Makoto Oshiro
Makoto Oshiro is a Tokyo based audiovisual and experimental music artist, making instruments with technology, installation pieces and performances.
Self made instruments
Makoto begins his lecture with a recording from one of his self made instruments, a high pitched high tempo glitching note, it sounded like an artificial synthesis of the sound of extending a role of cello-tape. The second part of the recording was a slower tempo and slightly lower pitched sound, but the slower tempo of the beats revealed a spatialisation of the sound, the instrument was moving and populating the entire stereo field. The third movement of the recording was more dense in texture, there were multiple organic sounding rhythms colliding creating fleeting/evolving patterns and beats. This was created using a self made instrument that utilised electromagnetic relay. These are usually used to switch higher voltage to lower voltage, for example the headlights in a car would use these relays. The clicking sound is caused by a small metal plate being pulled into the mechanism by electromagnetism. The frequency of clicks is controlled by a 555 timer IC, a very common chip in electronics. A volume knob controls the frequency of the on and off saw wave, this brings a human element to the instruments, the ability to feel the frequency as a means to compose. Makoto creates what he calls ‘acoustic oscillators’. Although Makoto’s focus is creation of music through electronic instruments, he tries to make the sound generators acoustic. The environment is always a component of the composition.
Makoto is updating these instruments by including an Arduino alternative as a way to drive the relays, he also added an 8 step sequencer for more creative expression. In the video he presents, you can see him change the pitch of the oscillators by placing rocks of varying size. I think this is a very interesting means of creating sound works, these instruments are not the only material to compose with, they also turn every other object into a modulator. Involving the real world in something that is usually confined to the world of electronics.
Installations
Oshiro presents a video of his 2017 audiovisual installation ‘mono-poly’. Makoto was interested in audiovisual works but did not want to arbitrarily make audio that matched the visual, he wanted them to be intrinsically linked. He started to investigate how visual signals worked, and how to use a speaker as an object rather than a sound projector. The piece was created by combining two sine waves with a difference of 1Hz, this is called ‘beating’. These waves were then fed through two speakers, one with a 2Hz beat and one with a 1Hz beat. This resulted in a visual beating and slightly audible beating, this piece was called ‘Kinema’ (2009). Makoto then created a piece called ‘Braids & knots’ (2010), in which he tried to attach objects to the speakers to provide a more drastic visual to the work. He found success in attaching a string to the centre of a subwoofer and stretching it across a room, a representation of the wave would move through the string. He attached LEDs to this string but did not manage to achieve the level of visualisation he desired.
He developed this idea further with ‘Strings'(2014), in this piece Makoto achieved a much better visualisation of the beats. Strings were attached to a subwoofer in the corner of a room, and extended to the opposite corner. There was a strobe light placed on the floor that was modulated by an Arduino to illuminate the strings at different frequencies, the result was an etherial representation of audio.
‘mono-poly’ was the final development of this series. Makoto managed to find a way to make the LED strobe produce multiple frequencies at once, this allowed for more dynamic change in the visualisation of the string.
I find Makoto Oshiro’s work fascinating, especially the visualisation of sound. His use of electronics are alien to me but still very interesting as a means of creation. I admire the simplicity of his acoustic oscillators and above all his ability to involve physical space in his works.