Relay

June 14th, Sunday. We expected today to become a long day. We planned to have a talk session from 17:00, then chi too was going to do a performance, and after that our plans were to do a streaming live that connects Osaka and Penang.

I plan not to appear so much. First, for the talk event, I decided that I will not talk a lot because I thought the collaboration between Ong Jo-lene, the truly high spirited curator from KL, and the slow speaking Gabija would be interesting, and besides, Gabija is getting used to facilitating since last time. I’ve been talking a bit with Jo-lene these few days. She is quite sharp and can quickly understand situations, and she also has given me a lot of nice words. So, I basically just sat next to her with a smile and nodded to what she was saying. The talk event finished just at the right time, and when I began to wonder what chi too was planning to do, he said to me “Sachiko, can you slowly pop the bubble wraps?” So, I made quite a slow beat out of the popping sounds, and during that each participant popped the bubble wrap they had in their hands once a minute. I had my back facing them and kept on going “pop… pop…” maintaining a steady pace, and it was a pretty nice ENSEMBLE, but when I suddenly looked back, everyone was lying down! chi too was giving the participants a cue each minute in order to let them know when to pop the bubble wraps while they lied down. OK, the director is supposed to just keep the tempo, right? I’m a minimalist, so I’m good at these things, but I felt like this was the best “musical performance” that I have recently done.

The most difficult event today was the Osaka ⇄ Penang live streaming relay. I told the people in Osaka to speak English, which was kind of unreasonable. During the English conversation, which sometimes had strange words coming and going, Azusa Hashimoto who is the curator of The Osaka National Museum of Art showed up at the venue in Osaka. She is actually supposed to come to Penang tomorrow. We supported the translation when she spoke, and she was responding to our calls telling her “Hurry and come over, we’re waiting for you“. I thought this situation was kind of interesting.

We actually decided to do this live streaming event after we arrived to Penang. Her visit to Penang was coincidentally tomorrow, but she came to the venue in Osaka because she was still in Osaka. This all happened by chance, but someone that is in Osaka right now, will be in Penang tomorrow. Her job is in some meaning a “human linking bridge”. I’m having a feeling that her visit will become something that seems just like her.

One more thing. I will do a phone appearance on the NHK radio show “Earth radio”.

It will not be an easy job explaining the entire picture of what we are doing here. However, the sounds we have here will catch the wind and travel on, and we have to think about a way archive it.

Tonight I thought that I should keep up the slow tempo that I kept when I was popping the bubbles.

14日。日曜日。今日は長い一日になる。17時からトークセッションのちchi tooのパフォーマンスのち大阪とペナンを結んだ中継ライブ。14時くらいから何やかんや準備。

私はあまり出演しないつもりで、まずはトークはチャキチャキ元気なKLのキューレーターOng Jo-leneとスローに話すGabijaとのコラボが面白いし、一回やって慣れてきたGabijaに進行を任せ、基本的に私は話さない事にした。でもここ数日ちょこちょことJo-leneとは話をしてて、頭の回転のいい彼女は状況把握が早く、そして数々の素敵な言葉を彼女はくれた。だから私は隣でにこにこと頷いているだけ。で、いい頃合いでトークを終え、さあ、なにやるんだろ？chi too？と思ったら、「Sachiko、ゆっくりしたペースでプチプチを潰していってくれないか？」とのオファー？？私がかなりゆっくりプチプチビートを刻む中、1分に一回、参加者はそれぞれ手にしたプチプチを潰す、なかなかいいENSEMBLEですが、みなに背中を向けてひたすら同じペースでぷち、、、っぷち、、、、とやり続け、ふと後ろを振り返ると、みんな寝っ転がってる！！！で、1分ごとのchi tooのキューで寝たまま「ぷちっ」。ディレクターはひたすらテンポキープなのね、って感じでした。ミニマリストですから得意ですけど、しかしここ最近で一番「演奏」した気持ちになりました。

さて最大の難関、大阪⇄ペナンリレー中継。「英語で話しなさい」と大阪にも無茶振り。時々すごい英語が飛び交う中、実は大阪の会場には明日ペナンに到着するはずの大阪国立国際美術館のキュレーター橋本梓が登場。通訳サポートしつつ、ペナンからの「早くこっちにおいで～待ってるよ～」コールに応えつつ、これってなんだか面白いな、と思ってしまう。

この中継イベントはペナン入りしてから具体的に決まったのである。たまたま彼女のペナン入りは明日で、まだ大阪にいるから大阪の会場に顔を出すとのことになったのである。偶然の事なんだけど、大阪にいた彼女が明日の夜にペナンに到着する。「人間架け橋」の枠割か。彼女らしいペナン入りになるな、と予感した。

そしてもう一つ、実はNHKの「地球ラジオ」に電話出演する事も決まった。

ここで起きている事をどこまで伝えられるのか、簡単ではないし事ではあるが。でもきっとここにある「音」はこの会場からの風にのり、流れていくはずだ、そしてその残す方法も考えていかねばならない。

ぷちぷちし続けたスローなテンポを私はキープし続けなきゃな、と思った夜でありました。