KIOTO AOKI

Sonorous Admittings is a sonic landscape that accentuates the taiko drum’s most fundamental and captivating element: acoustic resonance. The simple phrasing played by the artist on the odaiko (larger taiko) and smaller shime taiko enunciate the textural and tonal shifts of assonant sound between silence, and recreates what it feels like to play the odaiko and be completely surrounded by thunderous reverberations.

Commissioned by Experimental Sound Studio for the Sonic Pavilion Festival, a series of 30-channel sound installations for the spatialized overhead trellis loudspeaker array at Millennium Park’s Pritzker Pavilion. The result is an immersive canopy of sound—a fluid sonic architecture that bridges the focus of a live performance and the majesty of the surrounding cityscape. Sonic Pavilion Festival is developed by Experimental Sound Studio and is presented by Millennium Park and the City of Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events.

taiko, 20 minutes
August - September 2021

Film loop and photography installation. Projectors activated by sensors as viewer enters the space, enabling the viewer to be instigator of one layer of movement.

16mm film loops
gelatin silver photographs, printed from segments dance-movement film
2017

Low Residency MFA Show
Sullivan Galleries, School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Projection installation of Dual Enframe for Projections after Dark at Roman Susan

Chicago, IL | 2018

frame, columns, inflection(2019)
Artist books that respond to the architecture of the installation space, highlighting the three supportive columns. Each column was photographed from four rotating vantage points, mirroring the movement of the body as one interacts with Shotgun. Each column has its own set of images photographed using a large format camera and the artists’ hand-made pinhole camera. Large format cameras were once the standard for architectural photography and the pinhole was used to photograph the original iteration of the work at 6018|North. The resulting books are folded in a way that structurally mimics the quadrants of Shotgun, the Duchampian door piece by First Office.

frame, ways, inflections(2018)
16mm, b/w, silent
digital floor projection

Second iteration of Living Architecture at Lubeznik Center for the Arts, Michigan City IN
October 30, 2019 - Jan 4, 2020

Site specific film and book installation at 6018|North for Living Architecture, a large-scale, multidisciplinary exhibition highlighting the influence and impact of immigrant artists on Chicago.

Inspired by architect Bernard Cache's notion of inflections and acknowledging the lineage of architectural photographer Idaka Yuichi, the film activates two existing works at the gallery: "Shotgun" by First Office located in the basement and Vlatka Horvat's "Door to Door" on the second floor. The piece is installed as a projection in the closet, behind Horvat's piece of all the doors from the building. The books are pinhole images taken and installed in the stairwells, as a way to activate the space visitors pass through to go from the basement doors to the closet projection.

frame,ways,inflections | 2018
digital projection of 16mm, b/w, silent

frame,wells,inflection | 2018
archival inkjet artist books

72 contour sketches
2020

for 思考回路•Shikoukairo II: Patterns of Thought