Ryoko Akama: “Capitalism destroys coordination and I am not sure how we can re-coordinate ourselves into a system that works”

Luke Fowler & Ryoko Akama (Design: Laurens Bauer)

The Japanese-Korean artist, composer, and performer Ryoko Akama creates work that crosses the boundaries of sound, visual art, and performance. She is known for her minimalistic approach, emphasizing subtle nuances in sound and space. Akama’s work is often characterized by quiet, intimate compositions that invite the audience to listen deeply and reflect on the ephemeral nature of sound. In addition to her solo performances, Akama has collaborated with a wide range of artists, focusing on live performance, installation work, and sound experimentation.


The Scottish visual artist and musician Luke Fowler is known for his experimental approach to sound, film, and installation art. His works often explore the intersections between personal history, documentary film, and experimental music. Fowler’s films, such as „The Poor Stockinger, the Luddite Cropper and the Deluded Followers of Joanna Southcott“ (2009) and „All Divided Selves“ (2016), have garnered critical acclaim for their meditative, archival exploration of social and political themes. His music compositions, often based in improvisation and collaboration, offer a unique blend of acoustic and electronic textures. He recently collaborated with David Grubbs for a performance, whom we just also featured on kaput.

At this year’s Papiripar Festival in Hamburg, Fowler and Akama will join forces for a special collaborative project that promises to blur the lines between music, film, and visual art. In this interview, we’ll dive into their individual practices and explore how their artistic worlds will intersect in their upcoming performance.

Ryoko, Luke, to begin with: What is it that interests you most about the other, artistically?

Ryoko Akama (Photo Anton Lukoszevieze)

Ryoko Akama: The warm and sharp eyes that Luke has when he makes films about people. It shows that he cares and really wants to know and show the new world to the audience. I love the color that he uses too.

Luke Fowler: Ryoko’s work is delicate, subtle, wildly inventive and probing. I love the way that she re-purposes domestic objects and combines them with simple electronics, eventually turning the whole room into a composition.

Do you have a favorite work by the other? If so, which one — and why?

Luke Fowler: I saw the installation that she did for Tectonics and it was magical. She used radios, sine-wave generators and heat sensors and then walked around the space with a hair-dryer activating them, it was one of the best things I’d seen in ages.

Ryoko Akama: I have only seen snippets of „To the editor of Amateur Photographer“ and „Being in a Place in the past“. They look lovely. I would love to see „Being Blue“ though.

What role does collaboration play in your artistic life in general?

Ryoko Akama: I am quite introvert. Collaboration challenges that part of my personality. It is a way for me to socialise and get to know people. When collaborating with those who I enjoy to be around and respect, these together-time creates a magic that would not be achieved otherwise.

Luke Fowler: It’s s huge. I always enjoy to collaborate with different artists and musicians and of course film is one big collaboration with research, production, subjects and the place. I find collaboration challenges set ways of working and forges new neural pathways and of course the social aspect is very important as Ryoko mentions.

How should we imagine these artistic exchanges? Do you feel that your collaborators always encounter the same version of you — or do specific constellations bring out quite different sides of your personality?

Ryoko Akama: Definitely a different version of my artistic nature appears depending on who I am with.

Luke Fowler: It produces a hybrid artwork – that neither of us would produce by ourselves.

As you’re collaborating for this year’s Papiripar Festival — can you already share some insights into what to expect?

Ryoko Akama: Celebrating Oram Daphne’s 100th birthday, our installation thinks of her and/or with her. Luke is making an awesome composition (linear) and I am scattering around sound contraptions (non-linear) that hopefully will inspire our version of ‘Oram space’.

Luke Fowler: I produced a sound sculpture made from cut glass vessels a few years ago that is transformed into a multi-channel mobile speaker – by way of transducers. I have created a new score for the glass speakers that considers the work of Daphne Oram and other pioneers of electronic music in Britain from 50’s onwards. This work involved re-reading Daphne’s book (an individual note in sound, music and electronics) and doing research at her archive in Goldsmiths as well as talking to another pioneer – and living peer or Daphne – Janet Beat, who alongside Daphne was creating music concrete works in Britain in the late 40’s. I had the pleasure of meeting and talking to Janet on several occasions as she is based near where I live in Glasgow. These encounters – as well as the setting, Westwerk – and collaboration with Ryoko informed my work.

Ryoko Akama “YSP-40”

Both of you are, let’s say, quite sensitive artists — not going for the loud and obvious, but rather searching for what’s untold or unheard. You also embrace quietness, stillness, and empty space as legitimate artistic elements.
What does this sensibility mean in the context of collaboration? I suppose I’m asking about the balance between natural flow and intentional dialogue.

