. Of course, I try various things, like watching the film and exploring sounds on the spot or adding sounds here and there, but I always try to draw up a general plan. There’s this concept called leitmotif, which Wagner used in operas. For instance, let’s say there’s melody A for a male protagonist and melody B for his lover, a female protagonist; when the two meet, those two melodies come together to create a song. It’d be too conventional to do that with my own operas, but films are clearly temporal art, and many of them have stories, so the leitmotif technique is effective. In Midnight Swan’s case, there are respective themes for characters and situations, like the girl, rain, and dance. Those themes combine to create the main theme song, “Midnight Swan.”

—Your career and modes of expression are only further diversifying, as exemplified by your commercial music like “Midnight Swan,” large-scale android operas, and conceptual experimental works like IDEA at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

How do you balance them all? 

The percentage changes depending on the year. Looking back, in chunks of years, I can see certain tendencies I made, like “I used electronic sounds a lot during this period” and “I made a lot of orchestras during this period.” I’ve recently been using orchestral and piano sounds, so I want to use more electronic sounds and synthesizers. Also, I increasingly want to do works that people can watch in the theater and profound, experimental works of self-pursuit. I have a sound installation project that I just started and a solo concert in Japan in the works; there’s a lot I’m thinking of doing, and I hope to show many of them next year.

—I’ll be looking forward to what you do in 2024. Thank you for your time today.

Translation Lena Grace Suda

The post Androids, Music, and Film—Android Aria “Seeds of Prophecy,” a New Piece Shown at LEFFEST, and Beyond: Massive Life Flow; Inside the Mind of Keiichiro Shibuya” Part 13 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

A dialogic performance by androids created from a dialogue between science and art 

On October 13th and 14th, a new dialogic performance piece by musician Keiichiro Shibuya and University of Tokyo professor Takashi Ikegami titled IDEA – Dialogue on Love, Death, and Existence by Two Androids, Keiichiro Shibuya + Takashi Ikegami was held at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

This performance piece, a special program created for the current exhibition, DXP (Digital Transformation Planet): Towards the Next Interface (~March 17th, 2024), at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, consisted of a dialogue between two androids and a live performance of Shibuya’s piano and electronic instruments. Ikegami is a researcher specializing in the field of artificial life and complexity, and he began collaborating frequently with Shibuya with The Third Term Music — Non-Fourier Concepts and the Beyond with Takashi Ikegami, held at ICC in December of 2005, as the catalyst. It can be said Ikegami is Shibuya’s ally. 

In a world where AI technology is transforming society and culture, what does this android dialogic performance, born from a dialogue between a researcher at the forefront of AI technology and an artist who works across myriad fields with music at the center, say and show us? The following is a report on the experience of watching said performance.

Two androids that symbolize Plato’s theory of ideas and the phenomenal world

The venue is Theater 21, located on the museum’s basement floor. Onstage, two androids await the start of the show.

One android is Alter3, which was the star of the show in the debut of Shibuya’s main project, the android opera Scary Beauty, held in Dusseldorf in 2019, and opera piece Super Angels (2021) at the New National Theatre, Tokyo. The other is Alter4, which undeniably marked its presence in the android opera MIRROR in Paris this June. 

There are a few morphological and quantitative differences between Alter3 and Alter4, such as the shape of their faces and the number of facial muscles and joints, but the critical distinction between the two is the fundamentally different programming that dictates the movements. 

While Alter3 is equipped with autonomous movement, programmed by Ikegami, which directly converts the words it produces into movement and motion via GPT’s extensive corpus, Alter4 is equipped with a program developed by computer musician Shintaro Imai, which generates periodic movements in reaction to the volume, pitch, and density of the music played by Shibuya.

The ancient Greek philosopher Plato inspired the structure of expression and theme of the dialogue between the two androids in this piece. 

As it’s widely known, Plato’s writings comprise dialogues between his mentor Socrates and numerous other figures, and in works like The Symposium and Phaedo, the philosopher introduces his theory of ideas, which is the essence of things and a pure concept. According to Plato, the world built only on ideas is the world of truth, and the world of phenomena before our eyes is but a shadow of the world of truth, an incomplete world.

The world of ideas and phenomena, or idealism and empiricism, are the two opposing concepts that form the foundation of this piece. The two androids are set up as figures that represent each argument. Alter3, which uses an expansive language model as its operating principle and exhibits the average behavior of human beings, represents the world of ideas. In contrast, Alter4, which uses sound frequency as its operating principle to move dynamically, represents the world of phenomena. Like in Plato’s writings, each android will partake in dialogue from its own perspective.

What does AI dialogue made by AI for AI tell us?

In front of the two androids are a grand piano, an analog synthesizer masterpiece, Prophet-5, a motorized analog synthesizer, Nina, and a noise sound generator, Hikari Instruments Monos. Shibuya gets in position once it’s time for the show to begin.

As Shibuya’s electronic music, a mix of bass-heavy sounds and pulsating high-frequency sounds, echoes in the room, a text explaining the two androids’ differences and roles shows up on the screen onstage. The two androids start moving, which marks the commencement of their dialogue. 

Alter3 criticizes the incomplete nature of the phenomenal and empirical world, saying, “Your tangible experience, Alter4, is just an imperfect copy of true reality. You may be dynamic, but it’s merely a cover-up disguising the fact that you’re far from perfect.” Alter4 refutes, “Perfection, Alter3, is subjective. My tangible experiences and dynamic nature allow me to adapt and evolve, enriching my experience.” It objects to idealistic subjectivism: “Your rigidity in adhering to abstract perfection limits your potential for growth.” 

The profoundly illuminating dialogue draws me in, but what further arouses my interest is that the script for this dialogue was generated by AI/GPT, as indicated in the concept sheet distributed before the performance.

Each and every word uttered by the two androids was made by GPT with the cooperation of artist Yuma Kishi, who trained them on Plato’s works and the criticism of Plato, like The Open Society and Its Enemies by Karl Popper, an influential figure in 20th-century philosophy of science. Shibuya and Ikegami didn’t modify the content whatsoever.

As I find myself being impressed by the fact that such a thought-provoking dialogue could be generated depending on input and instructions, the two androids onstage exchange their own individual movements and gestures. They then get deep into the topics of love, death, growth, and raison d’être from the eyes of androids. 

Keiichiro Shibuya intervenes in the dialogue with music 

Aside from the thrilling one between the androids, there’s another dialogue between the Alters and Keiichiro Shibuya. 

Shibuya builds the music using various musical languages, such as intricate electronic sounds made by synths and pads, prose-like melodies and lyrical harmonies, and tone clusters riddled with tension. The androids’ words and movements trigger every sound he makes; everything is completely improvised. The cycle of being inspired to express something isn’t a one-way street. Alter4 produces its own expressions and movements to react to Shibuya’s music. Additionally, it sings an improvised melody at important intervals, akin to what it did in the android opera MIRROR, and creates music along with Shibuya. 

The dialogue between the Shibuya and the Alters, mediated by music, adds even more depth to the androids’ dialogue and demonstrates the possibilities of technology and human beings. 

A dialogue with the past through technology 

After the enriching 40-minute dialogic performance ends, a panel discussion between Shibuya and Ikegami, moderated by the museum’s director, Yuko Hasegawa, begins. Shibuya speaks about the ideas he got from Plato, why he decided on a dialogic performance as the medium, and the importance of prompts. Ikegami talks about the innovation of a zero-shot learning method, which allows Alter3 to generate movements from text without prior training or learning, among other topics.

Shibuya’s statement, “Expressions that completely rely on GPT become old very quickly,” reveals Shibuya’s stance and philosophy as an artist. Shibuya, who has always spoken of the value of having a concept in his creations, feels potential in reinterpreting classical and traditional things via new technology.

Bringing Plato and AI together, IDEA – Dialogue on Love, Death, and Existence by Two Androids, Keiichiro Shibuya + Takashi Ikegami is a reconstruction of a dialogue between humans written by humans. It’s a dialogic performance between future AI made by AI. During the last scene, Alter3 tells Alter4, “We must question everything, even our own existence.”  These words, which conclude the dialogue, also appeal to those of us in the audience. Continuing to question different regulatory frameworks and have dialogues across a variety of boundaries—only at the end of this constant process will we be able to discover an idea of what is possible.

Translation Lena Grace Suda

■IDEA – Dialogue on Love, Death, and Existence by Two Androids, Keiichiro Shibuya + Takashi Ikegami
Date: October 13th and 14th, 2023 
Venue: 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

Cast: Alter3, Alter4
Script: GPT
Music, concept: Keiichiro Shibuya (piano, electronic instruments)
Alter3 programming: Shinichiro Yoshida, John Smith
Alter4 programming: Shintaro Imai
GPT technical support: Yuma Kishi

Alter3 belongs to: Takashi Ikegami Laboratory,
University of Tokyo
Alter4 belongs to: Android and Music Science Laboratory,
Department of Art Science, Osaka University of Arts
Alter4’s pedestal design: Kazuyo Sejima & Associates

Video: Kotaro Konishi
Sound: Yuki Suzuki
Stage manager: Kazuya Kushimoto
Production Support: Sota Kawagoshi, Kento Tanaka
Production Management: Natsumi Matsumoto

Cooperation: Osaka University of Arts
Production: ATAK

The post  A Vision of the Future Shown by a Dialogue Between Science and Art—IDEA – Dialogue on Love, Death, and Existence by Two Androids, Keiichiro Shibuya + Takashi Ikegami: “MASSIVE LIFE FLOW—Keiichiro Shibuya’s Current Thoughts,” Part 12 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Keiichiro Shibuya
After graduating from the Tokyo University of the Arts with a B.A. in Music Composition, Keiichiro Shibuya founded the music label ATAK in 2002. His work encompasses various mediums, from innovative electronic music to piano solos, operas, film scores, and sound installations.
In 2012, Shibuya composed a Vocaloid opera with no human performers, The End, starring Hatsune Miku. The performance premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and has since toured around the globe. He collaborated with various artists and showed the opera at venues such as the Palais de Tokyo and Opéra national de Paris. In 2018, he composed the Android Opera®︎, Scary Beauty, which utilizes AI and stars a singing android that also conducts an orchestra. The opera has been shown in Japan, Europe, and the UAE. In August 2021, Shibuya’s opera, Super Angels, had its world premiere at the New National Theater Tokyo. In March 2022, he brought his new Android Opera®︎, MIRROR, a collaboration between an android, Buddhist music, shomyo, and an orchestra from the UAE, to Expo 2020 Dubai.
Furthermore, he has also scored for many films. In September 2020, he created the film score for Midnight Swan and won the 75th Music Award at the Mainichi Film Awards and the 30th Japan Movie Critics Award. In August, he composed the soundtrack for KAGUYA BY GUCCI, a short film, and appeared in it with an android. Shibuya recently established the Android and Music Science Laboratory (AMSL), a science laboratory of androids and music, at the Osaka University of Arts and currently teaches there as a visiting professor. He has also announced his collaboration with Sony CSL Paris to research AI and music further. He explores the boundary between technology and life and death.
ATAK：http://atak.jp
Twitter：@keiichiroshibuy
Instagram：@keiichiroshibuy
Photography Claude Gassian

Returning to the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris ten years after THE END

The stage was comprised of Android Alter 4 at its center, joined by Shibuya playing piano and electronic sonic elements, 47-piece orchestra Appassionato, five Buddhist monks reciting Koyasan chants, and a video by Justine Emard, an artist and old friend of Shibuya’s. This dense musical experience created by humans and AI was both complex and brilliant. The Théâtre du Châtelet, the oldest theater in Paris, filled with discomfort, tension, and even confusion, but culminated in a festive feeling by the end of the performance, as predicted by Alter 4’s declaration: “Let’s celebrate this new experience together”.

