Interview: Miki Yui

Miki Yui’s piece Strøm exhibited at IMO is as site-specific as it gets. Even the title, which the Japanese artist has chosen for her work, is Danish. In the intimate phone-cabin renamed Phonebox Miki Yui deals with the double meaning of the Danish word ‘strøm’. The word both refers to the electrical nature of telephone technology and the idea of sound as something streaming.

Inside Phonebox Miki Yui has installed an open phone book upon which she has mounted small piezo speakers similar to buzzers one could find in old telephones. Hereby the audience can hear minimal sounds that are transmitted as vibrations through the pages. It is as if all the names and numbers in the phone book suddenly announce their own noisy presence. Two speakers create a sonic backdrop of a more compositional nature.

Miki Yui is born in Tokyo in 1971 and lives and works in Düsseldorf and Zeeland. Her work is the last in a series of 12 sound-based works presented in Phonebox at IMO in the first half of 2010. Earlier artists working with sound presented in Phonebox are Stephen Vitiello (US), Ursula Nistrup (DK), Ultra-red (US), Jio Shimizu (JP), Camille Norment (US/N), Morten Skrøder Lund (DK), Aeron Bergman and Alejandra Salinas (US/ES), Marc Behrens (DE), Dani Gal (IL), Steve Roden (US) and Don Ritter (CA).

Interview:Rune Søchting

Foto:IMO & Miki Yui

Miki Yui (JP)

Strøm

17. juli - 31. juli 2010

IMO

Ny Carlsbergvej 68, 1760 København V

web site:www.imo-projects.com

Tirsdag-fredag 12-17, lørdag 12-15

Miki Yui: Strøm, 2010.

What role does sound play in the installation Strøm?

Sound is a medium in my work that connects physical and non-physical spaces in our perception.

You have invented the concept “small sounds” for describing your work. The small sounds are something like background noises, often unnoticed or unappreciated sounds. What role do they play in the perception of a given space?

“Small sounds” are composed from often neglected sounds. Sometimes I also use instruments as source material for composing these small sounds. In general, any act, any thought is informed by memories that inhabit our body, even if we are not conscious of them. Without these memories our daily life would not function.

Sound is also part of such physical or bodily memories. Because small sounds are derived from sounds that we all know, however vague or abstract they may appear, they still remind us of something we have experienced. Small sounds mediate between our bodily remembered space and the imagined space we experience.

Miki Yui: Atokata (installation detail), 2004. Gelbe Musik Berlin.

The work Strøm relates directly to the context of the phone-cabin with the phone book and the idea of wire-transmitted sound. Do you think of your work as related to a specific site or location?

Yes, the piece Strøm is made for the phone-cabin. My work is often made for a specific space. My inspiration takes a given space or something related to the space as its starting point. The piece could develop further and become an independent piece later.

Your work has musical qualities and you have also published CD’s. Do you think of your work as music or is your work related to music in any way?

Yes. As I said before, small sounds mediate between physical and non-physical space, remembering and imagining. It is very similar to how we listen to music. All my artwork are rooted in this idea of small sounds, but they differ in the way they are presented - whether it is in the shape of installation, drawing or CD.

Thank you.

Miki Yui: Mamagoto, 2010. e/static Torino.

Miki Yui: Atomo, 2003. Drawing, private collection.

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Interview: Miki Yui

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