Three films from the GIOGlobal ZOOM recordings were premiered in the Centre for Contemporary Art Theatre, as part of the GIOFest XVII 2025 Evening Concerts.
"The Sound of the Light, the Light of the Sound: Wave-Particle, David", and "Impro Picnic (for Piano and Hands) are playful and profound relay duet pieces that at times unfold to a large ensemble of dancers and musicians, staged by Minori Seki in Soja Art House, with the Okayama creative community.
For Impro Picnic Minori Seki offered the prompt: “Some musicians who come to Soja Art House plays online for the first time.
And maybe some people play improvisation for the first time.
I want them to enjoy online improvisation without being left behind....
I will try to do this in person event at first.It take our time more slowly than online score.
We will spend time lazily like a picnic in the field.”
For Wave-Particle, Minori Seki shared:
"We can feel only eyesight and hearing in our five senses on Zoom session through internet. We can’t feel sense of smell, sense of taste, and sense of touch yet. And sense of spatial recognition, too, the computer display is still two dimensions.
Naturally saying,
All sense of vision is feeling light.
All sense of hearing is feeling sound.
Sometimes when we watch, we can feel the sound.Sometimes when we hear, we can feel the vision.
Even if it's not so much that it's called synaesthesia, we naturally do this. I wonder it is based on our each experience since birth.
Sensations can be mixed together.
In the zoom session, musicians can mixed their sounds together .But visuals are separated, it is displayed on divided windows. This time I will try to mix visuals by using projector. This is only technical aspect.I believe, I always feel that sounds and visuals can be mixed in GIO global sessions! We can feel each other over the long distance.
Please join this session to feel “ 光の音 音の光”.
A diverse cacophony of sounds were elicited by the arresting images of David's virtual background films that integrated with his virtual body, which then were danced with by Minori Seki due to her innovative projection zoom feedback loop installation, bleeding the digital space into projected site specific installations
"Imaginary Friends" is a short spontaneously arising film that spotlights a duet from improvising musician and experimental filmmaker Chris Parfitt, Wales, and Constance Cooper, an actor/composer/musician New York city. The duet is in response to the prompt of our friendships that formed over a ritual of weekly ZOOM recording sessions, between artists that have never met in a shared physical space - we asked, does this mean we are eachothers' imaginary friends? The performers share ambiguous and expressive hand gestures, incorporating humorous illusionistic paper hand props as a way of waving to eachother, across an ocean. The dance stimulates an improvised musical response from the Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra Global ZOOM ensemble. This spontaneously arising piece, seemed to plant the seed of the idea for "When is a Mirror not A Mirror", a Hybrid Piece for ZOOM orchestra and ROOM orchestra - which asked Chris Parfitt and Constance Cooper to project physical gestures on ZOOM into the darkened theatre to conduct the ROOM orchestra.
These films allow the audience to feel the ZOOM performers expanded corporeal presence in the large theatre space, conveying the essence of weekly ritualistic performing recording sessions that have amassed over 600 hours of footage since March 2020.
