Makoto Oshiro is a Japanese sound artist based in Berlin/Tokyo. Makoto works in sound for the most part but combines his sound with physical aspects too, like mixing light and electronics in his work. I found Makoto to make for an exciting practitioner, after doing some more research on him I found what he did even more enthralling. One thing that stood out to me about Makoto was the creation of his own instruments, primarily out of junk and random items. This reminded me of Japanese noise artist Merzbow and his ‘junk guitar’. The strings are attached to metal plates that he strums and the vibrations would then be picked up through contact mics and run through effects. I really like this way of thinking that Makoto did, as it inspires people to create whatever works for them. And by doing that you can create some really phenomenal equipment and sound.
Above is a sound installation by Makoto called ‘Strings’. Strings is a sound installation that is supposed to explore the different aspects of beat frequencies (interferences that happen between audio waves). Here is a description from the video description that better explains what Makoto did to achieve the piece. ‘However, instead of simply combining several audio waves, it combines a flickering light with physical vibration to create a heterodyne that gives a visual representation of what happens between the two waves. Several strings are tied to a subwoofer that emits a low-frequency sine wave; the strings are stretched to certain points in the exhibition space. When the stretched strings are tuned to certain tensions, the vibration of the subwoofer passes on to the strings, causing them to oscillate and depict waveforms. The exhibition space is lit up using a strobe light that flickers at a varying frequency that interferes with the string vibration, allowing us to see the string movements at a much slower frequency than what is actually happening’.
This is an incredible idea, I really like what Makoto tried to achieve, I think the idea was very thought out and he did more to it to make it something purely unique. I thought the idea of using the strobe lights to interfere with the string vibration was really interesting and how that can affect the way you see things happening. Overall I’m a big fan of the work Makoto showed us and creates, I think the use of mixing sound and visual art was done in a way I have never seen before and I hope he continues to push the boundaries of sound art. I took a lot away from this practitioner like his use of light and sound and have been thinking about how I can expand my work from what I have learned.
www.youtube.com. (n.d.). Strings – Makoto Oshiro. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXPR7iOzQdQ