{"id":5637,"title":"Concepts in Performance: Taka Iimura","kind":"biblio","url":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/concepts-performance-taka-iimura","version":"3135161ef9f0f03d049531d368b8bf780c70dd32cef8e4b31f31edd2ebd0357e","modified":"2026-09-13T21:52:04.4433144+00:00","credits":[{"role":"Author","name":"Barbara Cavaliere"}],"authorKeys":["Cavaliere, Barbara"],"subjects":["Texts by Author"],"metadata":[{"label":"Publication","value":"Soho Weekly News","url":null},{"label":"Date","value":"June 28, 1979","url":null},{"label":"Place","value":"New York, NY","url":null},{"label":"ETC archive","value":"ETC1135","url":null}],"citations":{"page":"\u0022Concepts in Performance: Taka Iimura.\u0022 Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2026. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/concepts-performance-taka-iimura.","publication":"Barbara Cavaliere. Concepts in Performance: Taka Iimura. Soho Weekly News. June 28, 1979.","risUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/citation/5637.ris"},"links":[{"label":"Scanned document","url":"https://archive.org/details/ETC1135","relationship":"linked document; contents not retrieved","contentType":"application/pdf"}],"sections":[{"name":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"characters":3463},{"name":"summary","source":"existing VHP generated summary","generated":true,"characters":641}],"content":{"section":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"text":"Taka Iimura\u0027s \u0022I equals You equals He/She\u0022 June 5-17, 1979 Performance June 9 Whitney Museum of American Art 945 Madison Av. \u0022I equals You equals He/She\u0022 is participation/performance through the medium of video. The participating performers include the audience (through the duration of the live video installation) and Taka Iimura himself (in his performance/demonstration-as-participant). The installation in which this live action takes place consists of three video camera/monitors, three audiotapes (heard through three sets of headphones) and a swivel chair on which the participant sits. Part I: the live video installation. You bring the piece to life. You choose to participate. You decide on the order by organizing how you see and hear about self. You select which of the three monitors you face and for how long. While the monitors automatically shift from front to side to rear view of your transmitted self-image. You choose also from among the three sets of headphones, hearing a voice say repeatedly either \u0022I am,\u0022 \u0022you are,\u0022 or \u0022he is, she is.\u0022 Self is perceived simultaneously through the visible and the audible. Both points of view change continually, interpenetrating in various combinations, expanding consciousness of self through the timing and placement of the visual and verbal sequences created by your decisions-in-process. Part II: Iimura\u0027s performance. He, like you, brings the piece to life. In the first portion of his two-part participation, Iimura works out a non-sequential rotation of front/side/rear views of self, projected live on the three monitors. At the same time, he is hearing (privately, as you did) the repeated intonations of either the first, second or third person of the state-of-being verb \u0022to be\u0022 in the present tense. (It is interesting to note the multiple use of the highly symbolic number three in the piece.) Talking into a mike, Iimura interjects phrases such as \u0022seeing myself from the front...hearing my voice...trying to see myself on the side...turning to camera number two...listening to your voice...doing a performance...raising your hand...\u0022 In the second part of the performance, he shows a videotape from part one on one of the screens along with live images on the other two. The recorded audio segments (both the \u0022I am, you are...\u0022 part and Iimura\u0027s just-recorded phrases) are played back for all to hear, while Iimura periodically adds live phrases and changes his position in relationship to the monitors. Past and present intermingle. The chief origin for Iimura\u0027s approach is in the work of Allan Kaprow, founder and major theorizer of participation performance, whose Activities of the past decade have not received the attention due them. Directly related to Kaprow\u0027s example are Iimura\u0027s concepts of continuity, choice, grammatical structure such as \u0022ing\u0022 to stress the continuing present, and doing/remembering as inter-related routes toward deeper scrutiny of self. (Kaprow also incorporates relations with others in his discourse.) The East/West dialectic enters into both as well: for Kaprow from West to East and for Iimura from East to West, of course. The main difference in the two artists shows up as technology: Kaprow\u0027s work focuses on experience directly in the environment of the world, and Iimura\u0027s interest centers on experience literally recorded through the technology of video equipment, manipulated to act as audiovisual aid for exploration into self-identification.","offset":0,"nextOffset":null,"totalCharacters":3463,"complete":true},"rightsUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/terms-service"}