申し訳ありません。このコンテンツはただ今、英語のみとなります。 For the sake of viewer convenience, the content is shown below in the alternative language. You may click the link to switch the active language.

Where Sound, Light, and Matter Meet at the Edge of Perception

Like a magnifying lens that allows everyday moments to be perceived with greater sensitivity, Shiro Takatani’s latest work, Tangent, guides the spectator on a journey of perception, where time, light, sound, and matter reveal themselves anew, as fleeting experiences suspended within enduring memory of life.

Staged in Shanghai in November at Theatre Young during the ARTRA 2025 Festival, Tangent is conceived by Shiro Takatani, founding member of the legendary Japanese collective Dumb Type, and performed by internationally renowned sound artist Miyu Hosoi. The work features selected music from the late artist Ryuichi Sakamoto’s final album, 12.

Employing state-of-the-art technology, including an 18.4-channel immersive sound system, pendulum-based audio feedback devices, and motion-controlled cameras that track the performer’s movements in real time, the stage becomes a liminal space that blurs perceptual boundaries of time and place. Within this environment, sound, light, together with natural phenomena such as mist, electric sparks, and sonic impulses, converge to create a deeply immersive and emotionally resonant experience.

On this occasion, we had the honour of interviewing the two artists, Shiro Takatani and Miyu Hosoi. Throughout this article, their voices accompany the performance, offering insight into the work’s conception, inspirations, and lived experience on stage.

Tangent, Shiro Takatani, Photo Credit: Yoshikazu Inoue

An ethereal, arid atmosphere lies before the spectators, recalling a white shoreline where sand, stones, and a few elements, a table, a ladder, and a chair, quietly compose the stage. In this uncanny environment, a spotlight follows a semicircular path, slowly orbiting the space and establishing a natural sense of time. This continuous motion makes subtle shifts in perception visible: shadows stretch and recede, while the performer wanders freely, rearranging stones and gently altering the landscape. Through these minimal actions, the viewer is drawn into sensations and images that hover between dream and awakening.

From this suspended state, the conversation begins with the following question:
ADF: What was the first image, sound, or emotion that inspired the creation of Tangent?

Shiro Takatani: When I first began thinking about Tangent, I reflected on those specific moments that occur only at certain times, at dusk and at dawn, when the sun’s rays touch the Earth, creating a visual and emotional threshold. This drew me to the idea of the “shore of the Earth, created by sunlight.”
During the development of Tangent, I often discussed these qualities of morning and evening with Ryuichi Sakamoto. Such moments are undeniably beautiful, yet they also awaken an overwhelming feeling of the vastness of space.

The attention then shifts to a table placed at the centre of the stage. Six objects slowly descend into the scene, eventually landing on its metal surface. They are everyday items: a small round mirror, a blue bottle, a glass, a portable radio, a book, and a book holder. The performer moves carefully among them, observing and studying each object, allowing the audience to perceive their material qualities through her hands.

Tangent, Shiro Takatani, Photo Credit: Yoshikazu Inoue

ADF: Do you feel any personal or emotional connection to the objects on stage, and what do they represent for you within the context of Tangent?

Miyu Hosoi: Yes, I feel a personal connection to these objects. Being alone on stage, they serve as a point of contact between me and the world of Tangent at that specific time and place.

For example, the small broom I take from my pocket during the first scene is a souvenir I bought for myself during the creation period in Kyoto. Some of the stones were collected by Shiro, while others I picked up at the Venice Biennale during our performances. The blue bottle, too, is a wine bottle that Shiro once received as a gift from Ryuichi Sakamoto. There’s a scene in the performance where I gaze at that bottle and its shadow. When I hold the bottle up to the light, I sometimes think of Ryuichi through the blue colour, or feel as if I’m looking at the sky or the universe. Depending on where I place the bottle, the shadow changes significantly from one performance to the next.

These objects then become the focus of the following scene, as the performer begins to rearrange them on the table. With the opening of the book, the viewer is suddenly transported from the arid shore into a study room. A ceiling-mounted camera records the entire scene live from a top-down perspective, allowing the spectator to participate and immerse themselves through this new viewpoint.

