TAKAHIKO IIMURA

Takahiko Iimura has been a pioneer artist of Japanese experimental film and video, working in film since 1960 and with video since 1970. He is also a widely established international artist, having numerous exhibitions in Japan, the USA, and in Europe. One of his early films, "Onan", was awarded Special Prize at the legendary Brussels International Experimental Festival, 1964. Recently he has been involved in using the computer, publishing multimedia CD-ROMs/DVDs combining film, video, graphics, text, and animation.

Iimura is one of the pioneers of cinema, video and installation production in Japan. He began his artistic career producing experimental films in the sixties in New York. In 1962 he made his first experimental film, “Junk”, on ecological issues. He followed this with other productions such as “Love” (1962) and “Onan” (1962) that explored erotic images and social criticism. His first audiovisual installations, which included “Dead movie” (1964) and “Projection piece” (1968) used film projections.

In 1970 he produced his first video work, “Blinking”. In the nineties he produced multimedia works such as “AIUEONN six feature” (1993), an interactive version of the installation of the same name. In 1997 he produced “Meta media”, a complex interactive installation in which the visitors control the images of his first cinema productions.

In 2001 he exhibited the video installation “Observer/observed” at the Laboratorio Arte Alameda in Mexico. In 2002 he presented the audiovisual installation “Seeing/hearing/speaking” at the Art Village Center, Kobe, Japan. This is based on “Speech and Phenomena", a book by the French philosopher Jacques Derrida, and looks at the relation between talking and hearing through videos produced between 1978 and 2001, which can be viewed in linear format or in fragments.

His work has won various awards, and has been shown at numerous festivals and exhibitions in many different countries around the world.