A very special performance in Arnolfini’s gallery space by artists Raha Raissnia and Aki Onda, using black oil paintings, film and slide projectors, tape recorders, radio, and tube amps.
Projecting 16mm footage with 35mm slides onto a dark surface of oil paints, Raissnia creates a deepened sense of immersion in an alien landscape, while Onda’s soundscape of field recordings, fed through tube amplifiers, challenges the boundaries of the picture and explores the power of imagination. Following this, Kouhei Matsunaga (PAN, Raster-Noton) returns to Arnolfini under his NHK’Koyxen moniker.
Aki Onda is an electronic musician, composer, and visual artist. He is particularly known for his Cassette Memories project – works compiled from a “sound diary” of field-recordings collected by Onda over a span of two decades. Onda’s musical instrument of choice is the cassette Walkman. He has collaborated with artists such as Michael Snow, Ken Jacobs, Paul Clipson, Alan Licht, Loren Connors, MV Carbon, Oren Ambarchi, Noël Akchoté, Jean-François Pauvros, Jac Berrocal, Lionel Marchetti, Linda Sharrock, and Blixa Bargeld.
Raha Raissnia emigrated from Iran to the United States in 1983. From 1992 to 1995 Raissnia worked at Anthology Film Archives in New York, a time that she describes as being “directly formative years” for her exposure and knowledge of avant-garde cinema as well as for the paintings she made during this period. In all of her gallery exhibitions and in various configurations she has presented elements of all three areas of her practice; that is painting, drawing, and filmmaking. She is represented by Miguel Abreu Gallery in NY, and Galerie Xippas in Paris.
http://www.miguelabreugallery.com/RahaRaissnia.htm
Born in Osaka, Kouhei Matsunaga has been making music since 1992. Under many different aliases (NHK, NHKyx, Internet Magic, Koyxen) he has released numerous albums on labels such as Skam Records, Wordsound, Raster Noton and his first ever album Upside Down on Mille Plateaux in 1998. He has also collaborated with artists like Merzbow, Jungle Brothers’ Sensational, Autechre’s Sean Booth, Mika Vainio, Conrad Schnitzler, Rudolf Eb.er and Asmus Tietchens. Matsunaga’s own label Flying Swimming was founded in 2002. The NHK’Koyxen project continues to develop his more dance-oriented material, showcased on his lauded recent PAN album series Dance Classics.
