ImproVisions #2: Makiko Nishikaze – Augen Ohren Hören

Can you see with your ears and hear with your eyes? – This question arises when the musician, composer and media artist Makiko Nishikaze is a guest in the second ImproVisions edition. She studied composition first in Japan, then at Mills College in California with Alvin Curran. She completed her studies at the Berlin University of the Arts as a master student of Walter Zimmermann.

Improvisation and performance have always been central components of her work. For several years now, Makiko Nishikaze has also been intensively involved with film and photography – art forms that, for her, are closely linked to sound and music. The starting point is the idea that conscious listening can also intensify perception with other senses.

One result of this was the consistent development of her video art as a visual composition. Nishikaze compares the way she works on her videos to her approach to musical composition. One thing they have in common is the shaping of time. The dramaturgy of the images is also subject to musical principles, for example in the treatment of sequences, condensation of color or changes in tempo. For her, her films – whether with or without sound – are music for the eyes and ears.

She also sees her photographic work as having a direct connection to musical improvisation, realized, for example, in the relationship between listening and reacting. Her “sound photos without sound” speak for themselves and can also be interpreted as musical scores.

In the conversation moderated by Mathias Maschat, Makiko Nishikaze provides information about her work between music and image using numerous examples.

The Denkraum series ImproVisions is in view of the Symposium: Filming Improvisation – Improvising with Film conceptualises and sets thematic accents in advance.

http://www.makiko-nishikaze.de/

Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Twkwc3ijgs