BeatRoute Magazine BC Edition January 2019

ASUNA proves that not everything is at is appears – or as it sounds.
100 KEYBOARDS
100 KEYBOARDS
100 KEYBOARDS
Expecting the Unexpected
By Mathew Wilkins
Imagine a performance where no spoilers need
alerting. Where the beginning, middle, and end
are fully known to everyone there – and no one
minds at all. 100 Keyboards by Japanese sound
artist ASUNA is just that: a piece that explores
the sonic interaction between a predetermined
amount of toy keyboards playing in unison in
an enclosed space. What results, however, is
something that is incomparable, transient, and
(nearly) indescribable.
“In this site-specific listening experience, I
would like you to listen to the subtle variations
of sound interference and resonance,” ASUNA
describes.
These ‘subtle interferences’ are created using
a formula that’s actually quite simple. The
keyboards – usually more than 100 of them – are
arranged in concentric circles, with the artist
moving from the inside to the edge. A single note
is played on each before moving onto the next,
but a small stick is lodged into the key before
moving on, to ensure that each note continues
playing for the duration of the performance.
What results is an eerie, overlapping cacophony
of sound that shifts and transforms based on
location, space, and movement.
“Complex interference and resonance in the
space can reveal different sound[s]... I hope
listeners will listen carefully to the phenomenon
of those sounds and will discover an experience
of new sounds in each,” ASUNA adds.
The inspiration for this and other projects
arose from a number of important influences in
ASUNA’s life, including several artists inside and
outside Japan like Wrk, Murray Schafer, and The
Nihilist Spasm Band. Before working in sound
installation, ASUNA played computer-based
music in the late ‘90s and had a brief stint in a
lo-fi experimental punk outfit – both of which,
according to him, granted the artist a “distinct
point of view on the conceptual and physical
effects of the phenomenon of sound.”
Yet ASUNA’s interest in sonic sensation
seems to have truly began in his parents’ thread
spinning factory, where he enjoyed listening to
the machines and their motors in his childhood.
“I am aiming to produce works that update
the context of art and music,” ASUNA says of
his current and upcoming body of work, which
seems to frequently utilize mundane musical
phrases or sound-making objects.
Works like 100 Toys, for instance, employs the
same formula as 100 Keyboards, yet with – you
guessed it – children’s toys. ASUNA’s latest record
Tide Ripples takes predictable fingerstyle guitar
that slowly melts into a sea of sonic chaos. These
and many other pieces seem predicated on that
idea of “updating context.” Whether it’s toys,
keyboards, or fingerstyle guitars, ASUNA takes
objects that we think we understand and turns
them on their head. In not so many words: you
may think you know what you’re in for when you
attend a 100 Keyboards performance, but in all
likelihood, you’re wrong. In this case, hearing is
believing.
100 Keyboards takes place on January 19 at the
Russian Hall as part of the PuSh Festival.
January 2019 11