takahiko iimura - For Purchase:: DVD

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For Purchase



	□ DVD "Seeing Through The Body" with Yayoi Kusama, with Mario Montez new release ! □ DVD "ON TIME IN FILM/DVD" □ DVD "Art of Takahiko iimura" □ DVD "FOR FILMIC MEDITATION" □ DVD"Takahiko iimura Experiments in New York" □ DVD"NEW YORK DAY AND NIGHT-A Journey Through Light and Darkness" □ DVD"MA/間: A Japanese Concept" □ DVD"Seeing / Hearing / Speaking" □ DVD"Early Conceptual Videos" □ DVD"60s EXPERIMENTS" □ DVD"Cine Dance: The Butoh of Tatsumi Hijikata - "Anma (The Masseurs)+"Rose Colored Dance" □ DVD"FLUXUS REPLAYED" □ DVD"FILMMAKERS" □ DVD"Yoko Ono : This Is Not Here" □ DVD"JOHN CAGE PERFORMS JAMES JOYCE " □ DVD"AIUEONN SIX FEATURES" □ DVD"OBSERVER/OBSERVED"


				DVD"Seeing Through The Body" with Yayoi Kusama, with Mario Montez 1968-2007, 2 Films, 30min.. NTSC/Rigion ALL ISBN978-4-901181-37-0 Home use$100 (Institutional use US$500) ■"FLOWERS" 1968-69, 11min, color, Music：Tomomi Adachi （2007) With：Yayoi Kusama (Body Painting) with the performers Akiko iimura　 ■ "FACE" 1968-69, 19min, color, With：Mario Montez, Donna Kerness, Linda Voice Over: Akiko iimura "FLOWERS" While I was staying in New York in the 1960s during the rise of the hippie movement, I saw performances of body painting by the artist Kusama Yayoi in parks and other places and became interested in the performances. Many people had gathered around the performance and at the center she practiced her art. I filmed her performances and one day she informed me of an upcoming indoor performance. After shooting I made a film poem through several super-impositions of flowers, the symbol of the hippy movement giving them the name 'flower children, ' over the performance as I wasn't satisfied with merely documenting her piece. The performance, however, is not always in the foreground, but is woven like fabric among the superimposed flowers. These scenes are, taking the word quite literally, one of the most erotic ones among my films. Furthermore another female figure (Akiko Iimura) also emerges in soft focus. The film ends on a New York rooftop with a wind blown flowered dress suspended over the Empire State Building. Nearly 40 years later Tomomi Adachi has composed fascinating music for the film. (T.I.) "FACE" 　In the same year that 'Flowers' was produced I happened to make the acquaintance of Mario Montez, superstar of Warhol's films and, whose name was taken after a one time Hollywood Star, Maria Montez, and I was attracted by his transvestite beauty. In addition to Mario's performance I also requested performances from Donna Kerness, who had appeared in the black comedy of the Kuchar brothers' underground films, and Linda who was a personal acquaintance. Fiction and reality collide in microscopic montage with the sexual performances limited to only facial expressions in extreme close-up of those three females (including Mario) while at the same time documenting the reality of life. These constructs were inherited from my earlier "Love", but this time shot in color and focusing on individual action. Perhaps the viewer's visual experience will be mixed, blurring the line between fiction and reality and will become one with life and sex. A big, laughing voice throughout the film may sound "absurd," yet at the same time the nature of life fuses (or alienates for some) with the expression of sex. (T.I.) ↑Top


