I am very honored to receive the Japan Media Arts Excellence Award for the artwork Soundform No.1. The annual event has inspired me for many years and I’m thrilled to participate this year.

…“sound art” has exhibited a trend toward sameness. [Soundform No.1] is a revalidation of contact with physical phenomena. Its tones are possessed of a unique timbral quality and intensity unobtainable with electronic sound. The simple physical devices installed with such minute attention to detail give rise to a fascinating iterative quality...imbued with a sense of radical freshness.

~ ABE Kazunao, Director YCAM

Soundform No.1 is a minimalist soundscape and kinetic art installation that transforms heat energy into a poetically evolving, spatio-temporal composition. The artwork generates sound thermo-acoustically by activating heating elements inside quartz glass tubes. As the glass warms, a nickel-titanium spring reacts, pulling the cylinder upright. At the correct angle, airflow becomes unrestricted, and a thermoacoustic phenomenon, known as a Rijke effect, creates an audible tone.

The artwork spawned while researching at Yasuaki Lab, University of Tokyo in 2018. There I developed a number of soundform prototypes. The development of the artwork Soundform No.1 is a collaboration between Mikhail Mansion, Yasuaki Kakehi and Kuan Ju Wu.

I am struck by the broad appreciation for this work, in that others find the Rikje effect interesting tonally. The work simply posits that we can stop to appreciate simple laws of physics and sound. I find artwork most elegant when it uses only minimal gestures to frame a phenomenon, and thereby extend a cultural sensibility for observing truth in nature. I am encouraged to continue onto Soundform No.2.

The work is on display through September 2020 at the Miraikan- The National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation in Tokyo, JP.