Ryuichi Sakamoto: Music in Motion

Description

M+’s Ryuichi Sakamoto | seeing sound, hearing time honours the distinguished composer (1952–2023) through immersive installations that transform listening into spatial experience. At the exhibition’s centre is async–immersion, a collaboration between Sakamoto and artist Shiro Takatani that reimagines his deeply personal 2017 album async as a three-dimensional environment of sound and image. Presented as a site-specific installation in The Studio, the work features Takatani’s visual compositions of Sakamoto’s instruments, plants, books and other studio objects on a large LED screen. These images dissolve, one pixel at a time, into abstract horizontal lines before re-forming, creating a meditative rhythm between presence and abstraction. 

Complementing this work, artist Carsten Nicolai presents two moving-image pieces in the Grand Stair, ENDO EXO and PHOSPHENES, both accompanied by music from Sakamoto’s poignant final album, 12. Together, these works invite visitors to experience time and sound as intertwined, living materials. 

In March, a selection of Sakamoto-related film programmes will also be screened at M+ Cinema throughout the exhibition period.