		「FACE」


					DVD"ON TIME IN FILM/DVD" 1975-2007, 3 Films, 33min. NTSC/Rigion ALL ISBN978-4-901181-36-5 Home use$60 (Institutional use US$300) ■"24FRAMES PER SECOND"　 (1975-78/2007, 16mm/dvd, b/w, 10min.35sec., sound.) ■"TIMED 1, 2, 3 (From MODELS, Reel 1)" （1972/2007,16mm/dvd, b/w,10min.15sec., ,sound) ■"ONE FRAME DURATION" （1977/2007, 16mm/dvd, b/w & color, 11min., sound.） "Time is, as it has been said by John Cage on music, the most important issue".( Takahiko iimura) "In concentrating on this set of problems, often wrongly seen as 'minimalist', Iimura went much, much further than any other film artist in exploring a kind of art-science. This concern with the experience of time, its measured passage and the analogy between time and space, has been the main recurring theme at the centre of his work." Malcolm Le Grice（The author of "Abstract Film and Beyond", MIT Press) 24 FRAMES PER SECOND "Both in terms of its examination of time and space, of light and darkness, of visuals and sounds; and in terms of its demands and potential rewards for an audience, 24 Frames Per second is a quintessential Iimura film. The film alternates between one-second passages during which the viewer sees one of a series of fractions and [with] one-second segments of black and clear leader. As the film progress, the fractions grow from 1/24 to 24/24. "1/24," for example, is followed by one second of film in which one frame is clear and 23 are black or[then] one is black, 23 clear." Scott MacDonald TIMED 1, 2, 3 (From MODELS, Reel 1) "My favorite section of Models - "Timed 1, 2, 3" - is a particularly effective interweaving of visuals and sounds. Visually, each section of the film is composed of 10-second spans of clear and dark leader, arranged in a progressive fashion so that at first there is more and more light and less darkness, then vice versa. During "Timed 1" a sound "bip" scratched directly onto the soundtrack is audible each second; in "Timed 2" the sounds are audible every 10 seconds; and in "Timed 3" we hear them every 100 seconds, or at the halfway point and at the end. ..All in all, the number of interesting filmic explorations in the eight section of Models makes it one of Iimura's most impressive films." Scott MacDonald ↑Top

		"24FRAMES PER SECOND"

		"ONE FRAME DURATION"

"DVD Art of Takahiko iimura"

2006, 12min. color&b/w, sound
NTSC/Rigion ALL
ISBN978-4-901181-35-1
Home use. $30 (Institutional use US$200)

This DVD is a collection of Taka iimura 12 experimental DVDs in excerpts, each in 60 seconds, covering 40 years(1962-2002) of film and video art. A glimpse and a guide to the piece in which one of the highlights is seen. In the menu, you just click the picture you want, or at "Autoplay," you'll get all the pictures in 12 minutes continuously.　Biography & DVDgraphy are listed. The DVDs excerpted are "60s EXPERIMENTS", "CINE DANCE: THE BUTOH OF TATSUMI HIJIKATA", "EXPERIMENTS IN NEW YORK", "FILMMAKERS","EARLY CONCEPTUAL VIDEOS", "JOHN CAGE PERFORMS JAMES JOYCE","NEW YORK DAY AND NIGHT"-A Journey Through Light and Darkness", "MA / 間, A JAPANESE CONCEPT" ,"FLUXUS REPLAYED" , "AIUEONN SIX FEATURES" , "Seeing/Hearing/Speaking" .

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DVD "FOR FILMIC MEDITATION"
"IN THE RIVER" & "SHUTTER"
1969-2007, 2 Films, 42min., color&b/w, sound
Home use : US$60 (Institutional use US$300)
NTSC/Rigion ALL
ISBN978-4-901181-34-3

■IN THE RIVER
(1969-70, 16mm, color, 12min., Sound)
■SHUTTER
(1971, 16mm, B&W, 30min, Music by Keijiro Satoh)"

"I hope you could re-experience through these two films in which I found that a thinking in film comes through silent meditation from the experience of the memory of a man in sacred river in Katmandu and the hallucination of flickering lights."（T.I.)

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"IN THE RIVER"

"SHUTTER"

DVD"Experiments in New York"

1967-1984年, 3Films/Videos, b&w/c, 29min.
NTSC/Rigion ALL
ISBN978-4-901181-29-7
Home use : US$50 (Institutional use US$200)

■ New York Scenes, 1967, 10min. color & b/w
■ New York Hot Springs, 1984, 11min. b/w
■ Talking in New York, 1981, 8min. b/w

(Sold to The Donnel Library, New York City)

Experimental filmmaker Takahiko iimura, who published a DVD "60s Experiments," has lived in Tokyo and New York since 1966 and has produced a number of films in and on New York. Assembled here are three short films selected from among them.

