Kenji Kojima
Techno Synesthesia: WitheringTulips / Mystic Chord
Techno Synesthesia: Withering Tulips / WholeTone Scale
Techno Synesthesia: Withering Tulips / Twelve Tone Scale
USA 2018 // 3.0 min., 2.50 min., 2.42 min. // HD 16:9
Kenji Kojima’s project „Techno Synesthesia“ creates music from visual data. It expresses relations between visual, music, and time what we listen to our sense of sight and visualize time perception through art and technological experimentation. The artwork video shows the processing of the algorithm that Kojima programed. The algorithm creates music and 3D wireframe from visual data and time. The artist treats binary as fundamental art materials. The project is an experimental artwork as a new evolution of the 21st century pursuing the fusion and compatibility of senses through technology and art concept. The artwork videos in Spring from the project „Techno Synesthesia: Four Seasons“ the subtitle is „Ecosystem goes around on Spaceship Earth“. The colors of tulips that withering pale or faded become a piece of music by the algorithm. The scale is WholeTone. The scale is Mystic Chord. The scale is Twelve Tone.
The project is an experimental artwork as a new evolution of the 21st century pursuing the fusion and compatibility of senses through technology and art concept. The compilation of the online music video „Techno Synesthesia: Four Seasons“ expresses relations between visual, music, and time what we listen to our sense of sight and visualize time perception through art and technological experimentation. The videos show the processing of the algorithm. It creates music and 3D wireframe from visual data and time. The artist treats binary as fundamental art materials like medieval artists handled pigments. The algorithm divides 84 grids of a material video image and gets the top 5 to 10 differences in shade and light in intervals. The color values of the grids are converted to musical notes and play the music. The music does not follow any past musical aesthetics. The algorithm draws lines from the grid’s XY locations and memorized the time for the Z-axis.
A cyborg is a radical evolution of physical extension that uses science and technology in the 21st-century. We have evolved extremely slow to recognize the surrounding environment by sensory organs such as visual, auditory, tactile, and others, and realized them as reality. However, we have not known how we perceived our environment and the boundaries of sensory information. And how we handled them and chose our actions. What was the difference between human beings and deep-sea creatures that have evolved distinguishing information from the outside world? At the beginning of the 20th century, painter Kandinsky and composer Scriabin explored the common information of visual and auditory with artistic expressions. Techno Synesthesia inherits the predecessors and considers the fusion of multiple sensory organs by computer technology.
CV
Kenji Kojima has been experimenting with the relationships between perception and cognition, technology, music, and visual art since the early ’90s. He was born in Japan and moved to New York City in 1980. He painted egg tempera paintings that were medieval art materials and techniques for the first 10 years. A personal computer was improved rapidly during the ’80s. He felt more comfortable with digital expressions than
paintings. In the early 90’s he switched his artwork to a computer. His early digital works were archived in the New Museum – Rhizome, New York. He developed the computer application „RGB MusicLab“ which converted music from a still image in 2007. He created an interdisciplinary artwork “Techno Synesthesia” series exploring the relationship between visual and audio sensibilities. His „Techno Synesthesia“ has exhibited in New York, and media art festivals worldwide, including Europe, Brazil, India, Asia, and online art exhibitions.