Isolated Field Recording Series: Aki Onda - Captured in the Air
Wednesday, July 15th, ISSUE is pleased to stream Captured in the Air, a recording from composer, performer, and 2012 Artist-In-Residence Aki Onda. The piece is the final piece this season in the Isolated Field Recording Series, commissioning artists to produce field recordings to be streamed over the course of this challenging and isolated time.
A Note from Aki Onda on Captured in The Air:
“This is a portrait of Loren Connors, whom I have collaborated with for the last two decades.
Last year, I found approximately one hundred undeveloped B&W Tri-X film rolls in a cabinet in my apartment. The bag was labelled "Loren Connors in the Air." During the lockdown due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I developed two dozen of these rolls, and thankfully the images appeared despite being shot around 2005 - 2009. Most of the photographs were captured in a private and intimate setting in his apartment on Henry Street in Brooklyn Heights, as my wife and I used to visit him regularly. We would spend a couple of hours just chatting, and his wife Suzanne joined occasionally. Loren often showed us the drawings he recently made. At times, we would go to the museum to see his favorite paintings by artists such as Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. There are also some images of him playing on stage.
Looking at these photographs, somehow Loren's life started resonating with these unprecedented times—when people are forced to be alone and face themselves. He's a hermit and lives such an isolated life. His apartment, where he has recorded thousands of hours of his guitar playing alone, has almost no decor— as if it’s a monastery. A profound stillness hovers. Perhaps this is a sort of perpetual quarantine...?
Loren was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease in the early '90s and struggled with it until he developed ways to cope with it. He was aware his time was limited, and that forced him to get to work. Every morning, he would record his guitar with his 4-track tape recorder. Then, in the afternoon, he would go for a walk exploring the city. His guitar doesn't sound like anybody else—just like his life—a singular and distinctive voice with a sense of urgency.
There is something magical about the way he shapes his life and music.”
— Aki Onda, 2020
If you are in a position to do so, Aki Onda has asked all donations during the event be directed to the Crowdfunding for Black Trans Folks Go Fund Me directory.
Aki Onda was born in Japan and resides in New York. He is particularly known for his “Cassette Memories” — works compiled from a “sound diary” of field-recordings collected by using portable cassette recorder over the span of the last three decades. He creates compositions, performances, and visual artworks from those sound memories. Onda has a long history of working with ISSUE Project Room since 2003. Onda also presented his work at The Kitchen, MoMA, New Museum, Pioneer Works, ICA Philadelphia, REDCAT, Time-Based Art Festival, Novas Frequências, documenta 14, Louvre Museum, Pompidou Center, Palais de Tokyo, Fondation Cartier, Présences électronique, Argos, Bozar, ICA London, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Counterflow Festival, International Film Festival Rotterdam, La Casa Encendida, Caixa Forum, Nam June Paik Art Center, Sound Live Tokyo, and many others. Onda often works in interdisciplinary fields and collaborates with filmmakers, visual artists, musicians, and choreographers. For the last fifteen years, he has worked with artists such as Ken Jacobs, Michael Snow, Paul Clipson, Raha Raissnia, Annea Lockwood, Loren Conners, Alan Licht, MV Carbon, Che Chen, Cecilia Lopez, Jac Berrocal, David Toop, Rie Nakajima, Akio Suzuki, Nao Nishihara, Daisuke Yokota, and Takao Kawaguchi.