The first, "New York Scenes," 1967, is sketches of certain scenes and portraits of the filmmaker's friends and other people. It is divided into five "chapters" including, a famous filmmaker, Jack Smith with his film "Flaming Creatures." The film is made with one scene per chapter, and the chapters are "Linda with a lens," "Jack Smith with his film "Flaming Creatures," "Fire hydrants on Broadway," "Akiko on the roof," and "A Hippy in the Central Park."

The second film, "New York Hot Springs," 1984, was made with the steam coming out of manholes, a typical scene in the winter on the streets of New York,which reminded him of the Japanese hot springs in volcanic mountains. Consisting of shots of various steam at 10 locations in the city, the film is edited with each shot (5 seconds) in successive order and is rotated 10 times. A kind of Structural Film you might say. Since the form of the steam changes every moment, you are looking at new steam even at the same location.

The third film, "Talking in New York," 1981, is a kind of first person cinema where iimura is the cameraman as well as the actor. Acting like a total stranger in the city who does not speak or hear the language, he walks with a camera to such sight-seeing spots as Times Square,and the top of the Empire State building, etc., only listening to himself speaking the words: "I hear myself at the same time that I speak" in two languages: Japanese and English.The words are a quotation from the book by Jacques Derrida, French philosopher, which he calls "phenomenological essence." (T.I)

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New York Hot Springs

New York Scenes

New York Hot Springs

Talking in New York

DVD"NEW YORK DAY AND NIGHT"
-A Journey Through Light and Darkness

1989, 56min. color
Music by Takehisa Kosugi
Played by Michael Pugliese and Takehisa Kosugi
NTSC/Rigion ALL
ISBN978-4-901181-32-7
Home use : US$70 (Institutional use US$300)

This is not a sight seeing film but a journey through light and darkness reflected on the city of New York.(T.I.)

DVD"MA / 間, A Japanese Concept"
Four films by Takahiko iimura

1977-1989, ４ Films/Videos
NTSC/Rigion ALL
ISBN978-4-901181-21-1
Home use : US$150 (Institutional use US$500)

MA: SPACE/TIME IN THE GARDEN OF RYOAN-JI
1989, 16mm, Color, 16min. Sound
Produced: Program for Art on Film, New York, with support from Metropolitan Museum for Art, New York, & J. Paul Getty Trust, Los Angeles
Music: Takehisa Kosugi, Text: Arata Isozaki

THE MAKING OF <MA> IN RYOAN-JI
1989, Video, B/W & Color, 10min., Sound

MA: THE STONES HAVE MOVED
2004, Video, B/W & Color, 10min., Silent
Co-produced: Kala Art Institute, Berkeley, Ca., USA

MA (INTERVALS)
1977, 16mm, B&W & Color, 10min.(Auto Play),22min.(Single Play)

“Ma appears to apply itself to an infinity of cases, figures, occurrences, it comes from an elementary structural strategy that defines the ideogram's double emblem well enough, a sun in the embrasure of a door.”
- Daniel Charles (The author of John Cage)

“Original, personal..to integrate a philosophical agenda with a visual one”
- Nadine Covert ed. Art On Screen

'Architecture' Award of UNESCO International Festival of Film on Art, 1991

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MA (Intervals), 1977年

THE MAKING OF <MA> IN RYOAN-JI, 1989

MA :SPACE/TIME IN THE GARDEN, 1989

DVD"Seeing / Hearing / Speaking"

2003, 4videos, b&w/color, 33min.
NTSC/Rigion ALL
ISBN978-4-901181-06-8
Home use : US $120 ( Institutional use$500)

ward: Honorable Mention, Video, NAP Video Biennial, Lehigh Valley and Berks, USA.

A multimedia/interactive DVD: "Seeing / Hearing / Speaking" contains two sections. First a new piece, "Seeing" and "Hearing / Speaking", and next, three other related videos produced during 1979-2001. Based on a sentence taken from the seminal book of Jacques Derrida, French philosopher, "Speech and Phenomena" translated by David B. Allison, I produced first video "Talking to Myself" in 1978 (revised in 2001). The video was highly appreciated as "the strongest, most effective statement one could make from the work of Derrida" by Professor Allison. The sentence I quoted, that Derrida calls "phenomenological essence" is that I hear myself at the same time that I speak..

