Otamatone orchestra to perform as part of Japanese device art exhibit
Professor Erkki Huhtamo holds a PhD in Cultural History from the University of Turku, Finland. He is a media archaeologist, author, and exhibition curator. He is internationally known as a pioneer of an emerging approach to media studies called media archaeology. It excavates forgotten, neglected and suppressed media-cultural phenomena, helping us to penetrate beyond canonized "grand narratives" of media culture.
"An orchestra of instruments that resemble giant musical notes with head-shaped bulbs will fill the Broad Art Center with synthesized sounds Tuesday.
The instrument, known as an otamatone, is a piece of Japanese device art that Erkki Huhtamo, a professor in design media arts, will showcase in an otamatone orchestra comprising UCLA design media arts students. The ensemble, along with other device-art gadgets, will be on display at “Presentation of Japanese Device Art” in the Broad Art Center on Tuesday. Device art is a form of artwork that serves a practical purpose but can also be appreciated for its aesthetic appeal, said Huhtamo.
“(Device art is) an art movement, but it’s also, at the same time, something that leaks into popular culture and design and these other forms,” he said.
At the presentation, Huhtamo plans to showcase various objects and instruments within the Japanese device art genre, including the chihuahua whistle, a round whistle that often features animal designs, and the knockman, a figurine that produces mechanical sounds when wound up. He also plans to play the instruments alongside the UCLA otamatone orchestra, which will play original compositions. Members of the orchestra created the compositions by working off one other’s improvisational and experimental sounds."— Ethan Pak, Nov. 27, 2017
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