Luke Fowler: Im not sure. I can also be loud and obvious at times! for example I played sequencer/synth in a disco-inspired band AMOR for many years, which took the template and energy of disco and transfigured it to a different set of individual musicians and time.
But yes, a lot of the time as an artist, I am interested in what is overlooked, remaining in the margins, under-valued, mis-represented. My installation often upend avoid the obvious spectacle of video art and to think about subtle gestures and phenomena, the mundane and ordinary things.

Ryoko Akama: Listening is respect and gratitude. Waiting is curiosity and awareness. Giving space means sensing to the surrounding. Sensible work does not mean the artist is sensible herself, and vice versa. One could create beautiful sensibility in a so-seems hectic work if the artist embraces sensibility. I am more interested in that rather than, natural vs intentional.

Luke Fowler, “Being Blue”

Combining sound and images is easy — but then again, not really.
I say that because video has become ubiquitous in art and music events, but it’s rare that sound and image truly feel in dialogue with each other in a deep, artistic way. You know what I mean?
Do you also feel that in most cases the combination of sound and moving images is rather uninspired, not too say boring?

Ryoko Akama: Depends on how the artist execute the work. There are definitely boring works. This is often when the artist creates what they think they should make, not what they want to make. It’s like our body, which needs ‘core strength. Creativity needs strength that comes within, a little fire that sparks in the work.

Luke Fowler: Sure, even a child can and now do use editing software to share their videos. A lot of what I see as video-film-TV, I don’t find the engagement in editing or sound, at best the cinematography is considered – when one is passionate about putting together image and sound in a meaningful dialogue (with some thought and knowledge of the field), then something magical can happen for the viewer.I think if you can come to my film program then you will hopefully see what I mean.

Are you researching a lot what other artists create? And does this have an impact on your own work?

Luke Fowler: Yes and I find it deeply nourishing and vitalising but nowadays I am not as omnivorous for culture as I used to be – I grew up going to concerts, theatre, cinema, galleries all the time, seeking out artists who inspire me. Nowadays I feel more like a camel, drawing on reserves of inspiration that I gathered over the last 25 years.

Ryoko Akama: Not much research within a territory of sound works, but I do read and watch a lot. Also observe societies and humans every day. That drives me for ideas.

How free do you feel in the interplay between music, objects, images, and bodies?
 For example, do you notice recurring working patterns in your collaborations — or is the process completely open and surprising each time?

Ryoko Akama: Architectural facts play a massive part in my installation and performance. Hence, working in a new space always brings a surprise. Also, depending on collaborators, my work process definitely differs.

Luke Fowler, “Bogman Palmjaguar”

Or, from a different angle: What role does improvisation play in your practice?

Ryoko Akama: I am a slow-thinker. I am born like that and my background factors have made me so. Improvisation requires promptness and intuitive action. These are very difficult yet important for me, to react, to co-work in a moment with others. That is why I continue to challenge to do so.

Luke Fowler: Ha! Well for a few years I was very engaged in the improv scene in Glasgow, I played at a cafe called Tchai-Ovna and in clubs regularly with other local improvisors. At that time – around 2003-4 – I was mostly playing circuit bend keyboards, contact mic instruments and a EMAX sampler keyboard and playing with musicians based out of a large house in Govan owned by Alex Neilson. I was really absorbed in that history – AMM, Cornelius Cardew, Derek Bailey, Spontaneous Music Ensemble, MEV, which culminated in a film I made about the scratch orchestra (Pilgrimage from Scattered Points). I had a few epiphanies around that time, one was seeing AMM perform at Instal in Glasgow (2003?) and the other was meeting and collaborating with instrument inventor Hugh Davies. After some years improvising with my reel to reel project – Lied Music – I stopped to focus on analogue modular synths and writing/composing electronic music.

Can you name other artists who have inspired you — perhaps even guided your artistic path?

Ryoko Akama: Again, a huge list in this question! Let’s talk about very recent memories. performance by Yan Jun was fantastic. He creates works from super simple idea yet executes it in the most powerful way that noone can. Bonnie Hans Jones and Cathy Park Hong, both beautiful thinkers that change the way I think of the world. The Handover live performance was incredible.

Ryoko Akama

You’re both known for artistic work that deeply engages with narrative — both human and natural. You don’t take history or science at face value, but instead research and reframe stories in ways that open up new perspectives.
That seems like a challenging process — a) because society often resists questioning its accepted narratives, and b) because challenging those narratives can be tough, emotionally and intellectually. How have you experienced this process yourselves?

