The importance of political and social critique for postwar Japanese experimentation is made apparent in these works. Here, Japanese experimental film and video comes to its closest intersection with experimental theater and avant-garde performance. Viewed together, works by Eiko Hosoe, Nobuhiro Kawanaka, and Shuji Terayama, among others, exhibit a delightful irony and playful insubordination to state, collective, and perspectival authority. The importance of impromptu, yet highly theorized, performance for the camera, sometimes involving a camp surrealism, initiates a multimedia resistance to conventional representations. The films draw from and contribute to “happenings” staged by avant-gardists in the High-Red-Center group, an intercontinental Fluxus movement, and Tatsumi Hijikata's butoh dance.
God Bless America (Tadasu Takamine, 2002, 9 mins, Color, Video, From the artist). X (Batsu) (Shuntaro Tanikawa, Toru Takemitsu, 1960, 15 mins, Silent, B&W, 16mm). 8 (Eiko Hosoe, 1960, 12 mins, In Japanese with English subtitles, B&W, 16mm). White Hole (Toshio Matsumoto, 1976, 7 mins, Color, 16mm). Switchback (Nobuhiro Kawanaka, 1976, 9 mins, Color/B&W, 16mm). Yoshikei (Keiichi Tanaami, 1979, 12 mins, Color, 16mm). Emperor Tomato Ketchup (Shuji Terayama, 1970, 25 mins, In Japanese, Color/B&W, 16mm).