Takeshi Murata – Untitled (Silver)

Nov 4th – Dec 3rd
Opening November 4th 8-10pm
Machine Project
1200 D North Alvarado Street
Los Angeles, CA 90026

Mario Bava’s classic 1960 Italian horror film, Mask of Satan is deconstructed pixel by pixel in Takeshi Murata’s hallucinatory new video, Untitled (Silver). Original soundtrack by Robert Beatty and Ellen Mollé

From ArtForum: “Mario Bava’s classic 1960 Italian horror film, Mask of Satan (aka Black Sunday) is the almost unrecognizable source for Takeshi Murata’s hallucinatory new video, Untitled (Silver), 2006. The sole work in the New York artist’s first solo show, this absorbing, ten-minute, black-and-white piece reveals Murata’s formidable skill at
wrangling pixels into swirling patterns that move at a poetically trippy pace. With the judicious eye of a film director, the artist finds moments in Bava’s film where ’60s goth queen Barbara Steele seemingly floats through ornate interiors, and, using sophisticated code-based image processing—the details of which may elude all but the most serious programmers—Murata veils her darkly
remote beauty with layers of visual distortion and digital degradation (all overlaid with an ambient electronic sound track composed by Robert Beatty and Ellen Mollé). At times, the images bring to mind Glenn Brown’s melting Old Master-style portraits, and the encoded randomness also has John Cage computer connections. But Murata’s particular genius is an almost alchemical ability to transform forgotten relics of pop culture into dazzling jewels. —Glen Helfand”