To kick off the year 2011, the ddd gallery will host its 178th exhibition, “GRAPHIC WEST 3: phono/graph—sound・letters・graphics－”

The accelerating pace of technological development in recent years has resulted in the dawning of a new era, in which audio, written text, still and moving images, and other forms of editable media have attained equal status and become available to the wider public. At the same time, the graphic design world has also been going through drastic changes. With Yukio Fujimoto in a supervising role, five groups of creators will face off in order to “gain an overall understanding of the potential offered by combining sound, art, and graphic design.”

The theme for this exhibition is “phono/graph—sound・letters・graphics—” Without becoming constrained by limitations of genres such as visual and aural expression, the works of participating artists (who are active and versatile in the worlds of audio, written and graphic expression) will fill the ddd gallery. Working under this challenging theme, these creative artists from a variety of fields will share their diverse and uninhibited artistic viewpoints with visitors to this inspiring event.

phono/graph —sound·letters·graphics—

This exhibition presents works of artists who adopt diverse and uninhibited approaches to sound, letters, and graphics.

The notions of music as a mere soundtrack for graphics, or graphics serving solely to heighten enjoyment of music, are already outmoded.

Today, our eyes and ears are awash in an unceasing stream of letters, graphics, and sound, or strands like melodies in musical polyphony, which intertwine to form a single piece of music.

] In our daily lives, seeing has already become a musical activity, while hearing sounds is like encountering a picture.
The merchandise, architectural structures, and signs and displays that make up our cityscapes produce a coherent, vibrant rhythm, with their graphic functions serving to form part of the ensemble.
And the ambient noise and music of the urban throng form a wall of combined sound, taking visible shape before our eyes.

People today hear sounds with their eyes and see pictures with their ears.

Far from new, these ideas were advocated and experimented with a century ago by the Italian artists of the Futurist movement.
Now, a hundred years on, with access to user-friendly audiovisual equipment, artists are able to express their ideas in a natural manner.

The works in this exhibition at ddd gallery testify to the ease with which the featured artists manipulate sound, letters and graphics, regardless of limitations of genres such as visual and auditory expression.
In 1877, Thomas Edison invented a machine called the phonograph.
Combining the elements “phono” (sound) and “graph” (record), the phonograph joined the already existing photograph, comprising “photo” (light) and “graph” (record), in shaping the world of information in the 20th century.

Words originally existed as meaningful voices uttered in the aural ether. Then the invention of writing gave them shape as text, and they flooded our visual environment with the rise of printing technology.
With the evolution of technology in the 21st century, our eyes and ears are seeking new realms of exploration.
By using their eyes and ears flexibly and ingeniously, both creators and consumers of art have embarked on a journey into uncharted worlds of the word.

- Yukio Fujimoto

About the Artists

Yukio Fujimoto
Born 1950 in Nagoya. Graduated from the Musicology Department of the Osaka University of Arts.
In the mid-1980s, Fujimoto began producing devices and sound objects, focusing on sound from everyday life. His ongoing projects, including installations, performances and workshops, use the experience of sound in space to lead participants to new ways of perception.
Fujimoto exhibited at the Venice Biennale in 2001 and 2007.

Nicole Schmid
Born 1978 in Osaka. Graduated from Kobe Design University in 2001.
Schmid attended the Schule fur Gestaltung Basel (Basel School of Design) in Switzerland starting in 2003. In 2009, she returned to Osaka, and is currently working at Helmut Schmid Design.
Emphasizes typography, her design work centers on paper media

softpad
A creative design team based in Kyoto, softpad was formed in 1999. Their projects explore boundaries and connections between media, straddling diverse genres such as installation, performance, sound, and graphic design.
Members: Ichiro Awazu, Tomohiro Ueshiba, Teruyasu Okumura, Hajime Takeuchi, Hiromasa Tomari, Hiroshi Toyama, Takuya Minami

intext
A team formed in 2004 by programmer Yusuke Ozaki and designer Yusuke Mimasu. Artist Hiroshi Toyama joined in 2007.
The activities of intext include participation in art events, production of printed matter, and audiovisual projects. The team brings a graphic design sensibility to other media, subjecting established methods to repurposing and reinterpretation.

Lyota Yagi
Born 1980 in Aichi. Currently resides in Kyoto.
Yagi’s creative output employs a wide range of approaches, ranging from sound art to art objects, video, installation, and interactive media.
By reinterpreting the functions and attributes of familiar objects, Yagi reconfigures them to subvert their value and relationship to their surroundings, replaying experiences and memories in new contexts. His work primarily addresses the issues of sound, text, and time.