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UJINO AND THE ROTATORS
2005. Live performance at Wallter Phillips Gallery, Banff, Canada
Copyright ©2005 UJINO, All rights reserved.

The Rotators

The Rotators a human scale drum machine using the technologies of rock’n roll, a kind of sound sculpture / performance project which I could create out of locally sourced second hand parts, DJ turntable, electric guitar, blender, hair dryer, power tools, wood furniture, car and so on. I’ve had opportunities to combine them in many locations through out the world, as a sort of cross cultural project in global monoculture.
Its genesis is the mass consumerism, the disposable culture I was raised within, up until 1989, with the end of a Japan that was constantly growing materially richer.
Inside me, a shallow, lightweight optimism cultivated through that times and a feeling of shame directed at the consumption and wastefulness of today exist side by side, and this serves as a booster for my energies to drive it.

The Rotators are designed to be the unit of instruments in a rhythm section for automatic playing. The core section to control the unit is named Rotatorhead.
The structure of Rotatorhead is same with that of disk type music box. Set the disc onto the turntable. The disk is made from vinyl disc and shortend color pencils embedded on the disc's surface. The uniform rhythm starts, when the pencil hits the switches attached over the bridge part to turn on/off home electrics plugged into connectors.
The bridge part contains 3 tracks. the each switch of each track links to an electric connector, and that's mean, a rhythm consists of 3 different sounds made up from 3 home electrics connected to the plugs.


Ujino and the Rotators: A 21st century style of art
text by Mami Kataoka

ART iT #23, 2009 (Spring)


Movies on the Web
Hobnox Channels, Web TV
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham, UK
YouTube, rotators channel
YouTube, Recorded at Ether festival, London, UK, 2009


Fig; The Rotators on stage
Diagram of the Rotators sound system in art gallery
Equipment on stage (Ether festival, London, UK. 2009)