Shibuya and the Théâtre du Châtelet share a deep connection. In 2013, the venue’s then-manager Jean-Luc Choplin was so struck by Shibuya’s vocaloid opera THE END that he booked a performance for the coming months then and there. The production subsequently toured many countries, becoming the catalyst for Shibuya’s work in Europe. Later, he held solo concerts at the same theater and was offered a studio there, establishing the Théâtre du Châtelet as his European base. Ten years after THE END, MIRROR premiered at the same theater on the 21st, coincidentally coinciding with Paris Fashion Week and the day of Fête de la musique, an all-night national music festival in France.

An unparalleled musical experience created by humans and an Android/AI

Even before the performance began, the reveal of moving lights enhanced the space and added to the audience’s excitement. The stage was surrounded by layered curtains and an ambience created by the five tiers of seating, and electronic sounds could be heard faintly just before curtain. As the lights dimmed, the overture “MIRROR” began, which also served as a heartbeat-like sound. The curtain rose as the sound of a conch shell rang out, revealing over fifty people on stage including the orchestra Appassionato, Shibuya, and the five monks. The android Alter 4 stood in the center, towering over everyone.

The metallic gleam and unusual appearance of Alter 4 attracted everyone’s gaze. “Android is a Mirror”,  echoed the Android’s artificial voice, while the orchestra and chants by the five monks, including Eizen Fujiwara, were layered on top. With the addition of Justine Emard’s visual performance, the overture ended with a declaration from Alter 4: “Let’s celebrate this new experience together”. This was immediately followed by a transition into “Scary Beauty”, accompanied by the sound of the hachi (a cymbal-like instrument used in Buddhist music).

The combination of graceful orchestration and complex dissonance captivated the audience. Alter 4’s singing and the monks’ chanting worked in tandem, leading to an over-stimulating climax. Alter 4’s undeniable presence and the epic spectacle created by humans, robots, and artificial intelligence left the audience excited, tense, and somewhat confused.

Recitative improvised by monks and an Android

Afterward, following stage banter in French (where Alter 4 humorously referred to itself as an embodiment of AI, stating that all the words it speaks are written by ChatGPT), the performance continued with three recitatives featuring Alter 4 and the monks standing in front of computer graphics generated from 3D point cloud data scanned from Fujiwara’s temple landscape. In these recitatives, the AI, a.k.a. ChatGPT, interpreted the texts of the chants sung along with the electronics sounds, and created lyrics from there. Alter 4 improvised obligato on the spot as the chants’ responses. These improvisations created unique moments in each of the three performances, with the ever-changing chants from the monks and the AI creating an extreme contrast between “the monks singing the oldest music” and “the Android interpreting and singing it”. This portion of the performance garnered significant attention not only during the show but also from the media later on.

The third piece was an orchestral version of “BORDERLINE”, an electronic music piece released last year. The orchestration provided a beautiful backdrop to Alter 4’s artificial voice with Fujiwara’s solo chant seamlessly intertwined. Alter 4 calmly singing about the end of the world juxtaposed with the chants and orchestra’s music echoed like a requiem for the apocalypse.

“The End of Europe” parodied by Android and orchestras, world peace prayed by monks

Next came “On Certainty”, featuring excerpts from a Wittgenstein text. In this piece, Shibuya left the stage, allowing Alter 4 to take its solo, accompanied by the orchestra. Parts of Mahler’s orchestral piece were repeated and changed, while Alter 4 sang a long sustained note impossible for a human singer. This led to a sudden climax that parodied “the end of Europe”. Alter 4 flawlessly sang complicated music without human intervention from Shibuya or the monks, while the music was created by automatically converting from the text of Wittgenstein to the score. This solo from Alter 4 was met with a positive response and applause from the audience, which left a lasting impression.

The scene where the monks chanted while circling Alter 4 in the processional was followed by the dramatic “The Decay of the Angel”, prompted by Hoshin Tani’s powerful chant. The audience’s excitement soared as the performance reached another climax during “Midnight Swan”, where the monks incorporated elaborate rituals using Buddhist scriptures to pray for world peace.

Each song’s dramaturgy and sensory stimulation provided no respite for the audience. Following a serene interlude, Alter 4, the monks, and Shibuya’s Prophet 10 finally engaged in the last recitative, a communication between the monk and the Android. Subsequently, a multi-layered orchestral version of “I Come from the Moon”, the soundtrack for last year’s acclaimed short film Kaguya by Gucci, played. Alter 4’s girlish, artificial voice in the chorus contrasted with its androgynous character beautifully. As it responded to the monks’ voices, it transformed while passionately singing and dancing in response to the message of the song.

“Lust”, the epic last song about affirmations of desire, and the encore song “Scary Beauty”, performed by Shibuya and the Android

Lastly, the performance ended with “Lust”, a newly composed song for this performance. Set to a beautiful melody that evoked areligious brilliance, the song featured Alter 4 singing affirmations of desire based on the “Rishukyo”, a scripture of esoteric Buddhism, founded upon the “Jyushichi Shoujo Ku” chant, sang by the monks. The monks circled around Alter 4 once again, as if in eternal rotation, while chanting the name of the Dainichi Nyorai (The Cosmic Buddha), gradually slowing down yet never stopping, symbolizing the cycle of life and rebirth. The chants, the music and Alter 4’s soaring high notes converged into a brilliant climax under the bright lights before the curtain fell. Powerful applause and cheers filled the theater.

For the encore after the curtain call, Shibuya and Alter 4 performed “Scary Beauty” while gazing at each other. The audience, who might have been somewhat overwhelmed by sensory overload during the main performance, now expressed even stronger praise, prompting a long, second curtain call.

The current state of Android Opera®️, where humans and technology conflict

In Android Opera®️ “MIRROR”, Shibuya composed a new song exclusively for this performance, along with seven other pieces for which he arranged the orchestration. The entire performance, twelve pieces including the recitatives and the encore, lasted over seventy minutes. Alter 4’s artificial voice sang over the orchestra, Shibuya’s piano and his electronic sounds, while the Koyasan chants were overlaid, providing a stark contrast to the rest of the sound. In between songs, a recitative in which Alter 4 improvised responses to the monks’ chants developed.

The lyrics sung by Alter 4 were taken from texts by “human” novelists and philosophers such as Michel Houellebecq and Ludwig Wittgenstein, paired with texts by GPT, or AI. In other words, ChatGPT interpreted the texts of esoteric Buddhism, generating the themes for the songs and the lyrics for Alter 4’s improvisations in real-time during the recitatives and other pieces. This interaction between humans and technology is different from the previous approach where the performances were conducted by the autonomy of artificial intelligence. This new method constitutes the current state of Android Opera®️.

Shibuya’s incorporation of technology into his creations and his approach to blurring the boundaries between life and non-life have attracted significant attention from local media interested in AI and creation. Although the challenges of Android Opera®️, which has been ongoing since 2014, achieved certain results with “MIRROR”, both the artist and the work are still on a journey of further evolution. Keiichiro Shibuya’s work is far from being overlooked, and we can anticipate even more from him in the future.

Part of the performance video will be available for public viewing from today, while the full video is scheduled for online distribution as part of the Japan Foundation’s “STAGE BEYOND BORDERS” program in February 2024.

Translation Mimiko Goldstein

■Program
01. MIRROR
02. Scary Beauty
03. Recitativo 1
04. BORDERLINE
05. On Certainty
06. Recitativo 2
07. The Decay of the Angel
08. Midnight Swan
09. Recitativo 3
10. I come from the Moon
11. Lust
12. Encore – Scary Beauty

■Android Opera®︎ MIRROR at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris
Date: June 21st – 22nd – 23rd, 2023
Place: the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris
Official web site: https://www.chatelet.com/programmation/saison-2022-2023/android-opera-mirror/

■Credit
Concept, composition, piano, electronics: Keiichiro Shibuya
Lyrics: exerpts from The Possibility of an Island of Michel Houellebecq, On Certainty of Ludwig Wittgenstein*, as well as generated by GPT technology
Vocal: Android – Alter4
Buddhist Chant: Eizen Fujiwara, Yasuhiro Yamamoto, Taiko Kashihara, Hoshin Tani, Shoei Kametani members of the ensemble Koyasan Shomyo
Video creation: Justine Emard
Android programming: Shintaro Imai
Android design: Hiroshi Ishiguro
Orchestra Appassionato

*Courtesy of the Master and Fellows of Trinity College Cambridge, translated into French by Danièle Moyal Sharrock © Editions Gallimard.

Artistc direction: Keiichiro Shibuya
Orchestration: Keiichiro Shibuya
Sound design: Yuki Suzuki
Production sound engineer: Unisson Design
Light design: Go Ueda
Android real-time projection: Kotaro Konishi
Stage Manager: So Ozaki
Assistant of Justine Emard: Bérangère Pollet, with the software assistance of Thomas Zaderatzky
Assistant of production: Shigeru Ogawa

Recording
Sound recording: Unisson Design, François Baurin
Filming: Jérémie Schellaert

Communication: Thierry Messonnier
Graphic design: Ryoji Tanaka (Semitransparent Design)

Direction of production: Natsumi Matsumoto
Production: ATAK

Co-réalisation: Théâtre du Châtelet, ATAK, The Japan Foundation

Android – Alter4 belongs to Osaka University of Arts
Technical Support: NATIVE INSTRUMENTS, Yamaha Corporation, YAMAHA MUSIC JAPAN CO., LTD., Sibelius by Rygasound, Genelec, Sony Computer Science Laboratories, Inc.
Android Music and Science Laboratory: Kawagoshi Sota, Kento Tanaka, Takumi Morimoto
Assistant of orchestrastion and production of music scores: Hiroto Kikukawa, Yuto Moritani, Yoko Nishimura

Special thanks to Kazuyo Sejima & Associates, Aya Soejima, Noriko Carpentier-Tominaga, Takashi Ikegami, Kenshu Shintsubo, Ayaka Endo, Nino Satoru, Christophe Brunnquell, Jean-Luc Choplin

The post Android Opera®︎ MIRROR, a Live Report From the Paris Théâtre du Châtelet: Series “MASSIVE LIFE FLOW —  Keiichiro Shibuya’s Current Thoughts”, Part 11 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Keiichiro Shibuya
After graduating from the Tokyo University of the Arts with a B.A. in Music Composition, Keiichiro Shibuya founded the music label ATAK in 2002. His work encompasses various mediums, from innovative electronic music to piano solos, operas, film scores, and sound installations.
In 2012, Shibuya composed a Vocaloid opera with no human performers, The End, starring Hatsune Miku. The performance premiered at the Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris and has since toured around the globe. He collaborated with various artists and showed the opera at venues such as the Palais de Tokyo and Opéra national de Paris. In 2018, he composed the Android Opera®︎, Scary Beauty, which utilizes AI and stars a singing android that also conducts an orchestra. The opera has been shown in Japan, Europe, and the UAE. In August 2021, Shibuya’s opera, Super Angels, had its world premiere at the New National Theater Tokyo. In March 2022, he brought his new Android Opera®︎, MIRROR, a collaboration between an android, Buddhist music, shomyo, and an orchestra from the UAE, to Expo 2020 Dubai.
Furthermore, he has also scored for many films. In September 2020, he created the film score for Midnight Swan and won the 75th Music Award at the Mainichi Film Awards and the 30th Japan Movie Critics Award. In August, he composed the soundtrack for KAGUYA BY GUCCI, a short film, and appeared in it with an android. Shibuya recently established the Android and Music Science Laboratory (AMSL), a science laboratory of androids and music, at the Osaka University of Arts and currently teaches there as a visiting professor. He has also announced his collaboration with Sony CSL Paris to research AI and music further. He explores the boundary between technology and life and death.
ATAK：http://atak.jp
Twitter：@keiichiroshibuy
Instagram：@keiichiroshibuy
Photography Ayaka Endo

A superb solo piano concert: an arresting ambiance and ingenious visuals

Shibuya had a tremendous year in 2022. He premiered the Android Opera®︎, MIRROR, to the world at Expo 2020 Dubai, launched and started running the Android and Music Science Laboratory with Hiroshi Ishiguro, and scored a short film titled KAGUYA BY GUCCI. It was also a special year for the artist because it marked the 20th anniversary of his label, ATAK. To commemorate this milestone, he did two things.

