Japan/Germany
Please give us a brief summary of your work, including, if possible, a description of your creative process (e.g., how your creative ideas first appear and take shape).
My films can basically be divided into two types of projects. The first is ‘Lip-Sync’, which I learned whilst a student in London. I could not speak nor understand English very well, and one of my first assignments was a lip-sync exercise. It was hard to do because I could not hear English as a comprehensible language. After a while, I realised that these spoken words were not only words that I did not understand, but they were also sounds. I began to write all the English words out in Japanese phonetic characters to count frames. It worked. I began to apply the same technique to other languages. Also, I learned from my international flatmates and new friends in London that people can become friends without knowing each other’s languages all that well. The idea suited my situation. This is the backstory of my first film Introspection (1998) which featured friends speaking 13 different languages. Since then, I have made several ‘Lip- or Music Sync’ films.
The second type is the ‘Daumenreise Project’, which is a mixture of hand-drawings and real backgrounds. When I got a chance to stay in Vienna, Austria, I got this idea to make a film whilst enjoying the view, or food, even out with friends. I made small animated drawings (about business card size), which I held with my left hand and shot with a small digital camera in the city, or places that are connected to the drawings. I believe it is one of the easiest and most fun ways to make a film.
In terms of theme, I try to pick the strongest and the most realistic theme for me at a particular moment. It is not always a new theme but is sometimes drawn from memories too. My pattern for the ‘Lip- or Music Sync’ films is to collect voices and make music first; then I edit all the sounds before starting to draw. Another pattern of mine is compiling lots of small idea sketches under a certain theme, finding an order for them, creating a storyboard and then drawing the in-betweens.
How would you define your animation practice in terms of its relation to fine art traditions, experimental animation or the (historical) avant-garde? Its relation to commercial industry? Who/what are your strongest influences?
Growing up I always liked animation on TV, but when I was a student there was no course to study animation film-making. So, I began to study Visual Design. After two years of studying art, I became a fine art teacher and worked for six years before deciding to go to Kyoto City University of Arts to study more. Out of the three choices for the first-year students, I took Japanese Painting (the other two choices were Oil Painting and Sculpture). The university had a unique system that allowed students to choose their course after entering. We took one of three courses first, then after that we could continue or enter a new course of two more courses, Printmaking and Conceptual & Media Art. After Japanese Painting, I decided to study Conceptual & Media Art because I thought it was the closest to animation. I felt like a stranger on the course because I was the only one who wanted to make animated TV programmes for children. Although I picked up some ideas about art from my studies, I basically taught myself how to animate. From Japanese Painting, I learned about observing and making lots of sketches to get to the essence of the image, and from Conceptual & Media Art I learned to ask important questions about my work and my role as an artist more broadly.
During my time as a student, I did some work for television. But I decided to continue my master’s degree and went to the Hiroshima Animation Festival for the first time. It totally changed my idea about animation. Before, I wanted to make films to make money, but after Hiroshima I began to think that I needed money to make my own films. The following year I enrolled on an animation course at the Royal College of Arts in London as an exchange student. It was there that I began to explore my own style.
My strongest influence has come from puppet animation master, Kihachiro Kawamoto. His words about my films were very strong, severe and full of meaning.
Why animation?
I liked magic and wanted to be a magician when I was little. Animation is a kind of magic. I admire theatre, music and other performance-based art forms, but I like to make things by myself. I can make animation in my own time, and it is also possible to continue to refine it as much as I like. Animation is like a poem. Sometimes I cannot find the right word to express my idea, but I believe I can say something through animation.
Is material or media a particularly important component of your practice? How does it operate in your work?
I like to move, walk and see things as I work, so I like to use handy materials. I like to be able to make animation whenever and wherever I want to. This was the first motivation to use small sketchbooks to draw on and shoot on location. Now I use small papers, they’re handier. Maybe an iPad would be even more convenient, but I still really like the texture of Japanese rice paper and inks. I think that they express a more ‘human-hand-feeling’.
What is your work’s relation to experimental form and technique? Is there something you want to articulate with your work that can’t be expressed through conventional narrative means?
In my work I want to crystallise the feeling or thinking at that moment. I want to include the atmosphere also. So, I use peoples’ voices around me, or shoot in the city where I am. It is very important for me to use ‘live’ backgrounds for the ‘Daumenreise’ project.
I use associative connections instead of conventional narrative. I don’t like to offer a complete picture but instead bits of ‘structure’ or ‘content’ that people can construct into their own final picture.
How do you see your work operating culturally? Politically?
In my work I show my ideas or ways of thinking, and I see my work as a form of poetry. So, it is culturally relevant; even more so, for example, in the ‘Daumenreise’ animations, because they are often portraits of cities, people who live there, or how they live.
Reference
Yonesho, Maya. Introspection. UK, 1998. Film.