Audio Architecture: Music Becomes Space at Tokyo's 21_21 Design Sight

Curator Yugo Nakamura, a renowned web designer who has exhibited at the Centre Pompidou and the Design Museum of London and lectured at MoMA and MAXXI, has orchestrated an experimental exhibition titled 'Audio Architecture' at 21_21 Design Sight in Tokyo. Nine artists and designers were each given the same musical track composed by Keigo Oyamada (Cornelius), an internationally acclaimed DJ, composer, and producer, and asked to create video works that translate sound into spatial experiences. The exhibition space itself was designed by Masamichi Katayama. Each creator used cinema, animation, dance, graphics, illustration, programming, or media design to produce nine distinct audio-architectural environments. A long screen bent at 90 degrees sits within a theater built in the main gallery, connected to an adjacent gallery where Cornelius's band performs the track. Nakamura's introduction frames the project as an attempt to bridge music—a momentary, invisible phenomenon—with other expressive forms, arguing that while music cannot be expressed through other media, this experiment seeks to explore possibilities of accord. The exhibition runs until October 14, 2018, at 21_21 Design Sight, 9-7-6 Akasaka, Minato-ku, Tokyo.