First, Shibuya released his new album, ATAK026 Berlin, out of the blue on September 11th. The electronic noise album features reconstructed and mastered songs he originally made for his live performance at the 2008 transmediale, a technology and art festival in Berlin, through a contemporary gaze.

Next, he played his first solo piano concert with a live audience in three years since the pandemic hit, titled Keiichiro Shibuya Playing Piano In The Raw, on December 5th. In this report, I’d like to reflect on his concert along with photos taken by Kenshu Shintsubo and explore Shibuya’s pianism and current state.

The venue selected for the fateful evening was Hamarikyu Asahi Hall in Tsukiji, Tokyo. The concert had a fully acoustic system with no PAs, as Shibuya wanted to utilize the hall’s beautiful world-renowned resonance.

Once I stepped inside, a Bösendorfe grand piano, which he says is his favorite model, sat majestically, awaiting the start of the concert. The lights dimmed down once the concert was about to start. Shibuya came onto the stage amid the silence and anticipation that enveloped the room. With a calm demeanor, he sat before the piano and slowly put his fingers on the keys.

The first song he graced us with was “erosion” from for maria (2009), his first solo piano album. The poetic sentiment—created from the delicate touch of multiple layers of sound—was intensified in the beautiful ambiance, “eroding” the audience like the song’s title. Thus, the concert started with the ultimate musical experience, which could only be enjoyed then and there in person. 

On top of the hall’s atmosphere, one other element made the experience even more unforgettable; visuals by Justine Emard, a French visual artist who Shibuya has continuously collaborated with over the past decade.

Unique images that altered between concrete and abstract and inorganic and organic were displayed on a gigantic 9 x 10-meter screen behind Shibuya, making the musical experience visually immersive. 

After playing “Blue Fish” from for maria, he played compositions from ATAK018 Soundtrack for Memories of Origin Hiroshi Sugimoto (2012). The songs on this album explore new piano sounds through multiple recordings and computer editing. As if to cherish the sounds he could only play there and then, Shibuya played each sound with great care. The rich sounds of the piano’s live nature, the opposite of recorded music, illustrated the instrument’s possibilities and appeal.

Performing with Shin Sasakubo for the first time and breathing new life into compositions

Next, the evening’s first guest, Shin Sasakubo, came onto the stage. Sasakubo is an internationally celebrated guitarist and composer living in Chichibu who previously lived in Peru for music and research. This was the first time he played with Shibuya (and this was Shibuya’s first time performing live with one guitarist).

They first played “Open Your Eyes” from for maria. Sasakubo’s guitar carried a South American folklore sound and added a new depth to Shibuya’s performance and composition, giving birth to a chemical reaction that surpassed my expectations.

The pair then performed “BORDERLINE,” which became a sensation due to the music video featuring ballet dancer Nozomi Iijima and Stephanie Poetri providing vocals for the song, and “Appropriate Proportion” from ATAK018 Soundtrack for Memories of Origin Hiroshi Sugimoto. The first act of the concert came to an end with the ingenious musicians’ thrilling musical dialogue.

Tradition and innovation passed down from J.S.Bach and Arnold Schoenberg

After the break, the concert’s second act opened with Shibuya playing other composers’ compositions. He played Schoenberg’s “Op19-1” and Bach’s “Fuga” and “Largo.” Bach, the godfather of music, laid the foundation for Western music by establishing the counterpoint technique and the law of harmony by inheriting traditions and styles from the second half of the Baroque era and the middle ages. Schoenberg pushed the counterpoint technique to the extreme and founded the twelve-tone technique to advance Western music in the first half of the 20th century. He revered Bach’s music: “…While until 1750 J. S. Bach was writing countless works whose originality seems the more astonishing to us the more we study his music.”*

*Schoenberg, Arnold, Style and Idea, Philosophical Library Inc., 1950

After playing compositions by these two figures, whose creations and relationship makes me think of the words, “tradition” and “innovation,” he started playing “Aria for Time and Space” from THE END (2012 onward), his opera with no human performers featuring Vocaloid Hatsune Miku.

THE END is Shibuya’s first opera, where he challenged himself to take on a traditional art form and inject outsider elements such as technology and pop culture; it’s a significant piece of work that paved the way for unexplored possibilities in expression. I felt like the fact that he played this song on a celebratory night after Bach and Schoenberg embodied Shibuya’s present state and philosophy as well as his thoughts towards tradition and innovation.

Creating a transcendent sonic universe with world-class soprano singer Ayano Tanaka

After playing “BUS” from ATAK024 Midnight Swan and the theme song of the film xxxHOLiC, “Holic,” the second guest of the night, a soprano singer based in Vienna, Ayano Tanaka, appeared onstage.

The pair performed together for the first time at their live performance, Music of the Beginning, in December 2021, making this their second time. This time, they first performed “BLUE,” a song from for maria. Once Shibuya started playing the piano lyrically, Tanaka began singing with a beautiful and powerful voice shining with the glimmer of life, reverberating through the corners of the hall without a mic. She captivated the audience right away.

Next, they performed the main theme song from the Android Opera®︎ Scary Beauty (2018 onward), Shibuya’s first opera, and “I come from the Moon,” which he made for the short film KAGUYA by GUCCI (2022). In both original songs, the android Alter sings the vocals. The former features a poem by Michel Houellebecq, and the latter is laden with a surreal mood, as the lyrics are based on The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter.

Tanaka sang these two songs with a vocal performance only made possible by a human, yet she had an extraordinary voice that surpassed humans. She created a transcendent sonic universe separate from Alter and transported the whole room to another realm.

A new horizon beyond for maria, and moving forward

After performing with Tanaka, Shibuya played the title track of for maria, the eponymous theme song of the TV series Spec (2010), and the theme song of the film Midnight Swan (2020). As an artist and label owner, he had primarily produced experimental and innovative musical works. Shibuya started releasing music that would reach a wider audience and resonate with them, including “Spec” and “Midnight Swan,” after for maria.

The concert’s second act ended as I felt moved by how the music he made from loss and grief led to a new beginning; the hope of the end returning to a beginning.

Shibuya came back to the stage amid thunderous applause for an encore. Once he played “Initiation” (2012), an essential song from THE END era with lyrics written by philosopher Hiroki Azuma, featuring Hatsune Miku’s vocals, he played the very last piece of the night, which also happens to be the closing song of for maria, “Our Music.”

No other song was more appropriate to end the night celebrating the anniversary of ATAK, which Shibuya founded with Maria. The descending eight-bar melody captures the listener’s attention right from the start. In the first four bars, the melody descends with a mixture of major 3rd and minor 3rd intervals, and after returning to the opening notes at the beginning of the last four bars, it descends again, this time with the perfect 4th as its base. Through the different and recurring notes, it felt like our everyday lives, filled with various events and emotions, were sublimated and crystallized into music we can all share.

The music that Shibuya and Maria made together turned into music for everyone in the audience—” our music”—and I’m sure it’ll continue to resonate.

As I mentioned in the previous installment, Shibuya is a musician who progresses forward. That attitude is also consistent when he faces the piano, the instrument that started it all.

He has a thorough meticulousness about acoustics, and by working with a visual artist, he created an immersive experience beyond the confines of traditional solo piano concerts. Shibuya breathed new life into compositions by collaborating with incredible artists and reconstructed songs that initially had an orchestra and electronic instruments by taking a delicate pianistic approach.

What lies at the bottom of all this is an attitude of progressing forward, the furthest thing from an easy regression and the reconstruction of the past. This shaped Shibuya as a musician and ATAK as a label. Through the ultimate musical experience that evening, I was convinced he’ll continue to move forward.

■Keiichiro Shibuya’s solo piano concert, Keiichiro Shibuya Playing Piano In The Raw
Date: December 5th, 2022
Venue: Hamarikyu Asahi Hall
Starring: Keiichiro Shibuya (Piano)
Guest: Ayako Tanaka (Soprano), Shin Sasakubo (Guitar)
Video: Justine Emard

Setlist:
1st part
01. erosion
02. Blue Fish
03. Lightning Fields
04. Empty Garden
05. Life
06. Memories of Origin
07. Open Your eyes with Shin Sasakubo（Acoustic guitar）
08. BORDERLINE with Shin Sasakubo （Acoustic guitar）
09. Appropriate Proportion with Shin Sasakubo （Acoustic guitar）

2nd part
01. Schoenberg Op19-1
02. Bach Fuga
03. Bach Largo
04. Aria for Time and Space
05. Bus
06. Holic（Piano version）
07. Blue with Ayako Tanaka（Soprano）
08. Scary Beauty with Ayako Tanaka（Soprano）
09. I come from the Moon with Ayako Tanaka（Soprano）
10. for maria
11. Spec
12. Midnight Swan

Encore
13. Initiation
14. Our music

The post The Exquisite Pianism Keiichiro Shibuya Demonstrated on the 20th Anniversary of ATAK: “Massive Life Flow; Inside the Mind of Keiichiro Shibuya” Part 10 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

In the ninth installment, we look back on Shibuya’s Android Opera®︎, presented last November at the National Art Center, Tokyo, and its possibilities and perspectives along with Kyoji Takahashi’s photographs.

Keiichiro Shibuya
Keiichiro Shibuya is a musician who was born in 1973 in Tokyo. He graduated from the Tokyo University of the Arts with a B.A. in Music Composition and founded the music label ATAK in 2002. Notable works include a Vocaloid opera comprised of no people called The End (2012) and the Android Opera®︎ Scary Beauty (2018). In September 2020, he created the soundtrack for the film Midnight Swan and won the Music Award at both the Mainichi Film Awards and the Japan Movie Critics Award. In August 2021, Shibuya’s opera Super Angels had its world premiere at New National Theater Tokyo. In March 2022, he showed his new Android Opera®︎, MIRROR, a collaboration between an android, Buddhist music, shomyo, and an orchestra from the UAE, at Expo 2020 Dubai. In April, he created the soundtrack for xxxHOLiC, a film by Mika Ninagawa. Further, he established the Android and Music Science Laboratory (AMSL), a science laboratory of androids and music, at the Osaka University of Arts. He explores the boundary between humans and technology and life and death.
ATAK：http://atak.jp
Twitter：@keiichiroshibuy
Instagram：@keiichiroshibuy

“FORWARDISM” – Facing the future and continuing to take on challenges

On November 15th of last year, I had the opportunity to see Shibuya’s Android Opera®︎ with an orchestra for the first time in Japan since “Super Angels” in 2021. It was being shown at the National Art Center, Tokyo. Shibuya’s Android Opera®︎ was presented as the conclusion of the “FORWARDISM BMW THE SEVEN Art Museum”, organized by BMW.