Within the book, illustrations of maps, constellations, pure geometry, and mathematical models create a research space, suggesting an investigation into the underlying rules of our reality. Deeply absorbed in this act of study, the performer gently turns the pages, tracing observations and drawings from the book. These theories and reflections echo the cosmos and natural phenomena to the point that the pen releases bright sparks with each decisive stroke, further enhancing the magic of this intimate and mystical moment.

Through this sensory encounter with the objects, the audience is able to generate meaning. Similarly, technology is employed on stage as the primary human means to recreate and express a relationship with nature.

Tangent, Shiro Takatani, Photo Credit: Yoshikazu Inoue

ADF: The physical qualities of objects play a crucial role in your work. What kind of dialogue or relationship do you develop with the objects that compose the scenes of Tangent?

Shiro Takatani: Texture, materials, sound, and light are all essential elements. We communicate with the outside world through them. It is important that each of these elements truly exists, not merely as a prop or representation, but as a tangible presence that the audience can directly perceive and experience in the space.

ADF: How do you see the role of technology in deepening our perception of reality and nature?

Shiro Takatani: I want to use technology to slice time and see a cross-section of it.

Without warning, a palpable tension emerges on stage as the performer stops drawing and tracing images from the book. In the next second, the table flips and crashes heavily to the floor, releasing a loud metallic sound.

Darkness and near-total silence suddenly envelop the theatre. Under very dim light, it is barely possible to discern that the fallen table has transformed into a metal canvas, suspended in mid-air by cables.

In this condition, the performer enters holding what appears to be a welding rod. Upon contact with the metal surface, bright sparks briefly ignite the stage. Through large movements and bold gestures, the performer emotionally reenacts the signs and traces previously studied in the book.

Tangent, Shiro Takatani, Photo Credit: Yoshikazu Inoue

Sparks and traces of energy are infused into the material, oscillating between awe and fear, power and fragility, and evoking a contemplation of the vastness of nature.  A thin, cloud-like mist drifts into the space, blurring the boundary between the physical and the immaterial. In the meantime, the fleeting marks are held in memory through the digital screen behind, where each gesture is preserved as a lasting impression, an accumulation of moments that would otherwise be lost.

At the height of this emotional crescendo, darkness and silence return, opening a space for introspection. It is within this suspension that the performer’s inner experience comes into focus.

ADF: As both a performer and a sound artist, how did you approach taking on the central role in Tangent? What were your initial feelings when occupying the stage alone?

Miyu Hosoi: It’s extremely difficult to define what lies at the core of Tangent as a performance. That’s because the theme itself is “tangent,” and I feel like I’m simply someone who happens to be present where those connecting points are born. If even one single element (lighting, sound, or stage design) were missing, the performance would feel as though it had lost its centre.

As I touched on earlier, the objects, light, and sound were designed in a way that allowed me to move and act according to my own will within the world of Tangent. These elements made me feel like I wasn’t alone. Although I was the only human on stage, I always felt the presence of the project team through the light, sound, and the movements of objects, and that gave me a sense of comfort.

Tangent, Shiro Takatani, Photo Credit: Yoshikazu Inoue

A new landscape opens before the spectator, recalling the arid shore of the opening scene. At the centre of the stage, a sphere begins to move like a pendulum, slowly orbiting through space. The performer engages in a choreography that mirrors this circular motion, at first cautiously, then with growing assurance. Sounds emitted from the sphere reverberate throughout the theatre, and, as if in dialogue, the performer responds with intoned voices and lullabies. Gradually, the atmosphere becomes warm and intimate, evoking a sense of enclosure and closeness, reminiscent of a maternal space. These harmonious sounds slowly merge with those of a gently wavering sea, echoing human memories that feel at once nostalgic and distant.

ADF: This scene creates a strong sense of intimacy through circular movement and sound. How did you conceive these relationships, and what role did music play in connecting them within Tangent?

Shiro Takatani: The relationship between Ryuichi's piano, the voice of Miyu Hosoi, and the circular movement of the speaker created what I like to call a sonic “contact.” Unfortunately, due to Sakamoto’s health issues, it was not possible for him to compose music specifically for Tangent, so I decided to work with the last music he created. All members of the production team, as well as the sound, lighting, video, and stage staff, had worked with Ryuichi before. Rather than using his music simply as a soundtrack, we searched for ways to connect it more deeply with the concept of Tangent.

ADF: ​​How did you experience this specific relationship during your performance?

