ちとせ ももとせ — chitose momotose
Sound and Light Installation
NIME 2021
Live Interactive installation — Onlline via YouTube Live
June 17, 2021, 2 pm - 4 pm, CST - Shanghai, China
June 17, 2021, 3 pm - 5 pm, JST - Tokyo, Japan
June 17, 2021, 7 am - 9 am, BST - London, UK
June 17, 2021, 2 am - 4 am, EDT - New York, USA
June 16, 2021, 11 pm - 1 am, PDT - Oregon, USA
* please mind the time difference.
To Participate in the installation:
- Please send an email to me at contact@akikohatakeyama.com to a candle to be lit for you.
- In the email, please indicate your name or nickname to be shared during the installation. A name of your loved one will work as well. I will pick and light a candle on behalf of you.
- If there are more people than the installation time can fit, I may choose a short candle, or the list of participants will rollover to the next-day installation in the future.
ちとせ ももとせ — chitose momotose Video
ちとせ ももとせ ー chitose momotose from Akiko Hatakeyama on Vimeo.
ちとせ ももとせ — chitose momotose is a sound and light installation. By lighting a candle, a participant can trigger a sound that gradually changes along with candle burning – a change in the length of the candle. With seven candles on the installation table lit, each candle triggers a unique sound at a unique timing with the use of infrared sensors; as a result, they together create weaving sound streams at the site. The musical composition will always be unique due to varying combinations of sounds based on numbers, timings, and lengths of the candles that participants light. The movements of candle flames create subtle fluctuations in sound. Slow and introspective time flows in the space, both physical and virtual, and participants and witnesses will be encouraged to immerse themselves in the environment. For this online iteration of the piece, the participants will send a request to the artist by listing their names/nicknames by sending an email. The artist will light a candle for them as an executor and a witness at the site. The broadcast of the installation will be real-time, and people can participate by sending a request or simply witness the site online. The lights, sounds, warmth, smell, and texture of the candles will speak to the participants’ senses through their past experiences and imagination, and this actuation of bodily senses will trigger their emotions and memories that reside in them. If all candles are already lit, the participants will wait and enjoy the moment until a candle completely burns out. Following, the artist will light a candle in the open spot for a participant. The artist will reply to their email when their candle will be lit as well as post the participant’s name/nickname on the chat area on the YouTube channel. The time one candle burns may represent a period in a lifetime – may be a day, a year, ten years, or more.
ちとせ/chitose means a thousand years, ももとせ /momotose means a hundred years. The title of the piece refers to a sense of time, history, and life. People’s lives can be long, short, depending on how a person sees it and at a different phase of one’s life; sometimes it seems unthinkably long, and sometimes it feels like a fraction. A person’s life may be short comparing to other natural existences in the world, such as trees, seas, and the Earth. However, seeing the family history and human history, it’s an ongoing time flow of thousands of years, and we individuals are a small but crucial part of it. Our bodies exist as matters, and as a result of the reproduction processes, new physical entities are born, and the humans continue to live in this world. On the other hand, non-physical entities produced by people continue to live after the death of physical bodies and without heirs. Memories of people from the past exist as cultures, arts, thoughts, and ideas, as memes. The sound and light installation ちとせ ももとせ — chitose momotose expresses a unification of the notion of the dichotomy of a matter and non-matter by incorporating physical matters – candles and salt –, and non-physical matters – thoughts and memories – that are generated by the physical matters. Salt also is an important matter in this installation as it is both a symbolic and practical material for purifying in the culture that I grew up with, as well as in different cultures.
You can watch the archived online live installation for New Music Gathering 2020 (June 25–27, 2020), here.
The installation system
An infrared (IR) sensor placed near each candle reads infrared light that is emitted from the candle. The sensor data is mapped to parameter changes in sounds — amplitude of a sound, combination of sounds, filters and other effects. As a candle burns and its length shortens, the amount of infrared light perceived by the IR sensor changes. Thus, the sounds/music in the space gradually changes. A choice of a type of candle also affects the sounds due to their various lengths, thickness, and materials that cause different burning times.
Installation set-up
Technical Requirements for Participants
- Stable internet access to view a live stream on YouTube
- Emailing capabilities if they want to request a candle lighting
- Comfortable environment to enjoy the online installation where one can immerse themselves in both the sonic and visual world of the installation
- Decent audio playback system for stereo audio – good speakers, headphones, or earbuds that deliver low frequencies (60 Hz~) are ideal