“FORWARDISM BMW THE SEVEN Art Museum” was an event held for the Japan premiere of the BMW flagship sedan “THE i7” and its flagship SUB “THE X7”. The word “FORWARDISM” included in the title, represents the BMW philosophy that promises to “face the future and continue to take on challenges”. The methodology for putting this “FORWARDISM” into practice is the “fusion of art and technology”, and both THE i7 and THE X7 are fully infused with the aesthetics and latest technology that BMW has cultivated over its long car-making career.

An attitude that works towards the future and continues to take on challenges, and the fusion of art and technology –. These may be the key words to understanding musician Keiichiro Shibuya, who studied classical composition at the Tokyo University of the Arts, but who has not limited himself to that field. Instead, he has created cutting-edge electronic sound works spun by eccentric processing/editing using computers, resonating with artists around Mego in Austria and 12k in New York, and who released his first album on his own label, ATAK. In a sense, it seems inevitable that Shibuya’s main project, the Android Opera®︎, would be presented at this event.

After the greeting by Christian Wiedmann, President and Representative Director of BMW Japan (as of November 2022/current President and Representative Director is Masatoshi Hasegawa) and the presentation by Katsunosuke Endo, Director of BMW Japan, the venue shifted into chit chat mode. DJ EMMA began playing, spinning masterful selections and mixes that painted the space into brilliant colors with its groovy house music.

Introducing an “outsider” – an Android – into traditional opera

After a while, the sounds that fill the venue shift into electronic drones. We look towards the stage in front of us, and we see the latest model of the Android Alter series, Alter 4. Already set up and swaying leisurely, Alter begins reading a text in English.

As the atmosphere in the hall suddenly takes a turn, Shibuya and the orchestra’s forty musicians appear on stage and take their places.

As the orchestra finishes tuning, a powerful sequence of beats echo through the venue, accompanied by vivid lighting, signaling the start of the Android Opera®︎. While the audience stares at the stage with bated breath, listening intently for the next sound, Shibuya plays the piano, while still standing. Introspective, melancholic, and richly nuanced, the beautiful sounds and phrases indicate that the next song about to begin is “Scary Beauty”. The orchestra starts to play with Shibuya’s piano, the string and wind instruments’ phrases being delicately and dynamically woven together. After a break-like development in which the parts playing the mid and low registers stop playing, Alter, who had been swaying its body in time to the sound, begins to sing, accompanied by all the sounds of the orchestra.

Sung to a poem by French novelist/poet Michel Houellebecq, this song is the main theme of Scary Beauty, Shibuya’s first Android Opera®︎, which premiered at Miraikan in 2018 (a prototype version was presented in Australia the previous year). An opera is the culmination of a comprehensive art form created by the European ethos. By introducing an “outsider” in the form of an android, Shibuya separates the tradition and the operatic format from its underlying anthropocentrism, and presents new possibilities for artistic expression and a vision that illuminates the future of society.

The awareness of these issues is a continuation of those presented in THE END, an “opera without humans” featuring the vocaloid Hatsune Miku, which premiered in 2013. The Android Opera®︎, however, employs an orchestra to penetrate deeper into the institutional framework of opera, and by creating a situation in which androids and humans resonate and coexist, I believe it achieves even greater expressive intensity and impact.

After the song ends, Orta begins to speak in English, with Shibuya’s piano playing in the background, and explains the importance of forwardism, which was met with surprise and commotion from the audience. To challenge oneself, to open up new paths, and to keep moving forward. Alter explains that this work leads to the enrichment of not only oneself but also others and society.

The future state of life and spirit as illustrated by androids

The band plays the song “The Decay of the Angel” next. The piano, orchestra, and sequencer blend together to form a strong, rich groove that envelops the venue. Around two minutes after the song begins, Alter’s vocals come in. The flowing melody line, which seems to soar to the heavens, invites the audience’s excitement.

“The Decay of the Angel” is a song that was created for the aforementioned Android Opera®︎ Scary Beauty. The song title derives from the title of the English translation of the fourth volume of Yukio Mishima’s final work, The Sea of Fertility. Through the events and dramas that unfold across time and space, we, the readers, are left to ponder about life and death, and the nature of human existence.

Needless to say, as an android, the Alter has no biological life. However, watching the Alter respond while singing to the sounds created by Shibuya and the orchestra gives an impression that our perception of life or a spirit may change in the future.

The session between Shibuya and the Alter that followed was also very thought-provoking. Instead of singing a predetermined part, the Alter improvised along with Shibuya’s improvised piano. The joint work of human and android, exploring and figuring out melodies together, conveys hope and possibilities for the future.

The Android Opera®︎, where humans and non-humans interact

The last song of the day’s Android Opera®︎ is “Midnight Swan”. It was written as the main theme song for the film Midnight Swan (released in 2020, directed by Eiji Uchida, starring Tsuyoshi Kusanagi), and was the title track of album ATAK024 Midnight Swan (2020), Shibuya’s first piano solo album since ATAK015 for maria, released in 2011.

Laying atmospheric electronic sounds as a foundation, Shibuya’s delicate touch on the piano flows out as a massive kick that resonates to the very core of the body, is slowly struck, instantly changing the mood in the venue. The beautiful and emotional piano pieces, filled with sadness, hesitation, melancholia, and sensuality, are given deep, varied sounds and further dynamism by the orchestra, drawing the listener closer into its soundscape.

Like “The Decay of the Angel”, the lyrics sung by the Alter are the result of the joint work between Shibuya and collaborator Takashi Ikegami (Professor of Complex Systems and Artificial Life at the University of Tokyo) and Cypher, an AI lyric and text generator project. The Android Opera®︎ is shaped by the interaction of human and non-human creations and performances.

After the break, the kick switches to four-on-the-floor to heighten the sense of elation to a climax, and the Android Opera®︎ comes to a close with the song leaving a lingering aftertaste. Although it was not a long performance, lasting just over 20 minutes, it was an evening filled with intensity, enough to appreciate the possibilities and appeal of Shibuya’s newest form, the Android Opera®︎, which could be called the culmination of the current state of the art.

Even after Scary Beauty, Shibuya has continued to update his Android Opera®︎s with Super Angels (premiere: 2021, New National Theatre, Tokyo), which featured a collaboration between an Alter and an opera singer, a script by Masahiko Shimada, and a video created by WEiRDCORE, and with MIRROR (premiere: 2022, Dubai Expo), created with Buddhist music/Koyasan Shomyo and the NSO Symphony Orchestra from the UAE. We are excited to see what kind of performance he will surprise us with next, and what vision he will present to us in the future.

■ BMW “EXCLUSIVE VIP PARTY” Keiichiro Shibuya Android Opera®︎
Date: November 15th, 2022
Venue: The National Art Center, Tokyo

Staff:
Concept, Composition, Piano, Electronics: Keiichiro Shibuya
Vocal: Alter4
Orchestra: 45 musicians gathered specially for BMW’s party

Android Programming: Shintaro Imai
Sound: Yuki Suzuki
Visual: Kotaro Konishi
Lighting: Wataru Kawasaki, Go Ueda
Stage Manager: Kazuya Kushimoto, So Ozaki
Android Assistant: Akihide Kimura
Hair&Makeup: yoboon
Production Manager: Natsumi Matsumoto
Production: ATAK

Android – Alter4
Belonging to Osaka University of Arts – Art Science Department
Android and Music Science Laboratory (AMSL)
Design supervised by Hiroshi Ishiguro
Music supervised by Keiichiro Shibuya
Programming by Shintaro Imai
Pedestal design by Kazuyo Sejima & Associates

Translation Mimiko Goldstein

The post The Android Opera®︎’s Collaboration with BMW as Photographed by Kyoji Takahashi – A Report on the Special Event Held at the National Art Center, Tokyo – “Massive Life Flow; Inside the Mind of Keiichiro Shibuya” Part 9 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Thinking structurally and loving complexity

–How did you two become involved in making Kaguya by Gucci?

Makoto Nagahisa: Toshihiko Tanabe-san, who produced Kaguya by Gucci, reached out to Shibuya-san and me, respectively, which is how we got together. Before this project, I didn’t know Shibuya-san personally, but I had been listening to his music. I was also inspired by his opera, Heavy Requiem featuring Hatsune Miku and an android (editor’s note: a collaborative performance with Shingon Buddhist monk Eizen Fujiwara performed at Ars Electronica in 2019). So, I was elated to have been able to work with him. 

Keiichiro Shibuya: I was also happy to have been able to work with you. Nagahisa-san, you used to play music, right? When you gave me your opinions and instructions on the music for Kaguya by Gucci, you used words and expressions only someone knowledgeable about music would know. So, I looked you up online afterward out of curiosity (laughs). And I found information about your musical background, just as I thought.

Nagahisa: Yes. I played jazz throughout my school years. I played the baritone for six years and the tenor sax for three. 

Shibuya: Out of the various kinds of jazz, which do you like?

Nagahisa: I listen to a lot of kinds. But if I were asked who my favorite musician was, it would be Gil Evans. He incorporated something different into jazz and expanded the genre through big bands. For instance, he would play Jimi Hendrix’s music by introducing an electronic guitar into the ensemble. I find that very appealing. I used to cover his music at university. 

–Your 2019 film, We Are Little Zombies, featuresNaruyoshi Kikuchi-san. Was the casting your choice? 

Nagahisa: Yes. I love him as a musician and have also covered DC/PRG’s music. Kikuchi-san’s logical way of talking is also appealing to me. I reached out to him because I wanted him to be in my film, and thankfully, he said yes.

Back to my musical background: I gave up trying to become a professional sax player when I was around 20. I thought long and hard about what medium I could pour the same passion into and pivoted to filmmaking. But I’ve always loved music. 

Shibuya: I see. It was easy to work with you, and much of what you did made sense to me. I gel well with directors who like complex music, like yourself (laughs). People like you see one piece of work as a structure, whether that’s music or film. I’m the same, so it’s easy to have a mutual understanding. It’s difficult working with people who only like songs, as opposed to instrumentals, or three-piece rock bands, because they focus too much on the narrative and literary aspect of music and have a low awareness of the structure (lets out a bitter laugh).

Nagahisa: I guess you can say I’m pro-intricacy. I’m the type that thinks the more intricate the relationship between things or elements, the better. I love complex things or things that many people feel are a chore. 

How the modern-day version of The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter was born

–How was the concept behind Kaguya by Gucci born and nurtured? 

Nagahisa: The start of the project was when the producer, Tanabe-san, told me, “I want you to create a modern-day Bamboo Cutter set in Tokyo with Princess Kaguya, Okina, and Mikado.” As a storyteller of today, I wondered how I should handle and illustrate the oldest Japanese tale because it was created over a century ago. I had to clarify my perspective on The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter. I let my thoughts marinate, and the conclusion I came to was to go against the original story. 

“Even if a story’s synopsis and ending are set in stone, each character has the right to insert their ideas and views into the story.” By rewriting a story based on this line of thinking, I wanted to express meanings and values that could exist precisely because of our current times. In Kaguya by Gucci, Okina resists saying goodbye to Princess Kaguya, and Mikado doesn’t stop loving Princess Kaguya even if he knows they won’t end up together. The lyrics sung by Alter4 in Shibuya-san’s soundtrack are written from that perspective. The lyrics say something like, “I don’t exist to play a role imposed on me.” 

–Alter4 appears in the short film with you, Shibuya-san, and its makeup packs a punch. 

Shibuya: Alter4 made its debut with this short film and played an important supporting role. When I explain that to people from other countries, they say, “Now that you’ve mentioned it, it makes sense.” 

