Otomo Yoshihide + YCAM New Exhibition “Improvisation!” to Open in October 2026

Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM] will present Otomo Yoshihide + YCAM New Exhibition “Improvisation!” from October 17, 2026 to March 1, 2027. Centered on improvisation, a core principle of Otomo’s creative practice and ensemble work, the exhibition features new collaborative works by Otomo, YCAM, and five artists from various fields, with production support from YCAM InterLab, YCAM’s research and development team specializing in artistic expression. Responding to the architectural features of YCAM, designed by Arata Isozaki, and to the surrounding environment, the exhibition will open up a rich world of improvisation where diverse sounds and presences collide and resonate. Ahead of the main exhibition, the sound installation “without records,” created by Otomo Yoshihide, artist Yasutomo Aoyama, and engineer Takayuki Ito, will be shown from July 24, 2026. From October 17, YCAM will also present “DUO,” a tribute to musician Ryuichi Sakamoto; a dynamic installation created with contemporary artist Atsuko Mochida; and the outdoor sound installation “filaments in the Park” by Filament, the unit of Sachiko M and Otomo Yoshihide. Otomo notes that the 2008 YCAM exhibition “ENSEMBLES” was a major turning point in his practice, focusing on collaboration and ensemble with diverse people. After the earthquake disaster and the pandemic, he has come to feel even more strongly that improvisation is what enriches collaboration and ensemble. Eighteen years after that exhibition, he returns to YCAM to revisit the starting point of his own practice and begin a new ensemble with YCAM and other collaborators. Highlights include a large-scale exhibition that brings together Otomo’s thinking and practice around improvisation; “DUO,” a tribute work that generates the characteristics of Sakamoto and Otomo’s improvisations from the 2010s using physical mechanisms to play guitar and piano without AI-based audio analysis or reproduction; and Otomo’s first collaboration with YCAM in 18 years since “Otomo Yoshihide / ENSEMBLES.” “without records” uses around 100 portable record players from around the 1970s that have already served their original purpose. Modified by many hands to produce their own sounds without records, the players are arranged like a constellation and automatically perform an orchestral, endlessly changing improvisational ensemble. New works in the main exhibition include “DUO,” which uses MIDI keystroke data from Sakamoto’s piano improvisations to perform with Otomo’s automated guitar; “filaments in the Park,” an outdoor sound installation by Filament centered on the act of listening; and the provisional work “Dance,” by Otomo Yoshihide, Atsuko Mochida, and Takayuki Ito, combining numerous speakers, vast sound sources, spatial expression, physical sounds, computer processes, and performative elements. The exhibition will take place at YCAM Studio A, Studio B, the courtyard, Yamaguchi Central Park, and other locations. Admission is paid for some areas, while the foyer, courtyard, and Yamaguchi Central Park are free.