AMI YAMASAKI
Meeting yourself through attentive listening & exploring your place in the world.
Ami Yamasaki's work is concerned with the relationship between our body, our voice, the sounds we make and perceive, and the space we physically occupy. As a technique for exploring these relationships, her installations and performances often utilise echolocation - calling out to the environment and listening to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects nearby. In her workshop for Unseen, she builds up our skills through a series of exercises so that we are able to more clearly recognize our own place within the environment and the world’s impact on us.
Living in cities and among many people has made us more oblivious than ever to the sounds that surround us. From a very young age, we learn to ignore many loud, often jarring noises. Construction work and heavy machinery drilling into concrete, sirens of passing ambulances, motorbikes roaring by; all these are just part of the ambience, the daily soundscape of living in a city. But sounds aren't external to the body: Ami Yamasaki introduces the idea that sounds exist because they are a part of our bodies. They vibrate our skin, resonate in our eardrums. The sound is us.
This realization prompts a deeper investigation into how we listen, what we really perceive, and also brings up questions about our instruments for hearing, our ears. Ami Yamasaki explores all of the above through a series of exercises aimed at expanding our understanding of perception. We'll explore questions such as: How does deliberately hearing a sound change the sound itself? Do our ears respond to surrounding noises in different ways if some of our other senses are limited? How is the position of our body related to how clearly we can hear a sound? How do the sounds we make resonate in the space we inhabit?
At first glance, Ami Yamasaki's approaches may seem like a creative form of applying sonic principles; however, the objective is to achieve a state (of body and space) in which the space itself sings. To create a situation in which a new relationship between body, space and the people inhabiting it becomes formed through the process of listening and responding to what is heard. It could almost seem mystical, but really it is just a result of time dedicated to treating listening and sounding as a way of being.
Adam Badí Donoval
LISTEN, SO THE WORLD LISTENS TO YOU
Listen. When do you start hearing gradations of the sound that surrounds you?
For these voice performances and sound installations I receive nuances about the density of sound through my voice. Sound flows around us: Sometimes sound is muffled, sometimes clear, sometimes blurry. To describe a space, I use techniques similar to the echo-location used by whales and bats. My voice captures the sonic features of a space and I’ll make it sunny or cloudy. Now you hear the voice of the world. This is how I perform and create.
It is important to be all ears. Blend your body with the world and listen. The world is an extension of yourself. The more you hear, the more you are extended.
A world created by sound, resonance, and quietness reflects the auditory world of each one of us: There is a song that is a reflection of you - the world resembles you. If you can listen long enough the composition of the world and you will be revealed.
Importance of listening
Listening work / experience
Listen to the sound outside by an ear on your hand
Listen, so the world listens to you
All videos were made by Michael Smith-Welch.
BIO
Ami Yamasaki creates performances and installations based on her voice and echolocation. She explores the relationship between sound, voice and body. Sound is a blank space of the body: but sound is a part of the body, directly vibrating the eardrum and skin. Through her artistic practice she presents a world of sound, acoustics, and silence. Since 2000 she has internationally presented performances and installations. Examples of this work include: Setouchi International Triennale “Insular Membrane” (2019), Japan Foundation Fellowship outcome “Ephemeral Knots” (2018), Japan Society NY “Sounds to Summon” (2016), Aomori Contemporary Art Center ”Exchange” (2013). She received an award at “Tokyo Experimental Exhibition vol. 09” (2014) and the grand prize at “The 4th Art Award of Sapporo 500 m Museum” (2016). In 2022 she will participate in “JAPAN. BODY_PERFORM_LIVE” at Padiglione d'ArteContemporanea, introducing performative contemporary Japanese art. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic she co-founded the online performance platform “#leap2live,” providing many performances and workshops to a global audience.
SECONDARY SOURCES
AMI YAMASAKI
Meeting yourself through attentive listening & exploring your place in the world.
