ART & ARTISTS

  • Fragrant Forest

Sound producer for the Kankaku Museum

Munetaka Tanaka

1949 Born in Tokyo
2018 Deceased


I visited the Zazaragi remains for preparation. The remains had been backfilled, except the explanation board, so it was only a vacant site. However, when I stood in Zazaragi and listened to wind blowing and insects singing, I felt as if my body were reduced and absorbed into the space. My physical sensation disappeared, and the auditory, olfactory, and other senses only remained pleasantly. What did our ancient predecessors, who must have had much keener senses than us, modern people, see, hear, and feel in Zazaragi a long time ago? This experience of mine is at the origin of sound design for the Kankaku Museum. It was an eternal world that I could glimpse through a gap in the everyday world, or shining beauty that hides in common scenery. I hope that we can retrieve the functions of various senses that we tend to forget and ignore in daily life. I hope, at least, we can be keen to the functions of our senses. Could I provide people with an opportunity for that? I sincerely pray that visitors to this museum will unconsciously take that opportunity back home, and freely release their senses someday, somehow, through their experience of that opportunity.