We are responsible for the creative/technical production of a special video, 「breathe/feel/suffer/love」, of a large scale retrospective exhibit for Edvard Munch entitled Munch — Echoes of Screaming Souls. The exhibit presented a new interpretation of Munch’s works, through which he portrayed the various “Screams” of the hearts of people, by re-envisioning them with a neural network style.

In conjunction with the Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum large retrospective on Edvard Munch, we are in charge of the production for the「breathe/feel/suffer/love」video art exhibit. Starting with "The Scream," one of the most well known works in all of art history, approximately 100 pieces are on display, making this wonderful exhibit a place where you can see the entire life work of Munch, one of the masters of modern painting. Approximately 600,000 people attended the exhibit.

Through his paintings, Munch expressed on canvas the inner workings of people, from joy to sorrow, anger to fear, and other stirrings of the heart. Symbolic of this, Munch left behind a note saying, "I can no longer paint men reading and women knitting indoors. Breathing, feeling, suffering, loving, living people are what I paint."

「breathe/feel/suffer/love」is a video work born from these words.

Shift the

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Using Munch's style and materials as a base, a "style change (neural style transfer)” technique incorporating a neural network was used to create a series of images and animate them. The wandering of feelings in Munch's paintings was reconstructed dynamically, and four video displays were lined up in the space to present them. The video displays work together to create the impression of canvasses, bringing forth a lively feeling in the space.

Munch also worked with developing a single theme of composition or technique over repeated iterations across a series of paintings. The idea of being able to see this concept as a single piece in this space came from recognizing that each time his pieces are rearranged they produce a different meaning. 「breathe/feel/suffer/love」 uses four displays working together to realize this idea as a piece of installation art. They express an interpretation of Munch's endeavors using modern technology.

Depending on what is going on inside the viewers, as these pieces throw a string of images at the viewers they can make discoveries about new aspects of Munch, and they can also make new realizations about themselves, providing two separate avenues for appreciating his work.

Credits

Direction
TAKCOM
Creative&Technical Producer
Toshiyuki Hashimoto(The Shift)
Creative coding
Hisaki Ito (aircord)
Technical support
Seiya Nakano (aircord)
Retouch
Baku Kinoshita
Production
P.I.C.S.
Display design
Takashi Nakahara
Equipment support
Sony Marketing Inc. (BRAVIA)
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