Ryūichi Sakamoto's Immersive Sound Installation at M+ Hong Kong

Three years after his death, M+ museum in Hong Kong presents a major exhibition dedicated to Japanese composer Ryūichi Sakamoto (1952–2023), featuring his last immersive sound installation, async–immersion. The work draws from his album async, which he described as his most personal. Sakamoto was also a visual artist; in 1999 he premiered LIFE, a multimedia installation with Shiro Takatani (b. 1963), co-founder of Japanese collective Dumb Type. Takatani also co-created async–immersion in 2023 and completed it after Sakamoto's death, incorporating objects from Sakamoto's New York studio, including his piano, books, and percussion instruments. The installation features an 18-meter LED videowall where images move independently from sound, like tides, creating a parallel temporal axis. It first premiered at the Ambient Kyoto festival, was reinstalled at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MOT) in 2024, and moved to M+ in February 2026. The exhibition, titled Ryuichi Sakamoto | Seeing Sound, Hearing Time, runs until July 5, exploring the experimental dimension of his research.