Ami Yamasaki's work is concerned with the relationship between our body, our voice, the sounds we make and perceive, and the space we physically occupy. As a technique for exploring these relationships, her installations and performances often utilise echolocation - calling out to the environment and listening to the echoes of those calls that return from various objects nearby. In her workshop for Unseen, she builds up our skills through a series of exercises so that we are able to more clearly recognize our own place within the environment and the world’s impact on us.
Living in cities and among many people has made us more oblivious than ever to the sounds that surround us. From a very young age, we learn to ignore many loud, often jarring noises. Construction work and heavy machinery drilling into concrete, sirens of passing ambulances, motorbikes roaring by; all these are just part of the ambience, the daily soundscape of living in a city. But sounds aren't external to the body: Ami Yamasaki introduces the idea that sounds exist because they are a part of our bodies. They vibrate our skin, resonate in our eardrums. The sound is us.
This realization prompts a deeper investigation into how we listen, what we really perceive, and also brings up questions about our instruments for hearing, our ears. Ami Yamasaki explores all of the above through a series of exercises aimed at expanding our understanding of perception. We'll explore questions such as: How does deliberately hearing a sound change the sound itself? Do our ears respond to surrounding noises in different ways if some of our other senses are limited? How is the position of our body related to how clearly we can hear a sound? How do the sounds we make resonate in the space we inhabit?
At first glance, Ami Yamasaki's approaches may seem like a creative form of applying sonic principles; however, the objective is to achieve a state (of body and space) in which the space itself sings. To create a situation in which a new relationship between body, space and the people inhabiting it becomes formed through the process of listening and responding to what is heard. It could almost seem mystical, but really it is just a result of time dedicated to treating listening and sounding as a way of being.
Adam Badí Donoval
LISTEN, SO THE WORLD LISTENS TO YOU
Listen. When do you start hearing gradations of the sound that surrounds you?
For these voice performances and sound installations I receive nuances about the density of sound through my voice. Sound flows around us: Sometimes sound is muffled, sometimes clear, sometimes blurry. To describe a space, I use techniques similar to the echo-location used by whales and bats. My voice captures the sonic features of a space and I’ll make it sunny or cloudy. Now you hear the voice of the world. This is how I perform and create.
It is important to be all ears. Blend your body with the world and listen. The world is an extension of yourself. The more you hear, the more you are extended.
A world created by sound, resonance, and quietness reflects the auditory world of each one of us: There is a song that is a reflection of you - the world resembles you. If you can listen long enough the composition of the world and you will be revealed.
Importance of listening
Listening work / experience
Listen to the sound outside by an ear on your hand
Listen, so the world listens to you
BIO
Ami Yamasaki creates performances and installations based on her voice and echolocation. She explores the relationship between sound, voice and body. Sound is a blank space of the body: but sound is a part of the body, directly vibrating the eardrum and skin. Through her artistic practice she presents a world of sound, acoustics, and silence. Since 2000 she has internationally presented performances and installations. Examples of this work include: Setouchi International Triennale “Insular Membrane” (2019), Japan Foundation Fellowship outcome “Ephemeral Knots” (2018), Japan Society NY “Sounds to Summon” (2016), Aomori Contemporary Art Center ”Exchange” (2013). She received an award at “Tokyo Experimental Exhibition vol. 09” (2014) and the grand prize at “The 4th Art Award of Sapporo 500 m Museum” (2016). In 2022 she will participate in “JAPAN. BODY_PERFORM_LIVE” at Padiglione d'ArteContemporanea, introducing performative contemporary Japanese art. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic she co-founded the online performance platform “#leap2live,” providing many performances and workshops to a global audience.
SECONDARY SOURCES
Unseen is an online platform and web archive that presents different approaches to listening and cultivating the relationship between our bodies, space and sound. Through a series of exercises, methods and video guides, we are invited to focus on sound as a tool for relieving feelings of separation and isolation, as a tool for imagining better futures.
Unseen is an online platform and web archive that presents different approaches to listening and cultivating the relationship between our bodies, space and sound. Through a series of exercises, methods and video guides, we are invited to focus on sound as a tool for relieving feelings of separation and isolation, as a tool for imagining better futures.