Tomonari Nishikawa

"It shows my interest in materials, medium, and apparatus of cinema. The sound will be produced from the visual on the optical soundtrack – for some parts, I used a 35mm still camera to expose the soundtrack area, and I scratched off the film emulsion directly for other parts. This is my senior thesis project at Binghamton University, and Julie Murray was my advisor." (Tomonari Nishikawa)

"JR (Japan Railway Company) Yamanote Line is one of the Japan's busiest lines, consisting of 29 stations and running as a loop. The film shows scenes around the entrances of 20 stations, from Shibuya Station to Tokyo Station clockwise. The in-camera visual effects and the layered soundtrack would exaggerate the noises and movements at the senses."

"All images were shot on Market Street, one of the main streets in San Francisco. I used Sketch Film #1 and Sketch Film #2 as reference to make a plan of the film structure, and the visual was carefully composed frame by frame, while shooting on the street. This project was commissioned by Exploratorium and San Francisco Arts Commission for the outdoor screening event, A Trip Down Market Street 1905/2005: An Outdoor Centennial Celebration, at Justin Herman Plaza in San Francisco on Sep. 25, 2005."

Music & lyrics by Lightning Bug Video by Tomonari Nishikawa

"It was shot by a 35mm still camera at Lumphini Park in Bangkok, Thailand, which was named after Lumbini, the birthplace of Buddha. The hand-processed visual shows the organic patterns found in this monumental park, constructing the systematic yet emotional rhythm and pace on the screen, accompanied by the sound from the visual, which was also captured through the still camera on the optical soundtrack area of the 35mm movie format. I am not a Buddhist, but as I grew up in Japan, I am familiar with some of the Buddhist teachings, including the Middle Way, which is a practice to avoid the extremes of the binary oppositions in life. The organic shapes of a leaf is never appears as perfectly straight lines, and I took pictures of leaves to make them appear either horizontal or vertical lines on the screen for a single cartridge of 35mm film (36 exposure for still photography = 3 seconds for the movie format). 2552 is the year on the Buddhist calendar for 2009." (Tomonari Nishikawa)

"The visual was originally captured through two Super 8 cameras, which were attached on the pedals of a bicycle, through my ride from Marin County to San Francisco. The time-lapse footage was optically printed onto 16mm film afterwards, and the double projection would show a new landscape of the photogenic city. The ride ended after joining Critical Mass, an event occurs the last Friday of every month in San Francisco." (Tomonari Nishikawa)

"JR (Japan Railway Company) Yamanote Line is one of the Japan's busiest lines, consisting of 29 stations and running in a loop. The film shows the views from the platforms of 10 stations in Yamanote Line, from Tokyo Station to Ebisu Station clockwise. The in-camera visual effects and the layered soundtracks may exaggerate the sense of the actual location, while suggesting the equipment that was used for capturing the audio and visual." (Tomonari Nishikawa)

Music by Jeremy Young (with Tomonari Nishikawa) Music video by Tomonari Nishikawa