Adam Frelin

B-flat

collaboration with Shunichi Ogawa
single-channel video
4-minute and 12-minute versions
2005

In 2004-05 I was a recipient of the US/Japan Creative Artists Award, a six-month research grant given through the US government for independent study in Japan. While there I collaborated with sound designer Shunichi Ogawa on "B-flat," a short film involving a group of young musicians traveling by traditional skiff through a secluded mountain valley. Staged as if set in the Meiji period, the eight women are trying together to maintain the note b-flat on their violins only to be thwarted from achieving their goal by the river itself. In the film they are attempting to free themselves from their Sysiphean task, but are instead caught in a never-ending journey.