Other three related videos are "Talking to Myself: Phenomenological Operationﾓ(1978), "Talking in New York"(1981, revised in 2001) and "Talking to Myself at PS1" (1985)-all quoting the same sentence from Derrida. Besides the video, the DVD is a multimedia interactive piece including text, graphics, and animation.

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DVD"Early Conceptual Videos"

1970-1977, ５Videos, 23min., B/W, sound
NTSC/Rigion ALL
ISBN978-4-901181-30-0
Home use : US$70 ( Institutional use$300)

□A Chair (1970) 6min
□Blinking (1970) 2min.
□Time Tunnel (1971)5min.
□Man and Woman (1971) 2min.
□Visual Logic (and Illogic) (1977) 8min.

Here is one of the starting point of Japanese video art.
After coming back from New York in 1969, Taka iimura started video production in Tokyo. Working in experimental film since the early 1960s, he first combined the art of film with video thus making a kind of flicker effect in video in two pieces: "A Chair" (1970) and "Blinking" (1970). These videos are experiments in perception, and are very minimal in form consisting of a single object which requires a lot of attention.
"Time Tunnel" (1971) is an attempt at time travel in a very conseptual sense.
"Man and Woman" (1971) shows full body shots of a naked man and woman shot from above without movement: stills. They are shown alone as well as together one over (or under) the other symbolizing in words at the same time, their positions.
"Visual Logic (and Illogic)" (1977) shows visual logic (and illogic) of sign combining with limited movements of camera for panning and zooming.
These early videos signify very early experiments of a particular "conceptual video, " that almost no other video artists had ever tried at that time. Furthermore this is an important collection to clarify later developments of the art of iimura's video.
(Most of the works are excerpted.)

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A Chair, 1970

Blinking, 1970

DVD"60s EXPERIMENTS"

Anthology of films made in 60s,and Tokyo. "JUNK,1962,10min.,B/W,Music by Takehisa Kosugi; Ai(LOVE), 1962,10min., B/W, Music by Yoko Ono; ON EYE RAPE,1962, 10min., B/W/color, Co-Pro.Natsuyuki Nakanishi, A DANCE PARTY IN THE KINGDOM OF LILLIPUT, 1964, 12min., B/W Total 42min.

1962-1964, 4films, B&W&C, 49min.
NTSC/Rigion ALL
ISBN978-4-901181-06-8
Home use : US $150 (Institutional use US$500)

"From early sixties, though Japanese, Iimura was well known as one of the first generation of the New York Underground ... For many years, Japanese experimental film was Takahiko Iimura." Malcolm Le Grice, Time Out, London.

"LOVE is a poetic and sensuous exploration of the body...fluid, direct, beautiful." Jonas Mekas, Village Voice, New York.

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Ai (Love), 1962

ON EYE RAPE,1962

A DANCE PARTY IN THE KINGDOM OF LILLIPUT, 1964

DVD"Cine Dance: The Butoh of Tatsumi Hijikata
- "Anma (The Masseurs)+"Rose Colored Dance"

1963-2007, 2 Films
NTSC/Rigion ALL
ISBN978-4-901181-22-X
Home use : US$150. (Institutional use US$500)

"Anma (The Masseurs)
1963-2001、B&W、silent、20minutes（Completed Version)
Dancers: Tatsumi Hijikata, Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno, Akira Kasai, and others

"Anma (The Masseurs)" is a representative and historical work by the creator of Butoh dance, Tatsumi Hijikata in his early period in the 1960s. The film is realized not only as a dance document but also as a Cine-Dance, a term made by Iimura, that is meant to be a choreography of film. The filmmaker "performed" with a camera on the stage in front of the audience. With the main performers: Tatsumi Hijikata and Kazuo Ohno, the film has the highlights such as Butohs of a soldier by Hijikata & a mad woman by Ohno. There is a story of the mad woman, first outcast and ignored, at the end joins to the community through her dance. Inserted descriptions of Anma(The Masseurs) are made for the film by the filmmaker, but were not in the original Butoh. The film, the only document taken of the performance, must be seen for the understanding of Hijikata Butoh and the foundation of Butoh.

