Takahiko Iimura

"This Is A Camera Which Shoots This" and "As I See You You See Me" are both set up facing two cameras and monitors and the performer walks between them while voicing the sentence of the title. Here the words "This" and "You" have the same form in the nominative and the objective cases, switching the roles of not only the signifier (word) but also the signified (object).

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"This Is a Camera Which Shoots This" and "As I See You You See Me" are both set up facing two cameras and monitors and the performer walks between them while voicing the sentence of the title. Here the words "This" and "You" have the same form in the nominative and the objective cases, switching the roles of not only the signifier (word) but also the signified (object).

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Experimental film involving letters.

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The film reproduces the historic performances by some of the iconic artists of Fluxus from the 60s: Nam June Paik, Yoko Ono, Dick Higgins, George Brecht, Alison Knowles, Ben Patterson, Jackson Mac Low etc.

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A compilation tape of performances including John Cage Performs James Joyce, Arakawa, and Iimura's first AIUEONN and As I See You You See Me shot mostly 1980s. All deals with the relationships of words and performance in image-making.

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Film by Takahiko Iimura

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"The Making..." showed not only the process of film-making, but also the creation of "MA" as a work.

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A journey through light and darkness reflected on the city of New York.

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The early sixteenth-century Japanese garden in the Zen temple of Ryoan-ji, in Kyoto, is considered a masterpiece of the karesansui or "dry landscape" style... In this film, the viewer is invited to experience the garden as an embodiment of ma, a Japanese concept that conveys both time and space... The aesthetic of the film is the message, it has the quality of an experimental film, a conceptual film-an artwork in itself. Good balance of music/visuals/titles. If not as compelling for some viewers as for others, still rated as very effective. Makes one want to visit the actual garden and experience its spiritual energy. – Art on Screen

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Film by Takahiko Iimura

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An image synthesized version of Mardi Gras festival in New Orleans, in which many colorized images flow slowly left to right as the parade of the floats goes by in front of the camera with the decorated messages. The title Scared to Death is one of them. The development of the images is somewhat similar to the old Japanese scrolled painting: Makie.

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"Double Portrait" and "I Love You" are a paired piece with Akiko Iimura. Both Iimuras play individually as well as a unit. In "Double Portrait" they are never together, but one by one in three points of view, front, side, and back, assigned to the words "I", "You" and "He/She" respectively. The pronouns rotate with every repetition, for instance, in front view with "You", then "He/She" and back to "I". Often the words are destroyed acoustically making them unintelligible. "I Love You" is not a style of confession, but the words, and a linguistic practice using a sentence and shifting the pronouns.

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“Double Portrait” and “I Love You” are a paired piece with Akiko Iimura. Both Iimuras play individually as well as a unit. In “Double Portrait” they are never together, but one by one in three points of view, front, side, and back, assigned to the words “I”, “You” and “He/She” respectively. The pronouns rotate with every repetition, for instance, in front view with “You”, then “He/She” and back to “I”. Often the words are destroyed acoustically making them unintelligible. “I Love You” is not a style of confession, but the words, and a linguistic practice using a sentence and shifting the pronouns.

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“Moments At The Rock,” shot with an amateur video camera, was made as a free style improvisational film. The camera got strange halations from the strong sunshine in the desert of Australia, and I was quite surprised by the result which surpassed the color change caused by nature over the rock. This film was awarded Grand Prize at the Edison International Film Festival.

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A portmanteau of two films about Uluru (then known as Ayres Rock). "A huge isolated rock in the midst of desert in Australia: Ayers Rock. I produced two films around this rock; however, the method of the filming are different. The first, "Moments At The Rock," shot with an amateur video camera, was made as a free style improvisational film. The camera got strange halations from the strong sunshine in the desert of Australia, and I was quite surprised by the result which surpassed the color change caused by nature over the rock. This film was awarded Grand Prize at the Edison International Film Festival. In "A Rock In The Light", I requested the music of Haruyuki Suzuki, a contemporary composer. This music is unified with the image, which is visually structured, setting the rock at the center, along the axis of light. For the new DVD version, I titled "Air's Rock" - Takahiko Iimura

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A voice performance by John Cage who "reads", "vocalizes" and "whispers" in three different manners his artificial language taken from "Finnegens Wake" by James Joyce. Cage freely composed the letters according to a chance operation using the I-Ching.

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A mind-twisting video, meditating on the experience of watching film/video, and of seeing and being seen. Prodded by a succession of riddles, the videos are lined with humor

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‘New York Hot Springs’ (1984) is scenes of steam coming out of many streets of New York, a typical scene in winter, in repeated cycles of short shots. Though the scenes are shot at the same locations, the timings are differed slightly in every cycle.

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Consisting of four parts: Between the Frames; Seeing Nothing; The Privilege to See; I Am A Viewer / You Are A Viewer. The film demonstrates and discusses the structure of film viewing as an institution: playing/talking myself in the double role of the viewer and the maker at the same time sitting in front of an empty screen and a camera which shoots at my back. It is also a provocative essay on the role of film audience. (Takahiko Iimura)

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The 1981 performance Circle & Square by Takahiko Iimura, New York-based Japanese film and video pioneer, evolved from the artist's interest in exposing the apparatus of projection and the materiality of image and light, which began in the mid-60s. The work commences with the projection of a long loop of black 16mm film leader suspended from the ceiling. The artist punches a hole on the film's surface and as it loops through the projector's gate, a single white circle of light pierces the darkness. With each subsequent punch the film builds before the viewer’s eyes into a cascade of white circles before reaching its abrupt and revelatory conclusion.

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A kind of first person cinema where the filmmaker 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."

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In "I Am A Viewer, You Are A Viewer" the performer plays the double role of the performer and the audience simultaneously, talking to his own shadow. At the end, the performer suggests the audience members move into the light to see themselves in shadow.

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Using the system of academy leader: 10 to 1, the film replaces the number to white space with bip sound (clear leader) gradually until it reaches to complete white.

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In the general classification, this was a complete abstract film and a kind of experimental movie as well, only black film, which blocks light, and clear film, which is totally transparent, were used as the basic materials.

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Demonstrates the visual logic (and illogic) of sign combining with limited movements of camera for panning and zooming.

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The films concerns the "duration" (or non-duration) of one frame, as the title indicates, the minimum unit of film in space (dark and light) with sound (or silent) and their various combinations.

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Camera, Monitor, Frame is the first installment of Takahiko Iimura's "Video Semiotics Triptych" (the other two works are Observer/Observed, made in 1975, and Observer/Observed/Observer, made in 1976). The work analyzes the fundamental components of video: the camera, the monitor, and the frame, focusing on the role of each within a system of video as analogous to the functions of vision and speech.

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Cameras once again observing each other.

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