{"id":5638,"title":"Electronic Linguistics","kind":"biblio","url":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/electronic-linguistics-taka-iimura","version":"e698b873d8d8f4d1aa95b9411594dcddfd563a227d539640ac0c34c6579a6e79","modified":"2026-09-13T21:52:04.4433692+00:00","credits":[{"role":"Author","name":"Dan Collins"}],"authorKeys":["Collins, Dan"],"subjects":["Texts by Author"],"metadata":[{"label":"Publication","value":"ArtWeek","url":null},{"label":"Publisher","value":"Cecile N McCann","url":null},{"label":"Date","value":"December 6, 1980","url":null},{"label":"Place","value":"Los Angeles, California","url":null},{"label":"Volume","value":"11","url":null},{"label":"Issue","value":"41","url":null},{"label":"ETC archive","value":"ETC1136","url":null}],"citations":{"page":"\u0022Electronic Linguistics: Taka Iimura.\u0022 Video History Project, Experimental Television Center, 2026. https://www.videohistoryproject.org/electronic-linguistics-taka-iimura.","publication":"Dan Collins. Electronic Linguistics. ArtWeek. vol. 11, no. 41. Cecile N McCann. December 6, 1980.","risUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/citation/5638.ris"},"links":[{"label":"Scanned document","url":"https://archive.org/details/ETC1136","relationship":"linked document; contents not retrieved","contentType":"application/pdf"}],"sections":[{"name":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"characters":3399},{"name":"summary","source":"existing VHP generated summary","generated":true,"characters":641}],"content":{"section":"body","source":"VHP record body","generated":false,"text":"Taka Iimura, the Japanese film and video artist is widely known for his work in film where he has concentrated on our perception of time and duration. As in his filmmaking, which seeks to arrive at the \u0022fundamental components\u0022 of the medium, Iimura\u0027s videotapes, screened recently at the Long Beach Post-Production Studio, investigate the basic vocabulary of television. For the past few years, Iimura has explored the structural relationships of language, using a closed-circuit video system. In a \u0022self-referential\u0022 network of equipment where the image of a VTR camera (\u0022observer\u0022) is fed back through a monitor (\u0022observed\u0022), a series of images is created which parallel in structure the syntax of the English language. Physically, the arrangements he favors utilize a basic VTR unit routed through a \u0022switcher,\u0022 two cameras and two monitors. Each camera is the focus on a monitor which, in turn, can display either live or prerecorded information. In Iimura\u0027s attempt to relate image to language, the observer/camera (subject) becomes an integral part of both system and \u0022sentence.\u0022 He writes, \u0022Unlike film, in closed-circuit video one can see the \u0027observer\u0027 (subject) and the \u0027observed\u0027 (object) at the same time.\u0022 The artist considers this subject/object relation to be \u0022sentence-like.\u0022 In 1976 Iimura began using a linguistic model where the subject/camera (\u0022I\u0022) can \u0022see\u0022 the object/monitor (\u0022you\u0022), i.e., \u0022I see you.\u0022 By using this basic syntactical unit as a departure point for increasingly complex \u0022sentences,\u0022 the structural relationships between words, both written and spoken, and hardware could be explored. In Iimura\u0027s work, the roles of observer and observed shift according to the description of the words seen and/or heard by the percipient. For example, if the picture reads \u0022I\u0022 and an off-screen voice says \u0022you,\u0022 one\u0027s mode of perception is affected differently than if the picture reads \u0022you\u0022 and an off-screen voice says \u0022I.\u0022 A Given image, whether considered linguistically or in terms of the hardware employed, is expanded to include the functions of both observer and observed. Norman Yonemoto, an LA video artist, feels that the primary concern of Iimura\u0027s work is \u0022educational,\u0022 i.e., it provides \u0022lessons in a visual language.\u0022 The point of these lessons, besides refining a viewer\u0027s capacity for processing audiovisual information, is, in Yonemoto\u0027s estimation, to put oneself into a contextual framework where there is the possibility of \u0022total self-referencing.\u0022 Traditionally, the West has effected a clear separation of the concept of \u0022subject\u0022 and \u0022object,\u0022 i.e., Western man (subject) has chosen to dominate and restructure his environment (object) to suit his most immediate needs. In contrast, the East has been characterized for generations by a fluid interchange between \u0022subject\u0022 and \u0022object,\u0022 i.e., an individual schooled in the ways of the East has little trouble assimilating objects into the self. Iimura, a native of Japan, is challenging our basic assumptions about how we perceive the world around us - as expressed in the simple arrangements of words and images. While the structures employed by the artist would be nothing new to those interested in language and its veiled functions, the work seen as a whole reflects a personality committed to expressing the universal through the subtle relationships which, from moment to moment, escape us all.","offset":0,"nextOffset":null,"totalCharacters":3399,"complete":true},"rightsUrl":"https://www.videohistoryproject.org/terms-service"}