"Rose Colored Dance"(1965-2001)
1965-2001, B&W, silent, 13minutes（Completed Version)
Dancers: Tatsumi Hijikata, Kazuo Ohno, Yoshito Ohno, Akira Kasai, Mitsutaka Ishii, and others

Another Cine Dance, "Rose Colored Dance" by Tatsumi Hijikata, the creator of Butoh dance, a modern dance of Japan, is a classic of Butoh. Choreographed and performed in 1965 by Hijikata with guest dancer, Kazuo Ohno among others, the film is the only document of this historical performance. Not only as a dance document but also as a Cine-Dance, a term made by Iimura, that meant a choreography of film.
The highlight is the duet of Hijikata and Ohno, a rare appearance of two main characters of Butoh together, who performed a "gay" dance of two male figures with tenderness and wildness at the same time.
Though titled "Rose Colored Dance", the film (and the dance as well) is monochrome with strong emphasis on white, all the dancers wearing white clothing with thier bodies painted white, and has occasional washed out scenes which are almost invisible. The scenes are an another attempt of Cine-Dance.

"Through these films, it became clear that the Black Butoh dance created by Tatsumi Hijikata is closer to the neo-dada movement taking over the provocative, cynical and absurd forms rather than the German expressionist dance usually connected."
- Nicolas Villodre, curator of Cinematheque Francaise, Paris

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Anma (The Masserus)

Rose Colored Dance

DVD"Fluxus Replayed"

1991, B&W, 30minutes
Camera: Phill Niblock, Takahiko iimura
ISBN978-4-901181-24-6
NTSC/Rigion ALL
Home use : US$100. (Institutional use US$400)

The performance by FLuxus, an origin of art-performance, with the pieces by Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Dick Higgins, and others.

Document of the performance by an international avant-garde group, Fluxus, in New York, 1991, played by the member of Fluxus with the works of early 1960s by the artists: Yoko Ono, Nam June Paik, Dick Higgins, George Brecht, Allison Knowles, Ben Patterson, Jackson Mac Low and Emett Williams.
Video version of unreleased documentary by Takahiko iimura.

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Nam June Paik "One for Violine"

Yoko Ono "Sky Piece for Jesus Christ"

DVD"FILMMAKERS"

1966-68, 28min., color.
Home use : US$80. (Institutional use US$300)
ISBN4-901181-23-8
NTSC/Rigion ALL

"This is a film portrait of the filmmakers in whom I was most interested at the time: Stan Brakhage, Stan Vanderbeek, Jack Smith, Jonas Mekas, and Andy Warhol, as well as myself. I shot it during my first visit to the US, in 1966-68, then completed it in Japan in 1969. I added my own "comment" by emphasizing selected words by simultaneously juxtaposing with the images, as often occurs during foreign language lessons. Each of the filmmakers appears for about 5 minutes (about 200 feet of film) except myself (with only 50 feet). The editing was done in the camera, and much of it was shot without using a viewfinder. Many scenes were intended to use techniques particularly associated with the filmmaker. For example, those featuring Jonas Mekas, incorporated the frame by frame techniques which he often employed in his work. A private yet historical document.” (T.I)
Collection of Anthology Film Archives, New York.
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DVD"Yoko Ono : This Is Not Here"
with Yoko Ono & John Lennon
1971, 18min. English and Japanese versions
Home use : US$150. (Institutional use US$400)
ISBN4-901181-26-2
NTSC/Rigion ALL

A document of the Yoko Ono retrospective art show with John Lennon as guest artist, "This is not here" held at Everson Museum, New York, 1971.

The film begins with Yoko's speech at the press conference that continues throughout the film as she talks about "radical art", a non-violent one, and advocates "total communication". Many important art objects and installations of Yoko's are seen as the camera goes along with Yoko and John through the installation.
Allen Ginsberg and George Maciunas were two of the many other guest artists who participated in the exhibition.

At the end a "piano piece"by Yoko in which people including John and Yoko are just hitting continuously the surface of a closed piano is overwhelming. (T.I.)

