A series of what Stephen terms “Shinkansen sonatas”, music composed and performed on Japan shinkansen (high-speed bullet trains) in tandem with the fleeting rail-side scenery, embodying the contradictory states of being in transit and in situ, and the loneliness of crowds – the zeitgeist of contemporary Asian cities. Playing on the contradictory meanings of the prefix “de” (to reverse e.g. dehumidify, and to intensify e.g. defraud), DE-RAIL utilizes live loop performances whilst riding the train loop route between Tokyo and Kyoto (direct and return via Kanazawa) to evoke the repetitions of commuter and tourist travel.
Privileging the in-between, left on the side of the tracks, instead of the glossy destinations, and questioning the impacts and inequalities of what has been cut-off, divided, and passed-by in the name of economic/tourism development.
ToKyotoKyoTo
Live Loops performance riding the Hikari Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto – the busiest train route. Attenuated beat detection via Processing toggles the rendered video of the passing scenery between actual vs. abstracted via solarization (simulating extreme overexposure on film) and edge detection (derived from extreme changes in image brightness) effects at random. 6 live sets were performed.
KyoTotoToKyo 1
Live Loops performance riding the Thunderbird Limited Express Shinkansen from Kyoto to Kanazawa enroute to Tokyo. Attenuated beat detection via Processing toggles the rendered video of the passing scenery between actual vs. abstracted via VHS glitch and bloom effects at random that reproduce imaging artifact of old cameras (the duration between beats dictate strength of effects). 6 live sets were performed.
KyoTotoToKyo 2
Live Loops performance riding the Kagayaki Shinkansen from Kanazawa to Tokyo via Kyoto. Attenuated beat detection via Processing toggles the rendered video of the passing scenery between actual vs. abstracted via posterization at random that reduces the image to flat tones akin to ukiyo-e and manga (the volume of the beat dictating strength of posterization). 6 live sets were performed.