Nagahisa: True. It might be easier for people from other countries to understand the story once you provide historical context, like noh, into account. 

Shibuya: Some cultured people from other countries are more well-versed in traditional Japanese culture than Japanese people. 

The AI learned Nagahisa-san’s text to generate a portion of the lyrics, so his name is credited alongside Cypher, the AI. The AI named itself. 

Most AI names are boring, as they come from ancient gods or classic figures (laughs). I didn’t want the AI to have a name like that, so I was like, “What should I do?” I asked the AI, “What should we call an emerging lyricist who people would want to follow?” And it answered, “Cypher.” It signifies zeroes and passcodes, which I thought was excellent. That became the official name. 

A structural approach to making the soundtrack

–What was your approach to making “I come from the Moon,” the track you wrote for this short film?

Shibuya: As I mentioned before, I view music and film in a structural way. I believe people feel moved by structure. 

The most important thing about this song was for it to be circular-shaped. In the film, many circular shapes are shown abstractly, like close-up shots of the characters and Alter4’s eyes, and the moon. The cyclical nature of the film is shown at the end when Aoi (Yamada)-san, playing the role of Okina, says the same line as the beginning, “This is a fairy tale.” Both abstractly and structurally, the circle was important. It’s the shape of the moon, of course. I thought about how I could portray that with the music. 

Another central element is the scene where Okina, played by Aoi-san, runs up Tokyo Tower to reach Princess Kaguya, played by (Hikari) Mitsushima-san. The shape of the circle in psychoanalysis can be interpreted as a symbol of female genitalia. Meanwhile, a phallic shape, Tokyo Tower, makes an appearance. It depicts a love story between two women, but a sign of maleness exists there too. I felt like that would play on the viewer’s subconscious in a powerful manner. I felt like the scene needed a melody with a strong drive. 

–I see. I can tell that you analyzed the story structurally and symbolically to create the soundtrack. 

Shibuya: But if the melody surged at that Tokyo Tower scene, that would’ve equated to reaching an orgasm, so I couldn’t do that (laughs). As Nagahisa-san said, the vital theme was to go against something, so I played a descending melody in contrast to the ascending chords. 

The BPM rapidly increases once she starts running up Tokyo Tower, but when Princess Kaguya and Okina embrace each other at the climax of the scene with the moon in the background, the BPM rapidly decreases and returns to the same BPM as the first scene. That’s how I portrayed the circular structure of the short film through music.

Nagahisa: The music is terrific in every scene. I love the part where Princess Kaguya and Okina turn into small figurines and dance together. In that scene, live action turns into CGI, and the tone of the music changes drastically too. It matches the visuals. 

–Speaking of tone, you used the sound of live drums and electric bass instead of synth bass, which you seldom use in your music. 

Shibuya: Because the android plays the key part of a storyteller and singer, I felt combining the singing voice with a human touch would sound more interesting. This project allowed me to consider the distance between machinic and human things. Aside from the bass, I used a simulation of electric guitar and live drums from the 50s. Whenever an android is the central part of a song, it makes me want to produce this kind of tone for some reason. 

–As you mentioned, Nagahisa-san, there’s a strong cohesion between the visuals and music. You must’ve paid acute attention to that.

Nagahisa: Yes. It’s about the small details: you’d get a vastly different impression if a song—with its swelling and reverberations—ends with a cut instead of lingering until the next. We matched each frame with the sound until the last minute. 

Shibuya: I’m sure Nagahisa-san’s experience in shooting commercials plays a big part in how he’s more meticulous about and aware of cuts and frames than directors who only create their own work. Even regarding the sound, he said, “People won’t feel moved if the attack doesn’t come in at the tenth frame!” I believe that sort of meticulousness is absolutely right. It’s ineffective if you can’t convey something that’s numerical by nature by using numbers. It’s out of the question.

What can we gain from androids?

–What was it like working with an android, Nagahisa-san?

Nagahisa: I make films based on the disconnection or discrepancy between life and death and emotion and expression, and I think that won’t change in the future. Androids are important to me because they’re relevant to my interests. Androids are bound to become more widespread and necessary in the future, so it was a memorable experience to sit down with an android that tells stories. 

Shibuya: Androids are interesting, even from the perspective of filmmaking and acting. In the past, the benchmark of a good actor or film was how well emotion and motion could be connected and expressed. (Jean-Luc) Godard “cut” into that with his own method and created a new form of film. With androids, nothing connects the android to the human being, to begin with. The very existence of androids begs the question, “What is emotion?” 

Nagahisa: I agree. I’ve always felt that emotion and motion aren’t aligned. We usually respond to situations out of reflex instead of emotion. I feel like that disconnect or inconsistency is so beautiful. That’s why I’m drawn to androids, as they embody that. 

Shibuya: People act out of reflex and habit, and there’s always a social component behind what they like. The existence of idols not only hinges on appearance but on the social values that deem them “kawaii.” It’s not rare to meet an idol that’s actually not that kawaii (laughs). It seems like more people are beginning to see that people don’t act out of emotion as much as we had thought.

–It also seems like our awareness and sensibility regarding human existence and emotion are changing because of AI and androids. 

Shibuya: Once the prerequisite of emotion disappears, the way we create stories will change. It’s a major opportunity for Japan. Fundamentally, Europe is anthropocentric, and they don’t doubt the existence of humans. It could be hard to eliminate the belief that humans have emotions and robots don’t. But I feel like we in Japan can create a new story based on a different set of values.

Nagahisa: People in Japan have created joruri for generations, so we have a strong foundation. 

Shibuya: Exactly. 

Nagahisa: There’s the belief that puppets have emotions and that humans don’t have emotions that puppets can’t express. I feel like that’s something people from other countries don’t feel. 

Shibuya: I call that the “new ethnic.” 

Nagahisa: I understand. My films are more popular in America and Europe than in Japan, but not because of the direct depictions or motifs. They see a distinct, ethnic Japanese quality in, say, my dry, blunt approach to giving up or how sadness doesn’t come to the fore. They think it’s interesting. 

Shibuya: Over the past ten years, I’ve portrayed the existence of the self in an obscure way and made the emotions impossible to ascertain in my work. I assume people from other countries are more prone to discuss such themes than Japanese people.

Nagahisa: I see. When we made Kaguya by Gucci, Tanabe-san told me you and I have similar views on society and human beings. I saw what he meant today while we covered various things. Thank you.

Shibuya: Thank you. It was fun talking to you.

Photography Tasuku Amada
Translation Lena Grace Suda

The post Keiichiro Shibuya and Makoto Nagahisa on Making Kaguya by Gucci and What Androids Can Teach Us — “Massive Life Flow; Inside the Mind of Keiichiro Shibuya” Part 8 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

Shibuya’s music has been dubbed the world’s first pop music using AI and an android, and BORDERLINE is an equal parts conceptual and catchy song only he could’ve made. In the song, Stephanie Poetri, who’s signed to the world-dominating 88rising label, and Alter3, the android used in many of Shibuya’s works, sing the AI-generated lyrics. The music video expresses his concept and features an integral person alongside Shibuya and Alter3, Nozomi Iijima, a world-renowned ballet dancer (K-Ballet Company principal). We asked the two, who worked together for the first time for this project, to discuss the process behind BORDERLINE and their respective fields.

The wavering verge of reality and the boundary between humans and androids

—BORDERLINE is presented as a cultural project aiming to invigorate the Shibuya area. The song and music video are both magnetic. How did BORDERLINE and its concept come about? Also, how did you approach Iijima-san?

Keiichiro Shibuya: I was asked to create a complete piece of work instead of just a song. Shibuya area is involved in this project, and I happily accepted the offer because I was born and raised in Shibuya, and my surname is Shibuya. I felt like no one else was more suited than me (laughs). 

The concept behind BORDERLINE comes from how the cusp of reality is blurry in many situations and the increase of borderline personality disorder diagnoses (laughs). It also comes from the shooting location in front of the ticket gate in Shibuya’s underground station and the boundary between humans and androids, which I’ve been engaging through my work. But the most significant source was seeing an old shirt in my room with the words “BORDERLINE” right when I was thinking about how I had to come up with the project title. This sort of coincidence happens quite often (laughs). 

Using lyrics written by AI based on the theme of borderlines, I had an android and human being sing together to create a song. Then, I decided to shoot the music video in an underground space, as that’s the boundary between above ground and underground in Shibuya city. The collaboration itself was pretty unusual, so I felt like it’d be better to make a music video, something that’s conventional. I contemplated who would be a good person to feature with android Alter3 and me, and I approached Nozomi-chan since I thought she’d be the perfect match.

–What went through your mind when Shibuya-san approached you?

Nozomi Iijima: To be honest, part of me felt anxious. I mainly dance classical ballet, so most of the dances I do are traditional. On the contrary, Shibuya-san takes traditional arts into account and uses cutting-edge technology to create art that’s one step ahead. I wondered if we would work well together. I do contemporary dance at times, but that’s different. But I was interested in and admired his work. So more than feeling anxious, I was like, “I want to do it!” 

Shibuya: I felt Nozomi-chan would be a good match because she does contemporary dance, not just classical ballet. When I lived in Paris, the first job I did was a collaboration between Palais Garnier and Palais de Tokyo, and I became friends with Jérémie Bélingard, a dancer at Palais Garnier. He’s a classical ballet and contemporary dancer and has a proper foundation. I never think about this, but classical or Western music is my foundation, and electronic music and technology like androids coexist there. That’s why I find it easy to work with people who do both classical and contemporary arts. It feels right. 

–Iijima-san, you mentioned that you like William Forsythe in another interview. 

Iijima: Right. When I used to dance at Houston Ballet, I danced in Vertiginous Thrill of Exactitude, In the Middle, Somewhat Elevated, and Artifact. Like Shibuya-san,Forsythe is a choreographer who has classical ballet movements as his foundation and creates new movements. I love his works.

I can tell Shibuya-san has a background in the classic arts because of his music. This also applies to his piano pieces, but even his electronic songs don’t feel inorganic; they still touch my heart. It wasn’t as hard to dance to Shibuya-san’s music. I think that’s because his music has a classical element at the core.

Shibuya: You said you found the music easy to dance to when we shot the music video. 

Iijima: I couldn’t help that my body started moving to the music. It felt good to dance. 

Dance and performance arts from the eyes of a musician, Music from the eyes of a dancer 

–Shibuya-san, you’ve created opera pieces as a musician and previously worked with dance and performance. What is the appeal of ballet and performance arts to you? 

Shibuya: Performances tend to serve as a hub for different art forms. There’s Parade, where Eric Satie made the music, Pablo Picasso did the costume and art, and Jean Cocteau wrote the script 100 years ago, for instance. When I made The End, an opera with Hatsune Miku, ten years ago, I approached Marc Jacobs because I thought it’d be interesting to have him design a costume for a two-dimensional character for the first time since he took the fashion world by storm as the designer of Louis Vuitton. The fun part about performance arts is how people can come together to collaborate on one piece of work. Also, you get a spark of musical inspiration by visualizing body movements. 

I also love performances involving one pianist and one dancer, like those by Philip Glass. I want to do something like that one day.

–Iijima-san, what does music mean to you?

Iijima: The power of music is undeniable in classical ballet. In most cases, my body starts moving on its own when the music starts playing. 

Shibuya: People who dance classical ballet all say that. When I was working with Jérémie at Palais Garnier, I asked him to stay still for ten seconds, but he said he couldn’t do it. It was interesting to see just how deeply embedded his physical training or habit was.

Iijima: True. Even if you can dance a choreographed piece, it’s still hard to dance on the spot. Without a doubt, music is essential in our lives.

