Takahiko Iimura--Film et Video (review)

Takahiko Iimura--Film et Vidéo by Daniel Charles. Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume, Paris, France, 1999. 126 pp., illus. Paper. ISBN: 901181-70-1. In French and Japanese.

Is there such a thing as a conceptualist filmmaker? Is not conceptualism in a sense contradictory to filmmaking? The feeling of immersion and narrative in the filmic experience--is this necessarily the opposite of an intellectual, conceptual standpoint? Takahiko (Taka) Iimura is a Japanese filmmaker and video artist who, since the beginning of the 1960s, has moved toward the experimental peripheries of the media of moving images--peripheries in which the popular sphere of filmmaking gradually transforms into the conceptual and minimal.

The present catalog, Film et vidéo, was made in conjunction with Iimura's retrospective at the Galerie national de Jeu de Paume in Paris, 11-30 May 1999. With only black-and-white illustrations, which is perfectly fitting for a production so dominated by black-and-white, this catalog (with parallel texts in French and Japanese) covers and explains Iimura's development, from early 16-mm films such as "Ai" ("Love," 1962; music by Yoko Ono) to the final presentation of his impressive CD-ROM Observer/Observed and Other Works of Video Semiology, produced at the Banff Center in 1998-1999. However, the major part of the catalog consists of Iimura's own text on video semiology, taken (with
illustrations) from the CD-ROM.

The catalog describes three series of minimal video sequences: "Camera, Monitor, Frame" (five sequences, 1976-1998), "Observer/Observed" (three sequences, 1975-1998) and "Observer/Observed/Observer" (three sequences, 1976-1998). According to Iimura, these videos are semiology--art as theory rather than theory of art. In a very matter-of-fact way, they explore the spatial structure of the video medium and the relations between camera, monitor, observer and observed. There is nothing to be seen here, except cameras, monitors, written or spoken statements like "this is a monitor" and, of course, also the observers (who sometimes become the observed objects of their own observation).

Referring to formalist film theories such as those of Sergei Eisenstein and Dziga Vertov, Iimura looks for a relation between "the logical structure of the video system" and the grammar of spoken language. But his aim is also to stage a rupture (une saut) between word and image. For example, a camera first films the text "this is a monitor" and then turns to a monitor connected to the camera itself, which creates a short circuit (monitor within monitor within monitor). Contrary to the written statement, there is really no monitor--just images of monitors within images of monitors, i.e. a camera (a mechanical eye) which films its own filming. Therefore, Iimura concludes that the phrase "this is a camera" signifies a signified that is unique for the video medium, i.e. this short circuit effect is only possible with a video camera. It demonstrates that the video frame (photogram) is nothing but interruptions of an electrical signal--thus being a more unstable, temporal unit than the isolated film frame.

Iimura's video semiology puts forward the question of the relationship between self-identity and visual technology in the modern world. It is good that the present catalog, with its additional texts by Daniel and Christophe Charles, makes clear the importance of this question in Iimura's work. This is a good introduction that calls for more elaborate studies.

 

Fred Andersson,
Ulvsbygatan 29 (6), 654 64 Karlstad, Sweden.
E-mail: <konstfred@hotmail.com>.

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