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Takahiko Iimura - Film et VidÚo

by Daniel Charles
Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, 1999.
126 pp., illus. Paper.
ISBN: 901181-70-1.
Reviewed by Fred Andersson, Ulvsbygatan 29 (6), 654 64 Karlstad, Sweden.
E-mail: konstfred@hotmail.com


Is there such a thing as a conceptualist filmmaker? Isn't conceptualism in a sense contradictory to filmmaking? The feeling of immersion and narrative in the filmic experience - is this necessarily the popular opposite of an intellectual, conceptual standpoint? Takahiko (Taka) Iimura is a filmmaker and video-artist who since the beginning of the sixties has moved towards the experimental peripheries of the mediums of moving images - peripheries in which the popular sphere of filmmaking gradually transforms into the conceptual and minimal.

The present catalogue, "film et vidÚo", was made in conjunction with his retrospective at the Galerie national de Jeu de Paume in Paris, 11-30 of Mai 1999. With only black and white illustrations, which is perfectly fitting for a production so dominated by black and white, this catalogue (with parallel texts in French and Japanese) covers and explains Iimuras development from early 16 mm films like "Ai" (Love, 1962, music by Yoko Ono) to the final presentation of his Video Semiology in an impressive CD-ROM produced at the Banff Center in 1998-99 (Observer/Observed and Other Works of Video Semiology). However, the major part of the catalogue consists of Iimura's own text on Video Semiology, taken (with illustrations) from the CD-ROM.

It's good that this text is made available in languages other than English. It describes three series of minimal video sequences (2 minutes, 1,15 minutes, etc). The series are: Camera, Monitor, Frame (five sequences, 1976-98), Observer/Observed (three sequences, 1975-98) and Observer/Observed/Observer (three sequences, 1976-98). According to Iimura, these videos are Semiology - Art as Theory rather than Theory of Art. In a very matter-of-fact way, they explore the spatial structure of the video medium - relations between camera, monitor, observer and observed. There is nothing to be seen here, except of cameras, monitors, written or spoken statements like "this is monitor" - and of course also the Observers (who sometimes become the Observed of their own observation.).

Referring to formalist film theories such as those of Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, Iimura looks for a relation between "the logical structure of the video system" and the grammar of spoken language. But his aim is also to stage a rupture (une saut) between Word and Image, for example when a camera first films a text saying "this is a monitor" and then turns to a monitor connected to the camera itself, which creates a short circuit (monitor within monitor within monitor.). Contrary to the written statement, there is really no monitor but just images of monitors within images of monitors. I.e.: a camera (a mechanical eye) which films it's own filming. Therefore, Iimura concludes that the phrase "this is a camera" signifies a Signified which is unique for the video medium. I.e.: this short circuit effect is only possible with a video camera. It demonstrates that the Video Frame (photogramme) is nothing but interruptions of an electrical signal - thus being a more unstable, temporal unit than the isolated Film Frame.

Iimura also concludes that "I am a camera", following Dziga Vertov's statement "I am the mechanical eye". In this way, Iimuras video semiology puts forward the question of the relationship between Self Identity and Visual Technology in the modern world. It's good that the present catalogue, with its additional texts by Daniel and Christophe Charles, makes clear the importance of this question in Iimuras work. I think it's a good introduction which calls for more elaborate studies.

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Updated 16 February 2001.




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