MEDIATHEK

Collection of Dumb Type's performances and installations:

1- Performance: Voyage (20-21.2.2004, YCAM/Yamaguchi), memorandum (2002), OR (1997).
2- Installation: Voyages (2004), OR (ICC/Tokyo, 1997), IRIS (Juni 2001, Shiro Takatani), frost frames (1998, Shiro Takatani u. Fujiko Nakaya)

[OR] (1997-1999) was created in France in March 1997, following a one-month residency at the Théâtre du Manège in Maubeuge. [OR] is a reflection on the border(s) between life and death, the meaning of its title ranging from the binary system, to the alternative A or B, the 0 (zero) radius, an operation room. Some of the most advanced techniques combined the human body and various media to elicit a range of viewpoints, whether religious, philosophical, medical, cultural, or emotional, onto a blinding-white stage that consisted of a circular floor and semi-cylindrical wall.
Dumb Type described the work as being “about the state of ‘white out’ like in a blizzard, where you are deprived of ability to see, where you can’t recognize anything, where you don’t know where you stand anymore, where you may not know whether you are alive OR dead. But what distinguishes one from the other? Where is the border? What is death? What is it?”

memorandum (1999-2002): the first version of this show was presented in October 1999 by Le Manège, Scène Nationale de Maubeuge (FR). The final version was premiered at the New National Theatre of Tokyo on November 27th 2000. Combining elements of multimedia, dance and fragmented narrative, memorandum explores the hazy dimensions of recall that ground and disquietly erode our experience minute-by-minute.

Voyage, premiered at the Théâtre National de Toulouse in 2002 (FR), was the last performance of the company on tour until 2009.

A new multimedia show was commissioned by the ROHM Theatre in Kyoto in 2019. The work in progress was presented at the KYOTO STEAM — International Arts x Science Festival.

Art installations produced by Dumb Type include LOVERS (Dying Pictures, Loving Pictures), created in 1994 by Teiji Furuhashi. It was originally presented in 1995 and one year later acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York, which restored and exhibited it again in 2016. A second version, produced for the 2001 opening of the Sendai Mediatheque (JP), was again exhibited internationally and ultimately donated to the National Museum of Art, Osaka, in 2017.

[OR] installation, related to the performance [OR], was commissioned by the Inter Communication Center (ICC) in Tokyo for its opening in April 1997. A new version of the artwork was purchased by the Musée d’Art Contemporain, Lyon in 2000. Both LOVERS and [OR] have been exhibited worldwide, among others during Lille 2004 - European Capital of Culture.

Dumb Type also produced Shiro Takatani’s frost frames (1998), Cascade, based on the performance memorandum, premiered at the Salone del Mobile of Milan (2000), and Voyages, related to the performance Voyage, commissioned and premiered by NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] Tokyo in 2002.
Visual imagery and sound from past works [OR], memorandum and Voyage have been revisited in a 4 x HD video installation MEMORANDUM OR VOYAGE, presented at Tokyo Museum of Contemporary Art in 2014.
In 2018, most of the collective’s artworks have been featured in a huge monographic exhibition, Dumb Type Actions + Réflexions, at the Centre Pompidou-Metz. New versions of LOVE/SEX/DEATH/MONEY/LIFE (1995), Playback (1989), pH (1990) were premiered there, alongside LOVERS, MEMORANDUM OR VOYAGE, Toposcan/Ireland (2013) by Shiro Takatani and data.tron (2007) by Ryoji Ikeda.
On the occasion of the 35th anniversary of the group’s formation, an updated version of the exhibition was featured in 2019-2020 at the MOT - Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo, including the new installation TRACE/REACT II.

Music projects include Shiro Takatani’s contribution as artistic director on the first opera LIFE by Ryuichi Sakamoto, which premiered in September 1999. In March 1998, Dumb Type designed the “symphonic novella” by Gérard Hourbette for the first cycle of Dangerous Visions, a project of Art Zoyd and the Orchestre National de Lille, France, combining philharmonic orchestra and new sound and image technologies.

// Ensemble //

Dumb Type is based in Kyoto, Japan. Members are trained in varied disciplines, including the visual arts, architecture, music and computer programming as well as writing, acting, dance, and other forms of performing arts. Dumb Type’s work ranges across such diverse media as art exhibitions, performances, audio-visual and printed publications. http://www.epidemic.net/en/art/dumbtype/ http://dumbtype.com/ http://www.ryojiikeda.com/ http://www.kawaguchitakao.com/ https://kinsei.asia/