Music is Creating Space and Time: Keiichiro Shibuya (Part 1)

"Going to Meet the People I Want to Meet!" Part 6: Takuya Fujita from Dentsu Inc. Event & Space Design Bureau went to meet composer and artist Keiichiro Shibuya, who has been releasing cutting-edge electronic music works both domestically and internationally. Fujita, a long-time fan of Shibuya's music, sought to understand the artist's philosophy—which extends beyond music to collaborations with various artists and sound space production. The result was a thrilling dialogue.

Interview & Editing: Aki Kanahara, Dentsu Inc. Event & Space Design Bureau

 

How to make music exist in space

Fujita: As I explore various foundational points for planning in my daily work, I'm hoping to re-examine music and build it into my own repertoire. Today, I'd like to ask about the source of your ideas when creating.
In event planning, lighting and sound often face budget cuts, but I believe sound is incredibly important. Humans obtain a significant portion of information through sound, don't they? Perhaps even more than through sight.

Shibuya: Ultimately, I don't think you can definitively say what kind of sound or acoustics are best. What really struck me recently was Dover Street Market. They stopped playing music over the PA system and instead placed these bulky, cassette-style stereo systems everywhere, plugged into iPhones, blasting music. They stopped trying to unify the entire space with one single music track.

※Dover Street Market Ginza: A concept store directed by fashion designer Rei Kawakubo.

 

In the case of commercial spaces, if you can't install high-end speakers anyway, I think it's more contemporary and realistic to have satellite-like, simultaneous sound sources playing rather than aiming for hi-fi sound quality. This might reflect Director Rei Kawakubo's clear direction or sense of contemporaneity, but I also wonder if it's a perspective looking back from the future—perhaps envisioning this as the ultimate minimalist setup twenty years from now.

I collaborate with artists, dancers, and fashion designers, but ultimately, they think, "Music doesn't matter at all" (laughs). "Doesn't matter" means compared to their own creations. Conversely, music is only truly valued at events centered around it, like concerts or operas. For visual artists, what matters is art, their own work. The visual is paramount; sound isn't even necessary.

But my collaborations start from considering how to make something unnecessary become essential. It's about creating a relationship between sound and something else that hasn't been thought of yet. So I have no intention of asserting the superiority of sound or claiming music is always vital. Sometimes we decide to do without sound altogether, or just place speakers that suggest sound.

Fujita: I see. That's interesting. That's one way to approach it, right? For example, even if you use high-quality sound, the audience probably won't notice much difference anyway.

Shibuya: But people can tell when the quality is overwhelmingly better. Anyone can tell—absolute beginners, people with no experience, gals, old folks, anyone. They can tell when the sound is overwhelmingly good. But unless it's overwhelming, they probably won't notice.

 

"Reality" and "speaker's reality" should be considered separately

Fujita: I got to attend the Vocaloid opera "THE END" when it was performed in Shibuya. Even though it incorporates noise music, it doesn't hurt your ears at all.

Shibuya: Sound systems are heavily influenced by budget. For "THE END," being an opera, the music is obviously the most important thing. For the performance at Bunkamura in Shibuya, we brought in PA equipment on the same scale as what we use for rock concerts at Yokohama Arena. We didn't use that much gear to make it sound like an arena; it's because electronic music, especially, can be painful to the ears if you don't play it with ample headroom. To avoid it sounding like a shrill scream and to play it with just enough headroom, we brought in over 100 speakers, totaling 8 tons. But that's what's necessary.

Conversely, more recently, before a relatively large-scale piano solo concert at Spiral Hall in Aoyama at the end of the year, I tried doing a true unplugged performance in a small hall for just two days. Since it was only 100 people per night, a very small number, I didn't even announce it. The tickets sold out in one night, so most people couldn't experience it (laughs). The sound quality was obviously excellent. Without using speakers, experiencing the piano being struck and vibrating in the same space—that solid vibration—was incredibly luxurious. Now, trying to use speakers to approximate the air vibrations created by an instrument, or to take a different direction, is quite challenging. That was the challenge I took on for the piano solo at Spiral Hall at the end of the year. I clearly differentiate between the two approaches depending on the situation.