Miyu Hosoi: During this scene, and throughout the entire performance, I never once felt that Ryuichi was “no longer here.” That, in itself, felt very mysterious. Rather than sorrow, what I felt was closer to curiosity, like the anticipation of meeting someone. Not here, but surely somewhere out there. That was the sensation.

I believe this relates to the phrase he left behind, “ars longa, vita brevis”, not in a spiritual sense, but in a deeply material one. In other words, he continues to live within the production team through those who worked closely with him until that moment.

From this shared sense of continuity, the performance resumes. The globe continues to orbit above the stage, while images of shorelines emerge and drift across the background screen, giving rhythm to these fleeting moments as they pass. Within this continuous flow, new images of different locations begin to surface: a parking lot, railway tracks, mountains, landscapes, seemingly disparate places that gradually assemble into a constellation of everyday moments. Like countless fragments, they begin to compose an entire world, or perhaps the scattered memories of a lifetime.

Tangent, Shiro Takatani, Photo Credit: Yoshikazu Inoue

As these images overlap, they generate a cascading effect that rapidly intensifies, overwhelming the audience with sonic vibrations, visual glitches, and stroboscopic lights. Suspended between awe and oppression, the infinitesimal snapshots dissolve into a fluid sense of duration. Then, in an almost unbearable moment, the performer enters calmly, reaches out, and stops the globe’s circling motion. At that exact instant, everything ceases: a complete shutdown. Silence once again envelops the theatre. It is within this tension, between familiarity and disorientation, intimacy and distance, that Takatani’s approach to theatrical space becomes particularly evident.

ADF: Your work creates a reflective space within the theatre. How do you approach shaping that space in relation to the audience?

Shiro Takatani: I believe that an artwork exists in the space between itself and the viewer. Simply completing a work is not even half of the process. It unfolds as a form of communication that only begins when the “hooks” embedded in the work draw something out from the viewer. In that moment, the work truly comes into being, arising through the relationship between the viewer and what has been communicated. This is true for both stage productions and installations.

A new dimension slowly comes into view. Four metal screens hang vertically, composing the scene with their monolithic presence. The performer approaches this unfamiliar reality with caution and a sense of wonder at what lies before her. Through gentle gestures and quiet curiosity, she touches their surfaces, from which sounds, voices, and vibrations begin to resonate. These echo the sounds heard in earlier scenes, yet now they seem compressed, embedded within the material itself.

Like archaeological relics, the metal surfaces appear lifeless, mysterious, and opaque, yet filled with unimaginable memories and traces of a past existence. In this encounter, poised between recognition and remembrance, light and sound intensify once more, converging into a single source. A blinding brightness overhead, a sun-like presence illuminating the space, reaching its peak and then abruptly shutting down. Obscurity and silence follow: peace and introspection, an ending of emotional fullness held within a powerful void.

Tangent, Shiro Takatani, Photo Credit: Yoshikazu Inoue

ADF: What is your relationship with this character, and how does it evolve throughout the performance?

Miyu Hosoi: What I intended was to present myself consistently as just one sample of us humans, including the audience. In the world of Tangent, I simply happened to be the one chosen to step onto the stage. I aimed to create a situation in which it was not Miyu Hosoi, the performer who was present, but simply a human being.

That said, I find it incredibly interesting how, through the power of lighting, sound, and stage design, the appearance of a single human being can change so drastically. Even though the person on stage remains the same, changes in the surrounding conditions can fundamentally alter how their presence and personality are perceived. It may sound slightly unsettling, but to me, this is also a testament to the team’s precise and sensitive approach to storytelling.

In conclusion, Tangent exists through moments of contact, points that unfold uniquely within each viewer, and within the work itself. As Miyu Hosoi explains, the performance is composed of shifting shadows and points of contact that subtly change from one iteration to another, depending on her movements and the placement of objects. Each time, she responds to these elements, encountering a different tangent on stage. In parallel, spectators emerge from this masterpiece with a renewed state of perception, as the work leaves behind a subtly transformed sensibility.

Tangent, Shiro Takatani, Photo Credit: Yoshikazu Inoue

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Shiro Takatani and Miyu Hosoi for their generosity and openness in sharing their thoughts and experiences; Yoko Takatani for her coordination in making this interview and article possible; and the Epidemic team and Yoshikazu Inoue for their support, contacts, and stunning photography.