Thinking about what "time" is from the Ryuichi Sakamoto exhibition "Seeing Sound, Hearing Time" [A certain day in March 2025]

I finally went to this exhibition, which I had given up on last time, the other day.

How should I put it? In a word, it felt like the deepest parts of my sensibilities were being stimulated.

To begin with, I learned about it through G-dark's article, so I went there with knowledge only of the exhibits introduced, but it is correct to say that this exhibition is something you experience with all five senses.

I spent a lot of time viewing the very first exhibit, "TIME TIME."
It is a work that expresses time through three screens and a water surface spread out below, featuring "Yume Juya" (Ten Nights of Dreams), "Kantan," Mayumi Miyata's sho performance, and the humanity expressed by Min Tanaka. It probably takes about an hour to watch one full loop.

Water, too, is difficult to grasp in its liquid form, so in a sense, it may have similarities to the "time" that cannot be captured.

In the "Yume Juya" part, it is remarked that 100 years is a long time to wait, while in the "Kantan" part, it is expressed that 50 years of prosperity passed in the blink of an eye during a nap while millet was cooking. Is time long, or is it short and fleeting?

Another thing that left an impression on me was "Music Plays Images × Images Play Music" on the second floor. As a real piano keyboard is played automatically, a projection of Ryuichi Sakamoto performing is superimposed over it. Also, on the screen, the intensity and grains of the sound are expressed through light.

Of the two songs, one was "The Sheltering Sky," which I knew.

There was a time when figure skater Daisuke Takahashi used it in his program, and I liked it and listened to it often back then. It is music from a 1991 film. The movie is on my list of things I want to watch someday.

I know in fragments that he was a member of YMO, and about "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" and "The Last Emperor," and that he was a great and world-famous artist, but I don't know enough about him to call myself a fan. Even so, it seems his music has touched my heart from time to time, and I had listened to it a little bit.

I don't pay attention to the soundtracks of every Taiga drama, but when it was "Yae no Sakura," I rented it from TSUTAYA and listened to it often on my Walkman. The main theme is sad and heavy, yet I couldn't help but listen to it. It has a power that appeals to the depths of my heart and moves something. Since seeing this exhibition, I have been listening to it again.

There was an exhibit that diagrammed his work chronology, and I realized that he continued to create music until just before he passed away, as if he were breathing or writing in a diary. The sheer volume of output is overwhelming. I think anyone with a desire to express something can understand this, but to output, you need a corresponding amount of input. People who are prolific and create with such tremendous energy probably have an incredible amount of input as well. And those who are recognized as being at the forefront must surely have better quality and quantity of input than anyone else.

There is a limit to the time in one's life, and you never know when the end will come.
(Of course, I don't live thinking that my life will end tomorrow.) Within that finite time, we input and we output.

An exhibit where a large number of information cards were lined up. I don't remember the details of each one, but I feel like many of them were conceptual.

This is my speculation, but since music has a fairly clear sense of how many minutes and seconds it lasts, you can count how many times you play or practice it, for example, per day or per hour. This means that for him, knowing that the day his life would end due to illness was not far off, he must have felt even more keenly every day that there was not much time left for any performance, creation, or practice.

Looking back at myself, I have no regrets, but in the past, I lived as if I were in a dress rehearsal. I was busy doing what I wanted to do, centering my life around work, but since a turning point last year, I feel like I have gradually been able to live each day as if it were the real performance. As proof, I feel that the density of my time is incredibly high right now. It's only the third month since this year began, but I have done so much and experienced so much...

I felt a bit serious, but for a change of pace, I splurged and ate a limited-time parfait at the museum cafe, "Nikai no Sandwich." I chose a Japanese-style, light, and refreshing parfait made with ingredients Ryuichi Sakamoto liked. The lemon-pickled apricots were delicious.

After eating a parfait, I spent time in the museum courtyard and on the Shinkansen ride home engaging with one of the books I have been reading in parallel lately, 'The Mystery of Sorrow' by Eisuke Wakamatsu.

It is a collection of 26 short essays in which Wakamatsu writes about his realizations regarding how to live after losing his wife in 2010, while in the midst of unbearable grief, citing words from various writers and works.
This is not a book you can read when your spirits are high and you are in a cheerful state. If anything, I think it is a book that seeps into your heart and provides healing when you are feeling a bit troubled or going through a difficult time. It is a book I am glad to have encountered now.

The time I spent reading about 100 pages of this book while listening to 'The Sheltering Sky' on endless repeat was a strange experience where I felt deeply contemplative yet remarkably calm.