‘Sudden Outbreaks #3’

Tsuneo Nakai (Osaka, 1947) graduated from Tokyo University of the Arts and began making experimental films in the late 1960s. Nakai's works deal with “pseudomorphous reality” and foster an essential connection to the student movements of the 1960s in Tokyo, while his works in the early 1970s wavered between materiality and immateriality. For example in Lumière (1971), inspired by Michael Snow’s Wavelength (1967), the light of Hiratsuka’s horizon approaches a sandy beach. In Alchemy (1971), one of his most well-known works that won the Grand Prix at the 5th EXPRMNTL Film Festival in Knokke-le-Zoute, Nakai developed the negative/positive transition and flicker effects he would later use in Elixir (1973). In Azoth (1973), the here and now evaporate, as a result of a chemical reaction of images and sound. Nakai later expanded the scope of his activities by including video and media art. His video collage Artificial Paradise (1989) was presented at Documenta 8. In the early 1980s Nakai organised the video exhibition Video Cocktail. Recent media installations include Tokyo Atomic Bomb (2009) and ilinx (2011).