To capture the essence of an artist’s humanity and creative work, to preserve a form of it, and to present it to audiences as an experience of the artist himself, live in concert, years after the artist’s passing, is a mixed reality miracle that would have been unfathomable even a single generation ago.
Kagami, a collaboration between mixed reality pioneers Tin Drum and legendary Japanese musician Ryuichi Sakamoto, attempts this ambitious task and delivers a breathtaking outcome. Presented at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre from 19 February to 16 March 2025 as part of the Asia TOPA festival, this show is an portal into multiple dimensions: it showcases Sakamoto’s internationally acclaimed musical creations, provides a glimpse into his personality and playful processes, and refreshes audience imagination by flipping the script on the composer-visual relationship, creating a rich visual film around the composer, to elevate and centre the artist whose work usually supports elevating and centring the visuals in a film.
Upon entering through Exhibition Door 17 at the MCEC, the audience first find themselves in a closed foyer area, where images of Sakamoto are projected on the walls, along with a series of video clips where he experiments with sounds in nature. It is immediately evident that working with sound was not a side quest for him, but a passion that existed front and centre in the way he interacted with his environment. The audience are then led into the main performance area, a dark open space with a taped square on the floor in the middle, where the performance will be projected. The event staff then go around fitting everyone with a virtual reality headset, and the space briefly looks like a futuristic lab setting, with everyone wearing chunky dark eyewear and waiting, intrigued about what is to follow.
When the show begins, it feels like being at a séance, or like having access to the powers of a resurrection stone. Sakamoto and his grand piano appear in the centre of the room, with swirling clouds at his feet and along the floor all around him. The audience are welcome to remain seated or to walk around, to approach the simultaneously lifelike and ghostlike performer on the stage, and to observe his movements, his connection to the music he is playing. From the elegant fingers gliding over the keys, to the accompanying foot applying the pedal, to a lock of silver hair occasionally falling across his forehead, and even to the unassuming introductions we hear in his own voice at the start of the some of the pieces, every sound and movement encapsulates the grace and class of this legendary performer.
And that is only the beginning. As each piece flows into the next, the complexity of the tunes as well as the visuals intensifies, and the audience find themselves looking at cityscapes, nature scenes, and in a particularly powerful peak moment, at the entire universe – with the earth floating away beneath their feet, and the Milky Way surrounding them from one end of the space to another, Sakamoto appearing to minister to the earth with his music from the very heart of the heavens.
At multiple levels, this show is an invitation to expand. Embedded in the design of the work is an invitation to look not only towards but also away from the performer, and to experience the performance through the intricately created worlds that surround him – to become aware of the complex visuals everywhere in the space, as you look up, or down, or to the left, or right. It was a personally eye-opening moment for me when I realized that the visuals weren’t contained in the headset I had been given, they were projections in the physical space – the eyewear only enabled me to see them. It felt like a profound metaphor for me to sit with, and a personal invitation to make more room for appreciation of individual elements through a deeper awareness of context.
Kagami is playing at the Melbourne Convention and Exhibition Centre daily from 19 February to 16 March 2025 as part of the Asia TOPA festival. Tickets available here.
Jaya Berged 