Ryoko Akama

Ryoko Akama

A Japanese-Korean working with installation, performance and composition, residing in Huddersfield, UK.

Her works sculpt domestic appliances and scrap wastes with invisible energy, especially interested in heat, magnetism and gravity, into kinetic contraptions. her works are site-specific, infusing both aural / visual occurrence as one entity, creating ephemeral situations that magnify silence, time and space. Interested in nature of relativity, culture and ecosystem, her artistic practice examines environment, architecture, immigration, conflict and fluidity of being.

She also composes and performs alternative scores and text works in collaboration with other artists and musicians worldwide. She is a member of the lappetites, electronic musician collective since 2000 and a member of the 9-piece band a.hop.

She is an artistic director for ame c.i.c., supporting DIY culture and underground art/music scene. She also co-runs the independent publisher mumei publishing and melange edition.

Featured releases

"In Another Place is constructed from the sounds of found materials, domestic objects and self-made mechanisms. Working between Lucerne, Montreal and Huddersfield, we followed simple cues as instructional starting points, responding to a single word to create a sonic response within a specific time-frame. These prompts became starting points for materially engaged, sonic exploration. Each take was a dislocated, improvisation to no-one, confined to our private studios and homes, our headphones and recorders. Sounds include recordings of ceramic hobs, seaweed, styrofoam, kitchen foil, balloons, resonant tubes, scrap metal, motors, water pumps, spark gaps, lightbulbs, water, wooden dowels and sand paper. The results were layered, re-situated and mixed by matching time-frames and timbre. In Another Place explores the musical potential of everyday materials through disconnection, interpretation and serendipity" - (Tim Shaw) -- "What if COVID-19 had never swept the globe? What if our lives were operating as normal? There would’ve been Anne-F Jacques from Montreal as ame’s fourth artist-in-residence collaborating, in different scales, with a gang of sound artists and musicians; Julia Eckhardt, Phil Niblock, Tim Shaw, Tania Caroline Chen, Yorkshire Sound Women Network and myself right now, here at Dai Hall, a venue for underground experimental music and art scene in Huddersfield. The luxury of chaos (I miss that now) would’ve been followed by high-spirited laugher. When Keiko invited me to make a mini album for Takuroku, I romanticised this hypothesis, the ‘what-if’ theory. Every event has a cause. This Takuroku opportunity has given us a chance to thrive, to get back to our individual creative zone, to listen to the world once more. Thanks to Cafe OTO." - (Ryoko Akama) -- Recorded by Tim Shaw, Anne-F Jacques and Ryoko Akama -- Mastered by Anne-F Jacques Artwork design by Oliver Barrett

In Another Place – Ryoko Akama, Anne-F Jacques and Tim Shaw

Past events