Ryoko Akama: In the last four years, I began making works around Korean immigration topic and I keep a certain struggle. how could these subjects that contain ‘what people might not want to face’ be translated into artistic practice? Why am I doing this? Should I be doing this? I have a lot of conversation about this with my colleagues. But I know, somewhere deep in myself, that I have to do it.

Taking a step back: What is it that sparks your curiosity — about things, stories, people…?

Ryoko Akama: People.

Luke Fowler: I often have to sit with an idea for a while before I pursue it deeper. That can be a year or a few months. When I started making films, I was not interested in the heroic Ruckfiguren – more that invididuals come from communities, politics and micro-histories. History / dominant narrative often simplify these factors to promote a easy narrative of say “the American dream”.

And what leads from that curiosity to the decision to “make it yours” — to process a topic artistically?

Luke Fowler: Research, or lived experience.

Ryoko Akama: Every work I do begins in my little shed studio. I spend a lot of time there experimenting and facing failure. By the time, I create something, that is mine, regardless of what others think.

How different — or similar — is it for you to look at social structures versus natural conditions?

Ryoko Akama: If we speak globally, it is already corrupted and crusty. However, when we observe locally, there are places where social structure still cherishes natural condition. These places are considered valueless and less capable by the society we have built, yet they are the ones that should be looked up and respected.

Luke Fowler: I find that difficult to answer because I don’t know what you mean by natural conditions? My work often fluctuates between social histories and natural/sound phenomena, I don’t raise humans as more important than nature/the animal world.

And what role do we humans play in that coordinate system, for you?

Luke Fowler: Well, its not looking good is it? Personally I hope for mass-uprisings, insurrection… and a turn away from the current model of global/natural imperialism and capitalist extraction of the earth’s resources.

Ryoko Akama: Capitalism destroys coordination and I am not sure how we can re-coordinate ourselves into a system that works.

Ryoko Akama, “OSCILLATION”

Ryoko, you’re the artistic director of ame (art music experiment) C.I.C, an artist-collective organisation supporting experimental art, sound art, and music in northern England. You also co-run the independent publisher mumei publishing.
How important is it — especially in the current climate — not just to pursue your own projects, but also to help cultivate a wider artistic biotope?

Ryoko Akama: I don’t think I ever helped cultivating culture in the UK! However, I still see the importance in someone like me, who has little power, to continue curating and programming. What I am doing in political as much as artistic.

Luke, you recently collaborated with David Grubbs, who I just saw the other day at Big Ears Festival in Knoxville, debuting his new band Squanderers (with Kramer and Wendy Eisenberg) — that feature will be out any minute now.
How was the performance with David, and what was its artistic core?

Luke Fowler: David put me in touch with Brunhild Ferrari, who I made two films about. We then worked on a live concert together at Giorno Poetry Systems, New York- – using sounds that Brunhild had sent us. We have performed that work (now titled “Jai Pense Sans Parole”) a number of times now in UK and Europe.

Luke Fowler A visit with Robert

We also have a friend in common — the amazing Mark Fell. I saw that you both were invited by him in spring 2017 to Moscow for a music/art event at GES-2, the former power station that once supplied electricity to the city.
What exactly did you present there, and how did you experience the event overall?

Ryoko Akama, Hepworth (Photo: Ed Cooper)

Ryoko Akama: I performed with Russian musician Boris Shershenkov. Unfortunately, I was so busy that I only stayed in Moscow for 2 nights which, in retrospect, I very much regret about. I do remember the building of the event was incredible and I met so many musician friends I did not expect to see in the city over the two days. The most memorable was to meet and chat with jlin. I love her work and her voice, so I was very flattered to meet her. Thanks to Mark.

Luke Fowler: I presented / created a work in collaboration with Richard McMaster (who has previously performed at the festival as The Modern Institute): “The mechanics of dissonance”; we took the invention of the Russian ANS synthesiser, which was made famous by Eduord Artymiev for his soundtracks to many Tarkovsky films. The synthesiser in many ways was very similar to Daphe’s Oramics machine, in that it turned graphics into information that was read by the 200 odd sine wave oscillator that interpreted them as a score for what pitch and envelope it should follow. It was a two screen film, shot in the Glinsky museum where the ANS lives. The work was assisted by the great ANS composer who sadly died quite recently.

Looking at this year’s Papiripar Festival lineup — are there any performances you’re particularly looking forward to?

Luke Fowler: Asmus Tietchens, The Percussion of Strasbourg, Rian and Cara to name a few..