Screening
S/N
Archival recordings of the Dumb Type performance (1994)
S/N – Screening © Yoko Takatani
The title of Dumb Type’s landmark performance work S/N is based on the audio engineering term “signal-to-noise ratio”. Amid exchanges reminiscent of a comedy interplay, identities are humorously put to the test: “male, Japanese, deaf, homosexual,” “male, Japanese, HIV+, homosexual,” and “male, American, Black, homosexual.” A beeping signal tone (SIGNAL) and the flashing strobe lights (NOISE) that synchronize with it create an intermittent rhythm, gradually accelerating until the performance races across the wall and unfolds in a flood of sound and light. Presented on both a sensorial and linguistic level, S/N remains in constant variation as it builds toward a powerful crescendo.
Centered on questions of gender, AIDS and sexuality – issues that Dumb Type members have experienced themselves – this 1994 work treats these as matters of the utmost urgency. Even today, more than 30 years later, racism, discrimination and sexism remain compelling social challenges that must be addressed. The conceptual author, director and performer of the work, Teiji Furuhashi, who came out on stage as homosexual and HIV-positive and died of AIDS-related septicemia on 29 October 1995, characterized S/N as “struggle.”
Artistic Team S/N
Teiji Furuhashi – Creation, Direction
Dumb Type – Production
Kenjiro Ishibashi, Izumi Kagita, Toru Koyamada, Peter Golightly, Noriko Sunayama, Shiro Takatani, Yoko Takatani, Tadasu Takamine, Mayumi Tanaka, Hiromasa Tomari, Tomohiro Ueshiba, Noritoshi Nakagawa, Alfred Birnbaum, Takayuki Fujimoto, Teiji Furuhashi, Misako Yabuuchi, Toru Yamanaka – Project Members
World premiere: Adelaide Festival, Adelaide, Australia, 1994
Artistic Team Recordings
WOWOW-Japan Satellite Broadcasting at SPIRAL, Tokyo in 1995 – Filming
Shiro Takatani – Editor
S/N – Screening
© Kazuo Fukunaga
S/N – Screening
© Kazuo Fukunaga
S/N – Screening
© Kazuo Fukunaga