Production year : 2025 / Length : 34min / Aspect : 1.85:1 /Format : 4KDCP
Director/Producer : Takashi Makino
Live Music : Takashi Makino
I have always believed that it is impossible for people to create something from "nothing," and that all people can do is assemble existing materials and light with their own ideas.
This idea applies not only to art, but also to science, philosophy, religion, and biology.
The reason why I have been creating collage works on paper is based on this idea, and when I make films, I always value the process of starting with a camera, collecting light and contrast that already exists in this world, and collage and editing them to construct a work.
However, at the same time, when I thought about my own meditation experiences, near-death experiences in my childhood, and the concept of "nothingness" in Zen, I thought that "nothingness" itself is the beginning of everything, similar to the chaos before the cosmos is formed, and pure possibility itself. In other words, I was obsessed with the idea of what would happen if I presented the accumulation of light in a "nothing" state before it was collaged (created) to the audience as a "film" in the very political and closed space of a movie theater.
ć»Production process
I started by 8K resolution scanning using the found footages (35mm and 16mm films) from the ruins of oldest film lab in Japan, that had been developed without any exposed, and scanning only the materiality of the film. Because film before it is exposed to light is covered with many particles waiting to be exposed to light, and I believe that the presence of countless particles waiting for light in the darkness is as close as possible to the state of "nothing" before something is created.
I also set up a camera on the roof of the ruins and took more than 30,000 still images of the perfect blue sky without clouds, the vast space that always exists above us, with various lenses, various resolutions, various ISO, and various aspects. What I obtained was the movement of organic particles, which is like the starting point of the possibilities of the imagination, whether it is the substance that humans once named "ether", or real "dark matter", or just "noise".
I continued to edit the large amount of particles obtained from "nothing" using both analog and digital techniques as described above. It was a tremendous task, and I often nearly gave up, but after two years of editing, I finally found a result.
This work does not have a fixed soundtrack, and is completed by performing my own live music each time. I believe that the soundtrack that dominates the space should change depending on the conditions when the work is screened.
I named the work "Imagination." This work is extremely meditative, and the main purpose is to stimulate the imagination of the viewer, to see what they will find and discover in the work. Perhaps the imagination of human beings can create something from nothing, and movie theaters can be more than just a place to be bathed in light and sound, but a more creative space. Such thoughts are embodied in this work.
Takashi Makino