RealMedia and Notes
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July 17, 2005
Masaharu Abe and his U-Garden commitee invited Tetsuo Kogawa at their event. 
An airwave-scape work using a FM receiver and a voice transformer within the scope of micro transmitters.
Struggled hard with quite strong airwaves of "regular" radio stations and industorial "noises" for his 'airwave-scape'.
An atempt of airwave-scape in the field of micro transmitters.
Played with the various airwaves that scattered in the room.
The most simplest transmitter performance without any effecter.
Devoted himself to calming down the fluctuating airwaves.
Was so busy in taking care of curating Radio Kinesonus program that he used his simplest system.
A simple performance using two micro transmitters.
Chikafumi Kawamura invited Tetsuo Kogawa for his event "Sundy Electronica" at Cafe exBodega, Yokohama.
The transmitters he used this time were only two sets that are ready-made. It was his tact to quickly prepare the system: he had been too busy in preparing the basic audio and streaming system and foods for all.
Struggled with electromagnetic phases went to more and more subtle.
Manipulated his handmade small transmitters that were, this time, for shortwaves.
Operated his hand-made small transmitters.
This is a newer and shorter version of my radio art sound performance that I did at Radiophon'ic 2003 in Brussels on November 7, 2003. The waving moves of my hands to build a transmitter and the sounds that the moves directly and indirectly (mediated by an effector) created are shown. The last voice reads "La vraie condition de l'homme, c'est de penser avec ses mains " from Denis de Rougemont's 'Penser avec les mains' (1936). I find the basic direction of my performance in this passages.
Always I prefer simplicity of machines and instrument with their unexpected complexity. This month, I used 4 transmitters, one stereo radio FM receivers and KAOSS PAD. Every component of 4 transmitters was laid on a fragile thin copper plate that would be usually prohibited. More thicker and no can-be-bent plate must be used for transmitter for the stable frequency and functions. But I appreciated instability deriving from the can-be-bent plate. I recently found that KAOSS PAD (KORG's effector) matches with my hand performance in its controlling interface. I bought it long time ago but didn't use much of it because of the limited functions. Such an insufficiency has turned out to be more viable. This is a paradox of technology.
I have been looking for the original text that Immanuel Kant allegedly said "Die Hand ist das auessere Gehirn des Menschen." (The hand is the outer brain of the human being.) Quite many people cited this word. But I was unable to find this even in his "Complete Works". Can anyone let me know?
The point was that I tried to display various airwaves from medium to short to VHF frequencies by just changing receiver's dial according to my inner rhythm. Given the different and idiosyncratic circumstance of the airwaves at the time, the same performance and "tune" never happens. This is what I have been interested in airwaves. Always various noses come and receiving situation is changing along with my body movements and spacial conditions. The system was very simple (a radio receiver and an small effector) but I found the created sound very multitudinous.
"Radio Kinesonus Night", the first live event of Radio Kinesonus at Daikanyama Classics, Shibuya, Tokyo.
This time, I used the stereo microphone to catch the sounds of my performance instead of the direct line input. Because I tried to mix the very feeble airwaves from six radio receivers. It was possible to connect each outputs of the receivers to the amplifier system, but I loved to show the atmosphere of live performance. This type of performance would be nice at a small space where the audience are surrounding me and radio sets. As H.M. Enzensberger said in his comment to Brecht, every radio receiver is in its structure a transmitter as well. They transmit very week airwaves. I was fascinated by what's happening more than I had expected.
The concepts such as dialogue, editing, collage, sampling, mapping and etc. are still fascinating me. I am thinking by them in totally different ways from the original meanings of them. Deleuze and Guattari argued that "the concept is neither denotation of states of affairs nor signification of the lived; it is the event as pure sense that immediately runs through the components" (What is philosophy?) We re-create concept every time when we start with existent concepts. But it is impossible to start with nothing. So creating is a dialogue and a de-construction. My performance is to dialogue, collect, sample, map very week and trivial airwaves that are floating in the air by my own hands.
More subtle hand/finger/thumb/wrist/knuckle movements than hands cut the air / flip / fold / grip / hold / knead / offer / pass / pat / place / press / pull / pump / push / put / raise / reach / rub / rub / rub / shake / slam / slap / slide / spread / spread / squeeze / stick / stick / stroke / take hold / tap / throw / thrust / tuck / turn / turn / turn / twine / twine / twist / twist / waggle / wave / wring. More subtle fields of airwaves than micro radio. Instead of communication, data transfer / reception and info-circulation. Resonance rather than communication. Toward an another side of technology.
Airwaves have innumerable horizons. Moving of my hands reveals them. It cannot explain anything to say that the electrodynamic position of the hands changes the capacitance, inductance and impedance of the fields that numbers of ultra micro transmitters. Hands themselves have their own airwaves and are in the airwaves. The positions and movements refer to my feeling and conceptuality but there should be far more than such elements. While improvising, conceptually, I was thinking of a requiem for Bagdad since the modern war tries to erase all of horizons, physical or conceptual. In fact, the US Air Force used "E-bomb" to knock the Iraqi TV off the air with an "experimental electromagnetic pulse device of over two billion watts". This was the totally opposite use of airwaves against emancipating and finding innumerable horizons of airwaves.
As usual, my performance was to communicate with the electro-magnetic fields and horizons of various airwaves. Due to the mistake to connect the output of my own mixer to a vacant input of the main mixer, however, I had to puzzlingly pump up the full volume. The consequence was a tremendous distortions and totally unexpected noise sounds. Since I always insist in the live process of my performance, I will leave the recording as it is.
Tetsuo Kogawa's interst in hands over the airwaves was already consistent.
Cerebrating Art's Birthday, Radio Kinesonus started and Tetsuo Kogawa began to stream his live performance regularly over the net.
"Natural Radia" (Performance between technology and hands; airwaves and physical space; and Vienna and Vancouver).
Downloadable MP3 files
October 17, 2009:
"TeslaAgencements ver.0902" An another challenge of my AM medium frequency transmitters with red big coils. The recording was from the live performance for "Radio Futura Porto" festival 2009. [29:56min, 28MB]
May 10, 2007:
January 25, 2006:
December 17, 2005:
September 29, 2003:
September 14, 2003:
August 17, 2003:
August 5, 2003:
July 13, 2003:
June 15, 2003:
May 18, 2003:
April 12, 2003:
