lab.5 ROUTINE RECORDS｜21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.

Information

Period:

2022.10.1(Sat.) - 2023.3.21(Tue.)
10:00 - 18:00 (until 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays)

Venue:

Design Gallery / 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

Admission：

Free

Closed：

Mondays (except October 10, 31 and January 2, 9), October 11, November 1, December 29 - January 1, 4, 10.

For More Information：

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa
Phone: +81-76-220-2800
E-Mail: info@kanazawa21.jp

This exhibition, the fifth in the lab. (short for “laboratory”) series, which was launched in 2017, not only makes use of the museum’s Design Gallery as a display venue, but it also focuses on the production process by turning the space into a site for investigative research and experimentation. In this edition, we introduce a new project called ROUTINE RECORDS by the spirited experimental welfare unit HERALBONY, which in recent years has explored the potential for welfare and art across a host of disciplines. In this project, the unit carefully developed sounds that were derived from the habitually repeated, everyday actions (routines) of people with intellectual disabilities, who attend special needs schools and welfare facilities in Kanazawa or other areas, and turned them into music. The venue a corner where visitors can listen to individual sounds, experimental compositions made by professional musicians out of routine sounds, and a DJ booth, where visitors can remix the sounds made by these routines and use them to create new music. This allows them to experience the creative process of turning the sounds they hear into music from a variety of different angles. The exhibition provides participants with the opportunity to develop a deeper awareness and sensitivity toward people from a wide range of backgrounds.

Project Statement

“Ummm” ... “San-ne” ... “Nooo” ... “Shiiin-kan-sen”
Today, Shota is again endlessly repeating mysterious words. Our elder brother by four years, Shota is autistic and has a severe intellectual disability. We wonder whether he likes the pleasant sound of the words, and whether they have any meaning or have any intent. Once we go outside with our elder brother, the mysterious and yet endearing sounds we hear at home become sounds that invite strange looks from people.
Such talk and behavior are not unique only to Shota. Rather, it is a mysterious behavioral characteristic shared by many people with autism and other intellectual disabilities. At 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, the words they endlessly repeat—strange, lovely, and filled with wonder—are being sublimated into a form of music.
Imagine the scenes and sounds you saw and heard long ago at school or on the train. The new music emerging from routines created by intellectually disabled people, “ROUTINE RECORDS,” is a project to replay such memories deep in your mind, in a loop, for you to hear and feel our experimental music.

HERALBONY Co., Ltd.
Takaya and Fumito MATSUDA

Exhibition Structure and Features

[Reference image of the venue]

As visitors make their way around the venue, they will develop a multifaceted understanding of the sounds and environments related to the daily lives of people with intellectual disabilities by listening to already made music and experiencing the creative process. Some aspects of the project, including an introduction to the sounds produced by routines, will also be presented to the public on a special website.

ROUTINE RECORDS special website

Three Structural Elements of the Exhibition

1. Sound Background
In this corner, visitors can listen to sounds and speaking produced in a wide range of everyday routines by people with intellectual disabilities (referred as “routiners” in this project), who have a habit of repeating the same actions.

2. A Booth to Listen and Watch Music and Images Created by Routine Sounds
In this booth, visitors can listen to music made by professional musicians based on routine sounds such as tearing up paper or engaging in wordplay.

3. Experience Booth
In this booth, installed in the center of the venue, visitors can experience the environments that give rise to these sounds and their distinctive features, and listen to music made with them. They will also have an opportunity to make their own music by combining various routine sounds and composing their own pieces.

Introduction to a Routine Sound Work

Shooting Place:Community Support Center Pole pole

Title: Calculator
Routiner: Takano Keigo
Affiliation: Community Support Center Pole Pole (Kanazawa, Ishikawa Prefecture)
According to one of the staff at the support center, Takano developed the routine of touching an electric calculator at home. He merely pushes the buttons without actually using the device to calculate figures. Takano has had a strong interest in numbers for many years, including things like household account books, receipts, and car license numbers. He often sings songs to himself based on license numbers and road numbers that he has seen in the past. Takano’s way of incorporating things that he has seen and experienced into his regular life suggests a variety of routines.

HERALBONY, Co., Ltd.

HERALBONY is an experimental welfare unit whose mission is to “unleash the exceptional.” The name “HERALBONY” was coined by one of the company’s founders, Shota Matsuda, the older brother in a set of twins who are on the spectrum. When Matsuda was 7, he wrote this mysterious word over and over again in a notebook. It connotes “the desire to create things that are seemingly meaningless and imbue them with new social value.” By contracting with artists with intellectual disabilities and social welfare facilities all over Japan, the company has developed myriad projects designed to expand the boundaries of the welfare field by licensing the rights to over 2,000 high-resolution images of artworks. The Kanazawa project marks the first time that the company has held an exhibition in the Hokuriku region, and the first time that it has shown its work at a museum. By implementing social programs of this kind at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, the company sets out to change the image of “disabilities” and use welfare as a starting point for new cultural creations.

Cooperating welfare facilities, Special Needs Schools, Individuals

Safuran Seikatsu-en (Kanazawa, Ishikawa)
Kyoto Fushimi Gakuen Atelier Yoohoo!!(Kanzawa, Ishikawa) atelier yamanami (Fushimi, Kyoto)
Kanazawa University Special Needs School (Koga, Shiga) Community Support Center Pole pole (Nagoya, Aichi) Shota Matsuda (Kanegasaki, Iwate)

Images

Shooting Place:Community Support Center Pole pole

Credit

Organized by：

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa (Kanazawa Art Promotion and Development Foundation)

Grants from：

Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan

Supported by：

Tokyo Tatemono Co., Ltd. / Mizuho Bank, Ltd. / PwC Japan Group / Shimizu Corporation

In Cooperation with：

Fujitsu Limited

21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa

Index