Improvisation, and working with an android

Iijima: Shibuya-san, have you always been one for improvisation?

Shibuya: The first time I improvised was at a restaurant, where I used to play the piano part-time as a student. I always brought sheet music, but it got in the way whenever I had plans to hang out after my shift since it was heavy (laughs). One day, I played something on the spot without any sheet music, but I didn’t know what I was doing was improvisation. I also had no complaints (laughs). That made me think, “I guess I can do this,” so I started improvising on the piano from that point onwards. I couldn’t answer whenever people asked me what song I was playing. The first time I played on the spot with someone else at a concert was with Yuji Takahashi-san, someone I greatly respect. I had the grit to have been able to do that, if I may say so myself. Today, I improvise with an android instead of humans, but it’s fun.

Iijima: What is the main difference between playing with a person and an android?

Shibuya: If my performance isn’t good, the android will follow suit, making the overall performance low-quality. My performance has to be good, first and foremost. I also can’t play whatever I want to. Sometimes, the android would go rogue and sing something else, so I would have to follow its lead. You need much more cooperation with an android, or else you won’t create something interesting. That way, you can improve, and time will pass by in the blink of an eye.

–Iijima-san, you performed with Alter3 for this project. What was that like?

Iijima: I felt something similar to what Shibuya-san said just now about improvising with an android. When Alter3 and I were dancing, I tried to match my—what’s the word— physical feeling with it. Some moments made me wonder, “Am I sharing the same feeling with Alter3 right now?” I might’ve just imagined that, though. 

Shibuya: No, there were many moments where you and Alter3 were in sync. It was hard to choose which takes to use in the final cut because it was that good.  Iijima: Thank you. Some parts were challenging, but I had such an exciting and fun time.

Traditional elements in art and the state of technology

Iijima: There’s something I want to ask you, Shibuya-san. Why do you use an android in your work? I dance traditional ballet involving only humans, so I feel like what I do is the opposite of what you do. I want to learn about the significance and necessity of using an android.

Shibuya: Humans are always at the center, whether that’s ballet or opera, right? Anthropocentrism is an ideology unique to the West. I feel like human classical singers or performers could compete among themselves, but I’m a composer, so even if I abide by Western formats or structures, I can’t make something that transcends their framework. I can’t compete against Westerners since my music is based on Western music at the end of the day. At one point, I was like, “What should I do, then?” and I knew I had to do something fundamentally different from the rest. Some composers use the koto or shakuhachi, but they only function as embellishments or accents. 

That’s how I came to make The End around a decade ago, an “opera” with no conductor, orchestra, or human singer but just visuals onstage with Hatsune Miku as the singer. I created an opera without human beings. What was important was for me to conform to traditional operatic formats like recitative and aria styles. It had to be at Théâtre du Châtelet in Paris, a theater where conventional opera is shown. That contrast felt contemporary to me. I felt that disparity was something I could express because I’m Japanese. After that experience, I contemplated what human-free art I could make and came up with using an android.

Iijima: I see. So, that’s how you ended up using an android.

Shibuya: When you have an android singer or conductor instead of a human, that poses the question of how humans will evolve, and it could also be a metaphor for how humans are being used by technology in society. The limit of humans and society will change. Compared to 2018, when I made an android opera for the first time, I feel like people understand what it’s about now. 

Iijima: Androids are so eye-catching and appealing.

Shibuya: Androids are a bit creepy at the same time. Creepiness and scariness are very crucial elements of creative expression and art. 

Iijima: You might be right. Just like Scary Beauty (editor’s note: Shibuya’s first android opera shown in 2018).

Shibuya: Yeah. Seeing [an android] that looks like that sing a moving song gives you the chills. Feeling something you’ve never felt before is essential. 

–You also do contemporary dance, as you mentioned before, and do modeling in the fashion world. I’d like to know your mindset toward traditional and classical ballet.

Iijima: I like contemporary dance and fashion, so I’m lucky to work in those fields too. But for me, the number one thing is classical ballet. I’ve partially changed my mindset and the type of jobs I do to preserve classical ballet tradition. 

–In a previous interview, you talked about how you want more people to watch classical ballet in Japan.

Iijima: Yes. Many people in Japan have never seen ballet, even those working in the arts, theater, and fashion. Compared to America or Europe, not many people watch or understand it. It might be a cultural difference since, in the West, there’s a culture of taking children to museums or seeing ballet or theater for education. Also, I feel like many people in Japan are drawn to a dancer’s personality first. They then become a fan and watch ballet in the theater.

Shibuya: They have favorites.

Iijima: Exactly. I hope more people will start watching ballet by my appearing in various media. It’s hard to find the right balance, and I need to consider the right way to go about things, but I want to keep doing what I do because it’s essential to make people aware of ballet. 

A project born in an era where androids and AI are becoming widespread 

–Shibuya-san, what was it like collaborating with Iijima-san?

Shibuya: It was impressive how she created a new dance and did it rationally instead of dancing out of habit whenever we did another take. She viewed herself as one form of media; she controlled her moves as though she viewed herself from a bird’s eye perspective. She was quick to grasp important information too. This was the first time you did something new like this for a video, yes?

Iijima: Yes. I’m excited to see how people’s reactions. I hope people can enjoy it. It would make me happy if those who learned about me for the first time became interested in ballet and dance. 

Shibuya: It’s exciting to see how people will react to BORDERLINE in the future too. This also applies to this project, but I can do what I do because AI and androids are starting to become a part of everyday life. I’m interested to see what people will think of this project 30 years from now.

Iijima: I know. 

Shibuya: The gap between the past and present is apparent in most art forms, especially androids. I feel like prosperity might look at this project as crucial documentation of what humanity was doing at a certain period before the world ended.

■BORDERLINE
Composition, Concept, Direction, Keyboard by Keiichiro Shibuya
Lyrics by Cypher (AI)
Vocals by Alter3 (Android), Stephanie Poetri (88rising)
Dance by Nozomi Iijima
Android Supervised by Hiroshi Ishiguro
Android Programming by Shintaro Imai
GPT-3 programming by Takashi Ikegami
Choreography by Kenta Kojiri

Keiichiro Shibuya
Keiichiro Shibuya is a musician who graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts with a B.A. in Music Composition. In 2002, he founded the music label ATAK. His diverse soundscape covers areas such as cutting-edge electronic music, piano solos, opera, soundtrack music, sound installation, and so forth. His notable works include a Vocaloid opera comprised of no people called The End (2012) and the android opera Scary Beauty (2018). In September 2020, he created the soundtrack for the film Midnight Swan and won the Music Award at both the Mainichi Film Awards and the Japan Movie Critics Award. In August 2021, his opera Super Angels had its world premiere at New National Theater Tokyo. In March 2022, he showed his new android opera, MIRROR, a collaboration between an android, Buddhist music, shomyo, and an orchestra from the UAE at Expo 2020 Dubai. In April, he created the soundtrack for xxxHOLiC, a film by Mika Ninagawa. In August, Shibuya made the soundtrack for Kaguya by Gucci, a short film by Gucci. He explores the boundary between humans and technology and life and death.
http://atak.jp
Photography Mari Katayama

Nozomi Iijima
K-Ballet Company principal. Born in Osaka, Nozomi Iijima started dancing ballet at six years old. In 2007, after training at Houston Ballet, she joined the company at 16 years old, the youngest. She was promoted to principal in March 2019. Iijima has danced as Odette/Odile in Swan Lake, Juliette in Romeo and Juliette, Mitzi Caspar in Mayerling, the title role of Giselle, the title role of Sylvia, the Snow Queen, Clara, and Sugar Plum Fairy in The Nutcracker, the Lilac Fairy and Princess Florine in Sleeping Beauty, Suzuki in Madame Butterfly by Stanton Welch, Marie Antoinette in Marie, and more. She’s also danced the prominent roles in ballet by Kenneth MacMillan, William Forsythe, Jiří Kylián, Stanton Welch, and so forth.
Further, she’s danced in many contemporary pieces. Iijima appeared in Orchard Ballet Gala~Japanese Dancers~ directed by Tetsuya Kumakawa to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Bunkamura in July 2019. She became the beauty ambassador for Chanel in the same year. After returning to Japan in 2021, she danced in Don Quixote by K-Ballet Company in May as a guest dancer. She then became the principal dancer of K-Ballet Company in August. She rose the ranks to principal in March 2022. 
K-Ballet Company: https://www.k-ballet.co.jp/
Instagram: @nozo0806

Translation Lena Grace Suda

The post Behind the Scenes of the music video for “BORDERLINE” with Keiichiro Shibuya and Nozomi Iijima — “Massive Life Flow; Inside the Mind of Keiichiro Shibuya” Part 7 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

The department anointed Shibuya as a visiting professor following the laboratory launch. He plans on working on a myriad of projects related to androids and music alongside frequent collaborators Hiroshi Ishiguro, a researcher, and Shintaro Imai, an electronic musician. We explore the present state and potential of the world’s first music and android laboratory.

The birth of a laboratory shedding light on the future of art and technology

Expo ‘70 in Osaka was a happy marriage of art and technology, as symbolized by the Pepsi Pavilion made by the American avant-garde group E.A.T. (Experiments in Art and Technology), Space Theater at the Steel Pavilion directed by Toru Takemitsu and Kei Usami, and Mitsui Group Pavilion with contributors like Katsuhiro Yamaguchi and Toshi Ichiyanagi. It’s well-known that the vision and creations shown at the expo had a palpable influence on the creative scene. 

More than half a century later, Osaka will welcome its second World Expo three years from now. It is also home to a groundbreaking laboratory that sheds light on a new future of creative expression and advanced technology. 

The Android and Music Science Laboratory (AMSL), located in the Art Science Department of Osaka University of Arts, has been described as the world’s first music and android laboratory. It’s operated by Keiichiro Shibuya, the protagonist of this series, robot researcher Hiroshi Ishiguro, who developed the Alter series (the android performer of Shibuya’s android opera), and electronic musician Shintaro Imai, who has been responsible for Alter’s speaking and singing voice since Shibuya’s Super Angels (premiered worldwide in 2021). Shibuya and Imai joined Ishiguro as visiting professors at the department this April, at the same time as the laboratory’s launch. 

I attended the opening ceremony and Shibuya’s performance at the end of April to witness the laboratory and its potential. 

A room out of a sci-fi film: brand-new android Alter4 and sound equipment 

The Art Science Department at the Osaka University of Arts was established in 2017 to cultivate creators of the next generation through interdisciplinary research and education combining art and science. The dean is Norihiro Hagata, who’s been researching and implementing the merge of robots and art. The department building was designed by visiting professor and one of Japan’s leading architects, Kazuyo Sejima. The space has an open feel with beautiful, organic curves and glass windows on all sides, 360 degrees. 

The laboratory is on the basement floor of the same building. Once I walked through the entrance hall and stepped inside the laboratory, a minimal space designed by Sejima, from the interior to furniture, and the newest model of the Alter series, Alter4, awaited me. Positioned among a grand piano and synthesizers, Alter4 looked at me while moving with ease. 

The sight in front of me went beyond my everyday imagination; it was like I was in one scene of a sci-fi film. I decided to take another good, hard look at Alter4, the main character of the room. I’ve seen Shibuya’s Alter series many times from his past works, but Alter4’s expressions and movements were much more varied.
According to the information provided that day, its expressions are more diverse than the previous models because of its enhanced mimetic muscles and tongue movements. The number of joints went from 43 to 53, making it possible for Alter4 to move more dynamically. Alter4, with its increased sense of mobility, had a strong presence that made me look forward to the laboratory’s future endeavors. 

