Hyde Park Herald: Hyde Park sound artist Kikù Hibino debuts music for the ferns in first solo installation
Roaming through groves of tropical palms and ancient ferns housed in the Lincoln Park Conservatory, you may begin to hear faint echoes of water droplets in a pool. Not an unnatural sound for a garden, however these drips are soon joined by soft chimes, dull buzzing and synthesizers, building into an ambient techno soundscape designed by sound artist Kikù Hibino.
The music makes up Hibino’s first solo installation “fell to fern,” which opened at the conservatory on June 19, and runs through late-September. Hibino, a Hyde Parker of 18 years, said much of the inspiration for the installation came from his early memories of fern leaves.
“My grandparents used to live in an old Japanese-style house with a small interior courtyard and a tea room… The tall cedar and pine trees hid us from the sunlight and the city noise. Moss covered the tree roots and the stones in the garden as ferns grew from the ground,” said Hibino in an artist statement.
In one memory he recalled, sometime from before the age of 10, he and his grandfather successfully rehabilitated a young brown-eared bulbul bird that had fallen out of its nest, cushioned by the courtyard's ferns and moss. Though his grandparents have long passed, Hibino writes, “the children of that fern leaf that saved that bird that day must still be growing in the same spot… With those thoughts in mind, I, with gratitude for the ferns and for the people that love this Fern Room, have made this music.”
Born in Japan, Hibino and his wife moved to Hyde Park in 2002, where she attended graduate school at the University of Chicago. Hibino also pursued graduate school, leaving Chicago briefly to get a master’s degree in media art and technology from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he studied under composer Curtis Roads.
Working with traditional instruments, such as guitars and drums, as well as modular synthesizers, he began producing electronic music focused on unusual rhythmic structures and melodies that are inspired by moiré patterns and optical illusion.
“The usual way, in terms of sound making, is the musician goes into the studio with a specific instrument,” he said. “But my approach is different, I see all those instruments more as a material.” When working with musicians, he’ll record them playing in a studio, and then experiment with their sound in his computer, distorting it. In the process, Hibino weaves unusual or conflicting sounds into techno beats, creating “sonic textures.”
When he returned to Hyde Park, Hibino began collaborations with visual and performance artists, composing music and ambient soundscapes to accompany their work. He noted partnerships with Yuge Zhou, a visual artist, Mitsu Salmon, a contemporary dancer who also does experimental theater, indie rock musician Mike Weis (of the band Zelienople) and Norma Field, author and emeritus professor of East Asian studies at the U. of C.
In 2007, Hibino composed the score accompanying a sculpture exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center (HPAC) by (then) up-and-coming urban planner and sculptor Theaster Gates. The installation, “Plate Convergence,” was Gates’ first solo exhibition, which featured music by Hibino and 50 hand-made clay plates hung on HPAC’s walls, exploring “the complexity of the material – clay – and the interpersonal relationships that arise through its use.”
Hibino’s current installation, “fell to fern” is part of Florasonic, an annual project at the conservatory produced by the Experimental Sound Studio (ESS), a recording studio and “sonic experimentation” nonprofit. The ESS has commissioned artists to create multichannel sound installations for the fern room every year since 2001.
Experience Fell to Fern in the Fern Room at that Lincoln Park Conservatory through September 25, 2022. Hibino will perform live at MCA on July 9th at 2pm. He is premiering a sonic interpretation of Greg Bae’s visual artwork “Ex_Radio” with Steven Hess and Haruhi.
With his proclivities for aggressive beats, dissonance and sampling “errors” in music—think CD skips, glitches and other distortions—Hibino found composing for a public park to be a big challenge. He went to the fern room for the first time days before production, taking note of the families who quietly roamed its pathways and the people meditating on its benches.
“I thought, ‘oh my God, it shouldn’t be my regular music,”’ Hibino said, laughing. “I don’t want to disturb people, the ferns, the moss, that beautiful environment. I had to go deep into the bottom of my heart… I wanted to make music or sound to enhance the environment, good for both the ferns and the moss.”
Making music pleasing to the plants took precedence over people, Hibino added. “I believe the plants can feel the music, but it’s in a very different way than we can, it’s a different creature.” He said he tried to imagine himself as the ferns and moss, preferring the ambient sounds of rain drizzle (which contains a wider range of frequencies than in most music) and vibrations to a standard progression of musical notes.
He noted the folk science that plantsmen often propagate: plants love Mozart and other Classical western music. Arguing that perhaps ferns have an appetite for more than just the simple melodic structure of “Eine kleine Nachtmusik,” Hibino said, “there’s a saying that plants are more clever than people… they’re probably laughing at you.”
Much of the sound was created using a Yamaha Tenori-on, a discontinued synthesizer designed in the mid-2000s by one of Hibino’s college friends,Yu Nishibori. The instrument, which according to Hibino resembles a “children’s toy,” is a 16x16 grid of LED switches that produces a very soft, almost “cute” sound.
“For a long time I thought it’s not my thing,” said Hibino, who let the instrument collect dust in the back of his closet. But, when struggling to come up with the perfect sound for this installation, he realized that “it was a perfect match.”
All of the time spent agonizing over synthesizers and imaging himself as a fern was well worth it, he said, adding that the opening reception “was one of the best days of my life.” Friends and strangers wandering the conservatory told Hibino that his music should be permanent, “because it’s so refreshing, it's like a sound shower,” he recalled. Though not yet permanent, “fell to fern” will run through September 25, playing for 20 minutes at the top of the hour every Wednesday-Sunday.
This Saturday, July 9, Hibino (as part of a trio) will also perform at the opening of a new Museum of Contemporary Art (MCA) exhibition, “Chicago Works: Gregory Bae.” A first-generation Korean American, artist and activist, Bae passed away in July of last year at the age of 35. Another Hyde Parker, he was also a close friend and collaborator of Hibino’s.
After Bae’s passing, the Experimental Sound Studio and the University of Utah provided Hibino with a four-week artist residency in Bae’s hometown of Salt Lake City. “I met his parents, learned about his youth, and traveled around the state for my work,” said Hibino.
The MCA writes of Hibino’s upcoming electronic set: “throughout his time in Utah, Hibino considered the relationship between the landscape and music, particularly the connections between the lines found in rock stratifications and lines referenced in musical notation systems, melodies, and harmonies. His performance will build upon this research and respond to “Ex Radios,” a collage that is on view in (Bae’s exhibition).”
The event begins at 1 p.m., is free and open to the public. More information on the opening can be found here.
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