Logo Goethe-Institut

Japan

|

7:00 PM-7:40 PM

Sound Art

Performance concert| Performance concert with sound sculptures and installations

  • Goethe-Institut Villa Kamogawa, Kyoto

  • Admission free

© Eiko Ito (oben), Lukas Kühne (unten) © Eiko Ito (oben), Lukas Kühne (unten)

© Eiko Ito (links, mitte), Lukas Kühne (rechts) © Eiko Ito (links, mitte), Lukas Kühne (rechts)

Sound objects will be created using materials such as Styrofoam boxes used at fish markets, discarded cardboard, wooden pieces, flowerpots, and other found objects. This performance is based on a dialogue with these sound-producing objects. The event is led by German sound sculptor Lukas Kühne and musicologist Shin Nakagawa. 
Kühne teaches at the University of the Republic in Uruguay and has long explored sound installations and performance, organizing the sound art festival Monteaudio in Montevideo and creating numerous sound objects from discarded materials. In 2025, he completed the monumental sound sculpture ONKAI in Totsukawa Village, Nara Prefecture. Nakagawa, based mainly in the Kansai area, researches and practices a wide range of fields including gamelan music and sound art. 
 
This performance grows out of a workshop led by Kühne and Nakagawa. Ten participants from diverse backgrounds — contemporary artists, vocalists, sound artists, sculptors, gamelan performers, university professors, students, actors, and Villa Kamogawa residents — gather at Villa Kamogawa to begin by creating unique sound objects from discarded materials. 
These discarded items symbolize fragments shed from everyday life. By giving them a second design and new life, we invite you to witness what unfolds. Will the everyday world be transformed? 

Performer

  • Lukas Kühne

    Sculptor, acoustician, professor, and researcher. 
    Born in Stuttgart, Germany, Kühne is currently based in Montevideo, Uruguay. His artistic practice spans multiple fields and frequently incorporates participatory elements. His works have been widely exhibited around the world, and many permanent installations in public spaces focus strongly on social, spatial, and acoustic impact. 
    Representative works include Sound Station in the Park der Sinne in Berlin-Weißensee; Tubophono Opus II, Five Winds, and Sound Bench in Montevideo. 

    Major monumental sound sculptures based on musical and acoustic concepts include: 
    - Cromatico at the Singing Ground in Tallinn, Estonia 
    - Tvisöngur, overlooking the artist village of Seyðisfjörður in eastern Iceland 
    - Organum on Hailuoto Island, Finland 
    - ONKAI, located in Taketoh, Totsukawa Village, Nara Prefecture, Japan, along the Kumano Kodo 

    Kühne has curated exhibitions in numerous countries including Germany, Brazil, Chile, Estonia, Finland, Mexico, and Uruguay. 
    He is currently a professor at the Institute of Fine Arts, School of Arts, University of the Republic (UDELAR), director of the Sound Art Department, and director of the international sound art festival Monteaudio. He is also engaged in international education and research activities at both undergraduate and graduate levels. 

  • Shin Nakagawa

    Born in Nara Prefecture. Nakagawa researches Asian traditional music, soundscapes, and arts management. His book The Sonic Universe of Heian-kyō received the Suntory Prize for Social Sciences and Humanities, the Kyoto Music Award, and the Fumio Koizumi Prize for Ethnomusicology. For contemporary music activities, he received the Kyoto Prefecture Culture Award; for achievements in arts management, the Special Prize of the Japan Association of Urban Planners and the Yumezukuri Machizukuri Award (co-recipient). 

    Other works include Topos of Sound Art, The Power of Art, and the novel Sawasawa. 
    For his work with gamelan music, he received cultural awards from the Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2007) and the Consulate General of Indonesia (2017). He also received an Osaka Prefecture judicial commendation (2019) for contributions to environmental noise research and the Kyoto City Arts Promotion Award (2024) for artistic activities. 
    In recent years, he has focused on museum studies and co-edited Museums Confronting Disability (2025, with Miho Nakanishi). 

    He is a Specially Appointed Professor at the Urban Research and Disaster Prevention Center, Osaka Metropolitan University, and a visiting faculty member in the Graduate Program in Curation at Chulalongkorn University, Thailand.