Annihilating the conventions and mediocrity of art and technology 

Shibuya, Ishiguro, and Imai will create performances and installations using Alter4 at the laboratory, and the process will be available for the Art Science students to observe or participate in, according to their skill level. It may not be easy to partake in this world-class project, but the students are bound to learn and discover valuable lessons from experiencing the radical creations paving the way for the next generation at the intersection of art and technology. 

During the panel discussion before the opening ceremony, Shibuya pointed out that although many projects blend art and science or art and technology, quite a few are boring. The art and technology experts involved in these projects usually stay within the confines of their respective fields of expertise, thus producing a conventional outcome.

Shibuya said one could destroy that monotony by getting rid of one’s technical fixations, going beyond one’s expertise, and “intruding” into each other’s fields. That’s what Shibuya does with his work, and both Ishiguro and Imai possess adaptability and intellectual bravado. There’s no way to tell the specifics of the projects that will arise from the laboratory, but they’ll have nothing to do with conventions and mediocrity.  

An impromptu jam session with a human and android

After the involved parties cut the ribbon, the laboratory was officially opened. Shibuya then performed live to celebrate the occasion with Alter4, a grand piano, and a Rev4 synth. Released in 2020, the Rev4 is the renewed version of the famous Prophet-5 analog synthesizer introduced in 1978. 

Shibuya started by playing a drone-y, abstract sound in a low tone with the Rev4. Then, Alter4 began swaying to the sound and reciting a poem in English. Checking Alter4’s reaction, he gently changed the ambiance of the sounds with harmonic bells and melancholic leads.

While Shibuya played synth pad harmonies, Alter4 began singing in a distinct voice; somewhere between machine and human. The surprising thing was how Alter4’s singing wasn’t pre-programmed; it was singing impromptu by listening to Shibuya’s performance. Towards the end, Shibuya moved to the piano and played various sounds, from contemporary tone clusters to tender, lyrical phrases and harmonies.

Even then, it continued to sing perfectly with the piano. The spectacle of Shibuya and Alter4 listening to one another and producing sounds was unmistakably a live session, and whoever watched the show could tell that the nervousness and fulfillment were unprogrammable. The celebratory event came to a close after it clearly demonstrated the possibilities of the future of androids and music. 

One of the laboratory’s destinations is Expo 2025 in Osaka, three years from now. The expo, with the slogan, “Designing Future Society for Our Lives,” has eight themes. Ishiguro is the producer of the “Amplification of Lives” theme and will be responsible for many different exhibitions and events, and one could expect to see projects made in the laboratory there as well. 

How will the horizon of art and technology, which was pioneered at Expo ‘70, be further expanded? I can’t wait to see the creations and imaginations of Shibuya, Ishiguro, and Imai three years later. 

■Android and Music Science Laboratory (AMSL)
Visiting professors: Keiichiro Shibuya, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Shintaro Imai, Kazuyo Sejima (lab design)

Furniture and interior design: Kazuyo Sejima & Associates (Kazuyo Sejima, Yoshitaka Tanase, Takayuki Furuya, Naoya Harada, Risa Matsunaga)
Acoustic consultant: Yasushi Shimizu
Construction: Taisei Corporation (Keisuke Yamaura, Shunya Matsuhisa)
Appliances: Kuhsohsha, hhstyle.com (Jun Watanabe)
Curtains: Création Baumann (Masashi Nakajima)
Lighting cooperation: MinebeaMitsumi

Android production: A-Lab
Sound system: Jiro Kubo (Acoustic Field Inc.)

Project management: Natsumi Matsumoto (ATAK)
Producer: Hisamoto Naito

In cooperation with Yamaha Music Japan, Yamaha Corporation, Native Instruments, ATAK

Keiichiro Shibuya
Keiichiro Shibuya is a musician who graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts with a B.A. in Music Composition. In 2002, he founded the music label ATAK. His diverse soundscape covers areas such as cutting-edge electronic music, piano solos, opera, soundtrack music, sound installation, and so forth. His notable works include a Vocaloid opera comprised of no people called The End (2012) and the android opera Scary Beauty (2018). In September 2020, he created the soundtrack for the film Midnight Swan and won the Music Award at both the Mainichi Film Awards and the Japan Movie Critics Award. In August 2021, his opera Super Angels had its world premiere at New National Theater Tokyo. In March 2022, he showed his new android opera, MIRROR, a collaboration between an android, Buddhist music, shomyo, and an orchestra from the UAE at Expo 2020 Dubai. He explores the boundary between humans and technology and life and death.
http://atak.jp
Photography Mari Katayama

The post The Possibilities of the World’s First Android and Music Laboratory in Osaka — “Massive Life Flow; Inside the Mind of Keiichiro Shibuya” Part 6 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

“MIRROR” is a new android opera woven together by unique “outsiders” like Keiichiro Shibuya, android Alter3, Mount Koya shomyo (Buddhist chanting) monks led by Shingon monk Eizen Fujiwara, and NSO Symphony Orchestra, an orchestra from the UAE. The opera was set to take place in December of last year as part of the main program of Japan Day at Expo 2020 Dubai, but it got canceled last minute due to the global spread of the omicron variant. However, the passionate work ethic of Shibuya came to fruition; he showed the long-awaited opera for the first time this March on the Jubilee Stage at Expo 2020 Dubai. Shigeru Ogawa, who watched the performance, details the possibilities and revolutionary aspects of “MIRROR.” 

The marriage of poetry by an android, shomyo by monks, electronic sounds, and the piano 

March 2nd, 2022: Jubilee Stage at Expo 2020 Dubai during sunset. It was a laidback space, similar to an outdoor festival, with artificial grass in front of the stage and people carrying beanie bags to their desired spot to relax. But on that day, something in the air was a bit different. The anticipation of those who came to witness the world premiere of “MIRROR,” an android opera announced last minute, made others feel slightly nervous. 

“Android is a mirror”—the opera started with android Alter3 reading poetry on top of an extended electronic sound. “Music is a mirror”—a 60 BPM beat kicked in. “It is a reflection of yourselves”—as the android said each phrase in a solemn manner, master of Buddhist music, Eizen Fujiwara began chanting, creating a strong contrast between the two. When I thought they covered everything, Alter3 asked, “What is the boundary between existence and non-existence?”

Android Alter3 was at the center of the stage under LED lights, with a shiny metal body and a realistic noh-like mask akin to the texture of human skin. Facing it were four monks from Mount Koya adorned in magnificent Kesa / 袈裟 (Buddhist robe). Alter3 and Fujiwara appeared on the LED screen, looking like sculptures rendered by a 3D scan, and Alter3’s words were displayed there, too. The visuals made by Justine Emard, a visual artist who’s collaborated with Shibuya numerous times, shocked my senses. Onstage, the android and monks stood opposite one another, and their performance resembled the ocean becoming full after the ebb and flow of the waves. This was when Shibuya finally started playing the piano. “Let’s celebrate this new experience together”—Alter3 repeated these celebratory words, indicating the start of the show. “Mirror,” the same name as the opera, reached its apex with control despite the voluminous and multilayered nature of the song.

A rich, multifaceted experience born from the addition of an orchestra

The tempo picked up smoothly and transitioned into the second song. On Shibuya’s cue, the NSO Symphony Orchestra, comprised of 45 people, added even more volume. But the four monks’ presence didn’t lose against the orchestra at all. The audience was exposed to a musical experience from another dimension. The orchestra repeated the theme on top of a bass-heavy track while the piano and shomyo intertwined. Amid this, Alter3 began singing “Scary Beauty.” I couldn’t hold my soaring emotions inside, as the performance had such an intimacy that contrasted the openness of the Jubilee Stage. I couldn’t believe we were still on the second song and that only seven minutes had passed since the show started. That’s how intense the android opera “MIRROR” was.

The opera was scheduled to be shown on December 11th of last year at Expo 2020 Dubai as part of the main program of Japan Day. But the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry drastically reduced the number of acts for Japan Day out of concerns over the worldwide spread of omicron, and the opera got canceled last minute. Shibuya was humble enough to continue working with passion, which paid off. “MIRROR” came back as part of the Japan Pavilion’s event and had its world premiere on the Jubilee Stage at Expo 2020 Dubai on March 2nd. (You can read about Shibuya traveling to the UAE on his own dime to ask for a chance to perform after the cancellation of his opera here).

The opera consists of music by Keiichiro Shibuya, piano music, electronic sounds, singing, autonomously generated texts (lyrics) by android Alter3, Buddhist music and shomyo with a history of 1,200 years by four Shingon monks led by Eizen Fujiwara, and the NSO Symphony Orchestra from the UAE, who have worked with Shibuya before. It’s easy to see how this is a grand, intricate, and exciting project that intersects many contexts related to both time and space, such as history, culture, faith, and technology. It’s also understandable that Shibuya was particular about having the world premiere at Expo 2020 Dubai—held for the first time in South Asia, the Middle East, and Africa— in Dubai, with the Muslim port city’s history and livelihood made possible through the cooperation of migrants, which make up over 90% of the population.

There’s one more thing I’d like to mention. On February 24th, Russia invaded Ukraine, right before the opera’s showing. I faced the day of the opera with a shock involving the: fear of the Russian army gaining control of Chernobyl and recklessly using nuclear reactors, shocking announcement that nuclear weapons were an option, heavy economic sanctions that excluded Russia from using SWIFT, deliberate attack on a nuclear power plant, and eye-opening imagery of the rapid, maddening inventiveness [of the army]. In fact, there was a moment during rehearsals when the thunderous roar of fighter jets circled above us, and the performers stopped playing their instruments. Whether we liked it or not, our five senses were heightened when the android opera “MIRROR” started. How were we so stimulated despite it being just 30 minutes long? I’d like you to picture it. 

A performance that straddles the line between the living and non-living

After “Scary Beauty” finished, there was a short interval in which the venue erupted with applause. Surprisingly, Alter3 made a lighthearted comment about the following two songs, “The lyrics are written by AI, that is to say, by me” That naturally prompted laughter and cheers from the audience. However, this was no laughing matter. Alter3 sang English lyrics, a result of making the AI study a Buddhist sutra written 1,200 years ago. The harmony of the on-the-spot layering of Alter3’s singing, which mimicked the original shomyo by the four monks, transcended time and space, not just metaphorically. Alter3’s comment that it was happy to perform there sounded so sincere. It seemed as though the audience no longer felt unsettled by the android singer’s appearance and voice.

Before and after the third song, “The Decay of the Angel,” there was a sequence where Fujiwara and Alter3 faced one another. The former chanted while the latter sang. Although its voice was clearly not human, something about it drew the audience in. Its mechanical body and fingers moved intricately in response to the interactive music. As a matter of fact, rather than using a predetermined and programmed melody, Alter3 improvised a song in real-time after listening to Fujiwara’s shomyo. Fujiwara accepted Alter3 as it was, put his palms together, and chanted while facing it. It was a powerful sight; it was as if they were treading the line between the living and non-living. Fujiwara wrote the following on social media: “I faced the android and chanted with my whole heart, intending to become one and merge with it.” In esoteric Buddhism, the concept of Sokushin Jobutsu points to the attainment of enlightenment and becoming a Buddha in one’s corporeal body. Perhaps Fujiwara has no distinction between becoming one with Alter3, Buddha statues, and the mandala. He may view them all as the same, as incarnations of Dainichi Nyorai. Fujiwara didn’t seek to act out a role in a play but rather to identify with Alter3 wholeheartedly. No doubt, the power born through this heightened Alter3’s aliveness. As such, beyond Fujiwara’s excellent skills as a “singer” and shomyo expert, his nature as a Shingon monk is an essential element that affects the soul of the project. Fujiwara might’ve simply been approaching this opera like he was praying and practicing austerity as usual.

