Abstract Music
Abstract Music is a sound installation system and artwork in which vast sound data is used to generate sound images in real time. These sound images traverse a space dynamically through multichannel speakers, undergoing infinite variations and transformations. It is designed to integrate seamlessly with diverse environments such as spatial settings, architecture, and art.
In this system, music perpetually evolves, transforms, and moves through space, ensuring that no single moment is ever repeated.
The sound is, so to speak, the composer’s own mind in the form of a hard disk—a vast library from which selections are made. The sound moves through the space like a living entity: sometimes a single sound fills the entire space, at other times layers of multiple sounds flow and shift, and occasionally, moments of silence emerge. Despite being an artificially generated environment, this unpredictable soundscape evokes a sense of exploring the richness of nature. It fundamentally opposes the stereotypical, stable, and repetitive spatial experience commonly associated with conventional “music.”
From visual semiotics to auditory abstraction. From artificial sound materials and programmed combinations to acoustically generated supernatural environments. This sound installation, composed of such contrasting elements and processes, demonstrates how sound as a medium can stimulate abstract human thought and senses while continuously renewing the spatial experience.
Date: Tuesday, April 16 – Sunday, April 21, 2024
10:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m.
Venue: Artpoint, Art Garden in Superstudio Più
Address Via Tortona, 27 20144 – Milan, Italy
- Organizer
Lexus International
At Milan Design Week 2024, LEXUS presented an exhibition titled “BEYOND THE HORIZON,” featuring music composed by Keiichiro Shibuya. The spatial design was crafted by Hideki Yoshimoto, who created a massive screen measuring 4 meters in height and 30 meters in width using Echizen washi, a traditional Japanese paper with over 1,500 years of history. The screen displayed ever-changing lights resembling a horizon, creating a dynamic visual experience.
The exhibition also featured ten interactive sculptures, each approximately 2 meters tall and adorned with washi, with each sculpture exhibiting a unique expression of light.
Keiichiro Shibuya was responsible for the music, creating a new work based on his sound installation piece “Abstract Music,” specifically tailored to fit the concept of the exhibition. The soundscape, generated in real-time by programming from vast sound data, moved fluidly between 31 speakers placed throughout the venue. This created a continuously evolving audio experience, ensuring that no two moments were ever the same.
The combination of the changing horizon from dawn to dusk, the guiding presence of the “LF-ZC” and the ten sculptures, and Shibuya’s “Abstract Music” came together as a unified experience, offering a unique, personal, and immersive journey for every visitor.
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- Organizer
Lexus International
Date : May 12th, 2023
Venue : Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum
- Concept, Electronics
Keiichiro Shibuya
- Vocal
Alte4
- Android Programming
Shintaro Imai
- Sound Engineer
Yuki Suzuki
- Stage & Technical Manager
So Ozaki
- Production
Natsumi Matsumoto
On May 12th and 13th, “PRADA MODE Tokyo” was held at the Tokyo Metropolitan Teien Art Museum – Japanese Garden. Architect Kazuyo Sejima curated the cultural program, with Keiichiro Shibuya participating. On the 12th, a sound installation was presented in the Japanese garden, along with a performance using the Prophet-5. The garden was dotted with 24 speakers, from which sound files were programmed to play with randomized parameters such as pitch and position. This created a unique, site-specific soundscape that can only be experienced at that moment.
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- Concept, Electronics
Keiichiro Shibuya
- Vocal
Alte4
- Android Programming
Shintaro Imai
- Sound Engineer
Yuki Suzuki
- Stage & Technical Manager
So Ozaki
- Production
Natsumi Matsumoto