Artist adds raw emotion to sound bytes

Japanese performance artist Yasuto Masumoto in the mask recites a speech in Korean during his live performance at his exhibition at Gallery Loop in Hongdae, last Saturday. / Courtesy of Gallery Loop

By Ines Min
Staff reporter

For those art aficionados looking for something a bit more rough around the edges, one need look no further than Gallery Loop in Hongdae.

Currently on show is a video archive by Japanese performance artist Yasuto Masumoto, including a recording of his latest work performed in the gallery last Saturday.

The 29-year-old with a mop of wild hair was spotted at the archive over the weekend, mingling with visitors viewing his work. The setting was discordant: While Masumoto was quietly speaking in English to his Korean audience, the video of him reading a script in a pained, howling voice rung in the background.

Though the artist will tell you his works have no concrete meaning, he did have a concept in mind while creating "Private Chorus." The video shows a suited _ bowtie included _ Masumoto, standing atop a platform with an assistant holding his bare foot. With another to hold a microphone close, the artist begins to read a Korean script (phonetically spelled out in Japanese) while he endures an exceptionally painful foot massage.

"Reading a different language is to deal with a different culture, for me," he said. "To know a foreign language is the first step to knowing a different culture."

However, Masumoto believes it is impossible to completely meld into a foreign world. The artist lived in Portugal for two years, where he attempted _ unsuccessfully _ to assimilate.

"I tried to get into the culture, but I realized that I couldn't," he said. "No one can fully know a different culture...to get into a different culture is always painful."

Themes of confrontation and cultural boundaries are an oft subject for the Japanese artist, and other videos featured include "The World," in which he documents groups of different ethnicities cooking with a foreign-language recipe. Even the smallest cultural indicators can be seen in the idea of "mistranslation" and the resulting variances.

Though such basic actions like cooking or, in one video, brushing one's teeth, are commonplace occurrences, Masumoto feels a greater commentary is to be taken. "I think every action has a lot of meaning in a context," he said.

But the most jarring aspect of Masumoto's work is in the sound. Each piece is accompanied by a microphone, intimately close to the performer's mouth or picking up the noise of every movement. The effect is at once shocking and irresistible _ altogether emotionally wracking. In "Private Chorus," the piece is less about cultural boundaries as it is about the noises that the artist emits under duress; "The World" takes in every moment of human interactions encountered while cooking.

In "Cosmic Dolly Shot," which he performed spontaneously while participating at the high-profile non-profit "No Soul for Sale" in London's Tate Modern, takes in the city's rumblings and crowded public settings.

In the video, Masumoto rigs together a dolly, camera and speakers, loading it with decorative balloons and inflatable tubes. Blaring Japanese reggae loudly ("I just wanted to listen to that music"), the artist made his way slowly from inside the Tate, across the Millennium Bridge, and through the city. The camera records the varied reactions from the crowds, while the microphone captures the absurdity of the music in the contrasting atmosphere, but also the lightheartedness of the laughter the dolly incites.

"My art is based on human noise," Masumoto added. "The kind that is between human relationships, (created) by doing different things."

"Private Chorus" is on display through July 31 at Gallery Loop in Seogyo-dong, near Hongik University. For more information visit www.galleryloop.com.

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