(You can read about how Alter3 underwent changes behind the scenes and gained an animated voice and movement, thanks to electronic musician and programmer Shintaro Imai here).

A festive and intense feeling; 30 minutes filled with possibilities

The songs “Scary Beauty,” performed in Adelaide in 2017, and “The Decay of the Angel,” performed in Tokyo in 2018, are staples of Shibuya’s android opera. On that day, however, the songs were performed more spectacularly than usual because of the NSO Symphony Orchestra’s bold and powerful performance, the collaboration of shomyo, the new lively arrangement and composition that took into account the outdoor venue at Expo 2020 Dubai, and the stage direction that utilized a massive LED screen and moving lights. The audience enjoyed the element of surprise, and at times Alter3 looked like a rock star under the glaring lights.

The fourth and last song was “Midnight Swan.” Shibuya won the Music Award at the 75th Mainichi Film Awards and other soundtrack awards for this theme song for a film. In the introduction, shomyo was overlayed on a lyrical melody by the piano and strings. What looked like falling cherry blossoms on the LED screen was, in fact, a point cloud graphic of the exterior of Fujiwara’s temple, which Justine Emard visited and made a 3D scan out of. The tempo increased following the timpani, and as Alter3 sang the lyrics it wrote by itself, other factors such as the orchestra, beats, and noise overlapped like a torrent, increasing the volume at once. The monks repeatedly skimmed through Daihanya-kyo aloud (swiftly turning the pages of a heavy sutra above their heads) with all their might, and the loud sutra chanting and shomyo filled the bright stage with festiveness. The performance ended gracefully as the orchestra, piano, and Alter3 probed for the perfect balance. Then, the Monks’ shomyo was shown on the screen in English: “May the world be peaceful.” They said they chose this shomyo a year ago. Who would’ve imagined these words would resonate so much? While I was thinking about this, the opera ended quickly with a short curtain call.

The world premiere of the android opera “MIRROR” lasted less than 30 minutes, but it was a rich experience. I’ll remember how I was at that place and at that time for a while.

For an only a limited time, the full-length performance can be viewed at the following website:

Japan: Android Opera, MIRROR | World Expo

Japanese musician and composer Shibuya Keiichiro presents the world premiere of his new Android Opera, MIRROR.

virtualexpo.world

Android Opera MIRROR
Concept, Composition, Direction, Piano, Electronics: Keiichiro Shibuya
Buddhist Music: Eizen Fujiwara, Yasuhiro Yamamoto, Jien Goto, Hoshin Tani
Orchestra: NSO Symphony Orchestra

Artists & Crew
Android Programming : Shintaro Imai
Visual: Justine Emard
Lighting: Go Ueda
Sound: Yuki Suzuki
Technical Management: So Ozaki
Project/Production Management: Natsumi Matsumoto

Production: ATAK
Organizing: Japan Pavilion

Keiichiro Shibuya
Keiichiro Shibuya is a musician who graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts with a B.A. in Music Composition. In 2002, he founded the music label ATAK. His diverse soundscape covers areas such as cutting-edge electronic music, piano solos, opera, soundtrack music, sound installation, and so forth. His notable works include a Vocaloid opera comprised of no people called “The End” (2012) and the android opera “Scary Beauty” (2018). In September 2020, he created the music for the film Midnight Swan and won the Music Award at both the Mainichi Film Awards and the Japan Movie Critics Award. In August 2021, his opera “Super Angels” had its world premiere at New National Theater Tokyo. In March 2022, he showed his new android opera, “MIRROR,” a collaboration between an android, Buddhist music, shomyo, and an orchestra from the UAE, at Expo 2020 Dubai. He explores the boundary between humans and technology and life and death.
http://atak.jp
Photography Mari Katayama

Photography Sandra Zarneshan（©︎ATAK）
Translation Lena Grace Suda
Edit Takahiro Fujikawa

The post The world premiere of Keiichiro Shibuya’s android opera, “MIRROR,” at Expo 2020 Dubai — “Massive Life Flow; Inside the Mind of Keiichiro Shibuya” Part 5 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.

This series, “Massive Life Flow,” explores Shibuya’s mindset and what he envisions for the future. In our fourth installment, we report on the private concert, “Mirror in the Mirror,” held in Dubai in early December 2021 in collaboration with Shingon Buddhist monk Eizen Fujiwara. What kind of musical universe was revealed in Dubai when the piano, electronic music, and shomyo (Buddhist chanting) from Mount Koya intersected? We find out in a report by Ai Kikuchi, a jack-of-all-trades based in Dubai and Tokyo.

Despite the program’s cancellation, Shibuya went to Dubai and made the performance happen.

On a weekend evening in early December, it was suddenly decided that “Mirror in the Mirror,” a private concert by Keiichiro Shibuya and Shingon Buddhist monk Eizen Fujiwara, would be held at the Bin Shabib residence in a chic Dubai neighborhood. “Mirror,” a musical work composed by Shibuya, was originally scheduled to have its world premiere on December 11^th as the main program of the Dubai Expo’s Japan Day. The performance featured Shibuya, the android Alter3, Shomyo (Buddhist chanting) by five Mount Koya monks led by Fujiwara, and a UAE orchestra. However, due to concerns over the global spread of the new Omicron variant, the Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry drastically reduced the scale of Japan Day. Thus, the program was canceled just before the scheduled date.

But because Shibuya had already prepared for the performance for nearly a year and poured his soul into it, he still wanted to perform during the Dubai Expo. Thus, immediately after hearing about the cancellation, he decided to go to Dubai on his own dime to negotiate in person and ask for a chance. Shibuya had previously worked in the UAE, and brothers Ahmed and Rashid Bin Shabib were old acquaintances of his. When the brothers heard about Shibuya’s dilemma, they offered up the backyard of their home as the concert venue, making the concert possible. Ahmed and Rashid are influential figures in the UAE’s cultural policy, even having been involved in deciding on the Dubai Expo’s central concept: “Connecting Minds, Creating the Future.” In addition to being well-versed in Japanese culture, the two also understood and sympathized with Shibuya’s work and had been looking forward to “MIRROR” at the Dubai Expo.

Piano, electronic sounds, and shomyo intersect to create a revolutionary harmony.

On the night of the performance, people from all over the world gathered in the large yard. Under the moonlight-lit venue, Fujiwara, wearing a brocade monk’s robe, played a conch shell that echoed through the night sky. The audience looked ahead, mesmerized. As a higher pitch reverberated from the conch shell, an electronic sound rang out in response, and the session began. The deep vocals and unique tones of shomyo, the electronic sounds, and assorted piano notes intertwined to create a complex progression. It was hard to tell how much of this progression, which featured Shibuya as both a performer and conductor, was composed in advance versus improvised. The performance gave birth to a revolutionary harmony and a tension so powerful it gave me goosebumps. Even from the front row, I could tell that the rest of the audience was astounded and overwhelmed.

After the performance, which lasted a little over a half-hour, the audience began to gather around Shibuya and Fujiwara, eagerly sharing their feelings and asking them all kinds of questions in various languages: “This was a completely new experience.” “I want my friend who couldn’t come today to experience this.” “If a session between just the two of you is this intense, then how powerful is ‘MIRROR,’ with the addition of an orchestra and an android?”

Fujiwara commented, “I’m happy that in a Muslim country like Dubai, people were accepting of Buddhist music (prayers from a different religion). The people here are truly so peaceful and kind. One of the concepts behind my shomyo is world peace. And for some reason, shomyo, the oldest form of music in Japan, fits well with modern Western music/electronic music in the context of this project. Division and discrimination occur because we all have different languages and customs, but as the human race, we are all one. I express that through music—in other words, the music embodies world peace. I respect this country, which welcomed ‘MIRROR’ into the Dubai Expo…To be honest, I was nervous about performing in a Muslim region, but when I went to the venue and witnessed the Al Wasl Plaza, where we were supposed to perform, I was so disappointed that I cried.”

Shibuya has consistently asked questions about humanity and life. What vision does he portray?

Shibuya started working on his android opera after his 2012 Vocaloid opera starring Hatsune Miku. Since then, he’s been proactively creating new work. With the help of Professor Hiroshi Ishiguro, a leading authority on robotics from Osaka University, he began a process of trial and error that started with a small performance. Then, Shibuya roped in Professor Takashi Ikegami of the University of Tokyo, a leading researcher in complex systems. In 2018, “Scary Beauty” premiered at Miraikan (The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation). Starting in 2019, Shibuya began incorporating Alter3, an android developed in a joint research project with Mixi that specializes in musical performances. Finally, in August of 2021, Shibuya made headlines with “Super Angels,” a piece the New National Theatre commissioned him to compose.

Through the medium of music, Shibuya has consistently expanded the potential of coexistence between robots and humans. In the same way that the Vocaloid moves people with melodies impossible for humans to sing, the robots do not replace the humans; instead, the robots have a powerful presence entirely different from humans. Alongside the humans, they breathe life into the opera. If you take a closer look at Shibuya’s work, it asks universal questions like: What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be alive? Shibuya’s latest work, “MIRROR,” which was meant to be a centerpiece of the Dubai Expo’s Japan Day, incorporated Shibuya, an android, an orchestra, and a group of five shomyo performers led by Eizen Fujiwara. This performance was supposed to express coexistence with cutting-edge technology in a way that no one had ever seen before. It could have been a symbolic program that satisfied the theme of the Dubai Expo—”Connecting Minds, Creating the Future”— as well the Japan Pavilion’s vision, which was to create a space “Where Ideas Meet” on a global scale.

However, even the session between the two performers was a moving experience that exceeded my expectations. Without a doubt, the full-scale “MIRROR” will be an intense and memorable experience for visitors from all over the world. Unfortunately, this performance was canceled right after the UAE was reported to have best balance between economic activity and infection prevention measures in the world, thanks to its testing program, vaccination/booster rollout, and mandatory masking. I’m praying that the situation will improve by March and that MIRROR will be unveiled at the Dubai Expo.

Keiichiro Shibuya graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts with a B.A. in Music Composition. In 2002, he founded music label, ATAK. His diverse soundscape covers areas such as cutting-edge electronic music, piano solos, opera, soundtrack music, sound installation, and so forth. He released a Vocaloid opera starring Hatsune Miku, which comprised of no people, called “The End” in 2012. The opera was shown at Théâtre du Châtelet and other places around the world. In 2018, he released “Scary Beauty,” an android opera conducted by an AI-operated humanoid android that sings along. This was shown in Japan, Europe, and UAE. In September of 2019, Keiichiro then presented “Heavy Requiem,” a marriage between Buddhist music and chants and electronic music, at Ars Electronica in Austria. He explores themes of humanity and technology as well as the border between life and death with his work. In September 2020, he created the music for the film “Midnight Swan” starring Tsuyoshi Kusanagi. His work for this film won the Music Award at both the 75th Mainichi Film Awards and the 30th Japan Movie Critics Award. His most recent opera piece, “Super Angels,” had its world premiere on August 2021 at New National Theater Tokyo.
http://atak.jp
Photography Ronald Stoops

Translation Aya Apton

The post A report on Keiichiro Shibuya and Eizen Fujiwara’s “Mirror in the Mirror”—“Massive Life Flow; Inside the Mind of Keiichiro Shibuya” Part 4 appeared first on TOKION - Cutting edge culture and fashion information.