The Picture from Darkness

Takashi Makino’s source of inspiration, our place in the world and the universe, never seems to dry up in view of the never-ending flow of immersive films. Generator may well be the earthiest of his films so far, made as a reaction to the Fukushima disaster. A reality check, but in the world that Makino shows, this can never be achieved without looking inwards too.

A live performance film capturing an intimate concert by composer, pianist and music producer Ryuichi Sakamoto in New York City. The performance marked the first public unveiling of Sakamoto’s new opus, async, hailed as one of the best albums of 2017 by Rolling Stone and Pitchfork.

Shadow presences gradually emerge in Japanese filmmaker Makino Takashi’s abstract cinema composed of layers upon layers of natural imagery that awaken the senses.

“The rain” and “white noise” , “the outside of water” , “the inside of water” , everything become to together and drifting. A dark dark film in rain forest inspired by a music term to “Tranquil”.

Borrowing its title from a treatise by Aristotle, the latest film by Makino Takashi is an abstract work that finds its drive in the clash between light and darkness. Entirely composed of superimposed images of Tokyo’s landscape and water sites, the film takes its rhythm from the cycles of repetition that are the pillars of life and civilisation. As light emerges from the chaos, Jim O’Rourke’s ambient drone sets the tone for what is to come.

Short film by Takashi Makino

An experimental film by Takashi Makino.

Filmed entirely on location in Australia, Double Phase follows a discrete visual chronology captured by Takashi Makino. It considers how the complexity of ’natural world’ continues to be reductively framed within contemporary society. Pushing back against the simplistic and monocular sensing of the world, Makino responds with an intensely affective projection of lived experience. Moving far beyond the capacity of lived day to day experience, the film collides image after image into a cascade of almost-cosmic complexity. A reminder that we must always be reaching out and extending ourselves into the world that emerges before us. (Asia TOPA 2020)

A physical film for showing at cinema. The soundtrack, which was mainly produced in the range of frequencies below 1000Khz, physically vibrates the viewer's body. Anti-cosmos means similar with Noise, the power that breakthrough the cosmos/order. Inspired by "Cosmos and Anti-cosmos" by Japanese philosopher Toshihiko Izutsu. The soundtrack, which was mainly produced in the range of frequencies below 1000Khz, physically vibrates the viewer's body.

A presentation of an expanding formation of "Elements of Nothing". The systematic harsh noise shaped by water and trees gives birth to a storm of novel imagination in the viewer's emotions.

The four elements referred to as "water", "flame", "wind" and "earth" in this film all exist individually while responding to each other, by fighting and loving each other, foster the concept of a world in each individual's "subjectivity".

Untitled is a collage film that combines the image and sound of Takashi Makino, the music of Lawrence English and the automatic writing text of Esperanza Collado, produced between March and June 2020, when the first attack of the coronavirus shook the world.

Performance by Takashi Makino with music composed by Otomo Yoshihide. A tribute for Teruto Soejima and Masayuki Takayanagi.

This work is based on long-exposure still photographs of everyday scenes taken between 2025 and 2026. While there is no video, the accumulation of light transforms into an intense flicker that seems to break through the retina, compressing the sense of time and inducing hallucinations.

"I represented light and life coming out of the darkness. I aimed for the fusion of multiple exposure and animation."

Makino Takashi takes us to a place where different rules apply. He overwhelms us with his universe, which is built up of countless images, figurative and non-figurative, accompanied by an equally sophisticated soundtrack. At times very abstract and distant, at others almost palpable and narrative. We naturally seek recognition in the infinite layering of the images, and in so doing compose our own story, based on what we ourselves know of the world, using our personal references to help us. In this way, a work arises unique to every viewer, which continues to reverberate long after we leave the cinema.