"Takahiko Iimura is not an ordinary artist. He is undoubtedly one of the first Japanese artists, along with Yoko Ono and Ryuichi Sakamoto gain substantial international reputation...
An emotionally moving film documentary of Yoko Ono and John Lennon."
Carl Eugene Loeffler, Artcom, President, San Fransisco

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DVD"JOHN CAGE PERFORMS JAMES JOYCE "

1985, 15min., color
Home use : US$100 (Institutional use US$400)
NTSC/Rigion ALL

A private performance by John Cage realizing his "Writing For The Fifth Time Through Finnegans Wake" in three ways: reading, singing, and whispering using I-Chin chance-operation: Chinese fortune-telling.

Exhibited at "Rolywholyover: A Circus by John Cage", Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Mito Art Museum, Mito, Japan.

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DVD"AIUEONN SIX FEATURES"

1994, 5 Videos, 15min., color
５Videos, the first a full version, 1993, 7min, and 4 other excerpted different versions, 1982-1994. Individually menu driven. Real Face Version, 2min., Yellow Face Version, 2min., Multiple Face Version, 2min., Remix Version, 1min., all excerpted. Total 15min.
Utilizes "System G", Real Time Three Dimensional Texture Mapping developed by Sony.
Home use : US$50. (Institutional use US$300)
NTSC/Rigion ALL

Awards:"Rusting Ear Prize"at WRO Sound Basis Visual Art Festival, Wroclaw Poland. 1993 . Best Five selected at Festival mudial do Minuto, Sao Paulo (video), 1993. Dircotor's Citation Honor at Athen Film/Video Festival, Ohio, 1994. Third Place award at Short Attention Span Film/Video Festival, San Francisco, 1994. Finalists Award, New York Festival. 1995 . "Honorable Mention" Award, Columbus International Film / Video Festival, Colombus, Ohio, USA, 1996. Grand Prize, Rough and Ruined Int'l Film Festival, Vancouver.1997.

"Combining the comical with the absurd, I created six funny faces to animate the images of Japanese vowels while differentiating between 'Image', 'Letter', and 'Voice'." Takahiko Iimura. "Iimura deconstructs our coherence as he shifts between the English Roman alphabet and Japanese characters, interjects spoken Japanese, and manipulates the computer images of his features. The images often take on geometical shapes, others recall the classical images from Japanese woodcuts of Samurai warrior grimace." Robert West, Curator, Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte, NC, USA.

Screened: Grand Prize, Rough and Ruined Film Festival, Vancouver, Canada; Finalist Award,New York Festival;Edison Black Maria Film Festival, Jersey City, NJ, USA; One Minute San Paulo Festival, San Paulo, Brazil.

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DVD"OBSERVER/OBSERVED
and Other Works of Video Semiology"
1975-98, 3 Videos, 22min., B&W.
Produced in co-production with the Banff Centre for the Arts, Banff, Canada.
Home use : US$70. (Institutional use US$300)
ISBN4-901181-20-6
NTSC/Rigion ALL　

"This video trilogy of "Camera, Monitor, Frame", "Observer/Observed", and "Observer/Observed/Observer" creates a semiology of video as a work on video rather than a written text. Its main purpose is to study the structural relationships between video and language, in this case using the English language. I designed a system depicting the relationship between the observer and the person being observed using words such as "I" and "YOU" through a video feedback system as the basis. What concerns me is the structure of "seeing" involving both the observer and the observed through such devices as the sentence "I see you" being posited by a closed-circuit video system. This trilogy of "Camera, Monitor, Frame", "Observer/Observed", and "Observer/Observed/Observer" is a remake of my 1975-76 version; it is shorter in length, but its original concept has not been changed. The CD-Rom version is a multimedia piece with text (English & Japanese) and CG animation in addition to video." Takahiko Iimura.

Awarded: Director's Citation Award, Edison Black Maria Film & Video Festival, 1998. Honorable Mention Award, Columbus Intﾕl Film & Video Festival,1998.
Flagstaff Int'l Film/Video Festival, USA, 1999. Bronze prize, New York Expo Film Festival, New York,2001. Thaw 01 Festival, Iowa, and NAP Video Festival, N.J, 2001

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� For Purchase No.2