When I play my own pieces, I hate it unless the setup is completely satisfying. But at club events, for example, bringing in speakers is impossible. So, should I just not play? No, because there are discoveries to be made, and I want to do it, right? (laughs). That's why I often tune things like plugging straight from the computer into a Marshall guitar amp. I also hate washed-out projections, so I might just use strobe flashes. With piano, I'd either try a really new PA setup or go unplugged. I switch it up like that.

Fujita: The size of the space matters, right? Performing in a church-like space versus a live house is different. How do you handle the situation-dependent aspects?

Shibuya: Music is about creating space and time, so the location comes first. I optimize for the space. For instance, a good PA engineer is very conscious of lighting. Someone who checks the lighting first upon arrival after meeting with the PA engineer is a good PA engineer. Someone who just keeps talking about speakers or power sources is usually a bad PA engineer (laughs). It's about whether they understand how sound perception is heavily influenced by the environment.

Once, when we did a completely unplugged show in a classical concert hall, we tried going completely dark. It was hard to get truly pitch black, so we turned off the spotlights too, leaving only the music stands lit. It was so dim I could barely see the sheet music myself. Then, in the audience feedback, tons of people wrote things like, "How many speakers did you use? What kind of surround sound system was that?" (laughs). Even without any amplification, when you're in total darkness, deprived of sight, and focused solely on the sound, it can seem like the sound is materializing on its own.

Fujita: It's about subtraction. I've heard that people with visual impairments sometimes develop heightened hearing, too.

Shibuya: Yeah, I think so. My eyesight is really weak—I can't see a thing without my contacts. I couldn't even make it from my bed to the bathroom (laughs). But that time in the morning when I wake up and can't see anything until I put my glasses on—that blank space where it's just my ears, or just my senses—is really important to me. I think about getting LASIK, but I can't bring myself to do it because that time feels too precious to lose (laughs).

What if we entrusted the direction of "place" to the artistic director?

Shibuya: Regarding space and sound, what concerns me in Japan is the lack of clear direction in theaters. Few venues have a clear concept or a strong vision of "this is what we want to achieve." From my perspective, that seems rather unsettling, or even wasteful. With the 2020 Tokyo Olympics approaching, we're seeing more and more new venues being built, right? If we continue with the current approach, we'll end up with a huge amount of unnecessary structures. Each venue should clearly appoint an artistic director and hold them accountable.

In Japan, artist producers often just lend their name to projects. But half of producing is about budget management, or cost-effectiveness. For example, with the opening live event "Digitally Show" I did recently for "MEDIA AMBITION TOKYO," I was given a budget including performer fees and then decided the content. I wasn't told how many people to use. I was told, "This is the budget. Allocate the fees too." It's about how much high-quality content you can deliver within that budget. It's not that artists who can't do this are no good, but I think it's better to let artists who can do interesting things when given the freedom handle it.

※MEDIA AMBITION TOKYO (MAT): Since 2013, it has been conducting experimental urban implementations at venues including Roppongi Hills, with the theme of broadcasting cutting-edge technology culture from Tokyo to the world.

 

The reason is that other approaches don't hold much promise for success in Japan. The character of the theaters isn't particularly strong. While there are a few venues with clear direction, like KAAT (Kanagawa Arts Theatre) or YCAM (Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media), places that really make you feel, "Ah, this theater has this distinct color," are truly rare.

Fujita: That's true, there are many overseas.

Shibuya: In Paris, I'm in residence at the Théâtre du Châtelet. They do everything—new works, classics, opera, musicals. They have a clear vision: to produce high-quality work in the contemporary era. The theater is a real, active site of creation and the core of culture. People actually gather at the theater, staying late, buzzing with lively debate, and building things through that experiential process. I believe that's the one absolute "value of the space" that won't disappear, even as the internet evolves. This might sound conservative, but...

Fujita: Creativity absolutely cannot be streamlined for efficiency.

Shibuya: It can't. In Japan's case, unless we make it much clearer who is thinking about this and executing it, nothing will change. Even with an artistic director of a theater, it's not really clear how much authority they actually have. Unless we move towards a system where we decide on artists with 2-3 year contracts, give them a broad budget, and let them build the program, I feel like we'll just keep getting more and more places lacking personality, and Japan's cultural situation will become even more boring.

※Continued in Part 2