NFT_info_Aya_Joseph

Artists’ name: TiiM - Aya Uekawa and Joseph Ayers Series of 5 unique NFT videos with sound: Morning Glories List of Works: 1. Chiyojyo.mp4 2. VotalJulia.mp4 3. Ayagozen.mp4 4. Acha.mp4 5. Yoshi.mp4 The 5 women in this series are researched from the Sengoku period in Japan, (1467-1615) a long stretch of in- tense civil war between Samurai families that divided the country. The portraits and patterns in the videos are the result of high-resolution digital paintings by Aya Uekawa. In collaboration with Joseph Ayers, the digital paintings are combined with sounds and video animation in efforts to create short abstract vignettes of the women in the series. ‘We try to incorporate both traditional and contemporary elements to make a connection between the past and the present, and use the dimension of time-based media and sound to give the viewer another way to bridge temporal and cultural gaps. The videos disrupt time and space, but also attempt to reveal a deeper continuity between our disparate histories.’ In each short loop, the animation and sounds are used to connect the struggles endured by these women in the past, with contemporary generations of survivors in our current moment. Historic references to sacred sounds, masculine and feminine instruments, temple bells, gongs, chimes, and drums, are mixed together with contemporary sounds of the artists’ personal spaces, video games, nuns singing evening prayers, children playing and the sounds of nature. The series memorializes important women from the past whose stories and lives were supressed by patriachial society. All of the women in the series are heroic; they devoted their lives to helping their families and commu- nities survive the long and brutal civil wars. The title of the series is Morning Glories, and makes associations with bonding, love in vain, affection, life and death. About the artists in TiiM: Aya Uekawa and Joseph Ayers are artists and educators living in Beacon, NY. Aya and Joseph married in 2007, and began collaborating in 2018. Over time the two have developed a way of weav- ing together their two unique perspectives and aesthetic languages. The short videos produced for this project were sparked by a mutual interest in bridging cultural differences. Uekawa’s latest paintings explore the ambivalence between individual identity, escape, and the surrounding en- vironment through deeply psychological portraiture. The works reveal her vulnerable perspective as a foreigner, Asian minority, and female artist living and working in the United States. Her compositions are a combination of universal figures immersed in flat and volumetric patterns; a mix of both culturally specific references, as well as her own invented forms. The juxtaposition of these elements, according to the artist, ‘...reflects our current envi- ronment...a mix of global, vernacular, and things that we imagine in between...My work reflects an endless quest of finding personal utopia within a world of contradictions.’ Joseph Ayers teaches interdisciplinary media courses at Parsons School of Design, and is currently working on a new body of work for a 2 person exhibition titled Otherness at Holland Tunnel Gallery this fall. His combined media works explore the nexus of physical, social and technological landscapes, and the way human perception of ourselves and each other is affected at the borders of these overlapping environments. Combining sculpture, painting, drawing, video and sound, clusters of disparate works explores notions of ‘otherness’ in the context of a a self-obsessed hybrid culture living amidst the ghosts of the past.

Chiyojyo: Mochizuki Chiyojyo’s birth date and place are not known. However, it is documented that after she lost her husband in a battle, she started serving one of the prominent samurai at that time, Shingen Takeda. She was appointed to organize and train female spies disguised as shrine maidens, who would then collect useful information from other states for Shingen. Chiyojyo’s secretive school of female spies was a critical strength for the allies, and a powerful weapon against the enemy. In the short looping video NFT we see various facets of Chiyojyo as she endlessly transcends the tradition- al masculine buddhist gongs associated with Samurai power. And as her identity becomes more abstracted beneath a matrix of linear patterns, we hear the rhythmic sound of contemporary shrine bells used to connect the living and the dead. Chiyojyo high resolution video NFT 2272 x 2000 pixels 34 seconds

Vota Julia: Julia is a given Christian name. She was born in Korea, but was taken to Japan as a result of Japan’s failed invasion to Korea in 16th century. She spent the rest of her life in Japan. She had a great knowledge of medicinal herbs from her adopted family business. She was asked to abandon Chris- tianity and serve to the most powerful samurai at that time, Ieyasu Tokugawa. She refused multiple times. As the government forbade Christianity, she was considered to be a criminal for not chang- ing her religious belief, and sent to a remote island. She kept her belief and lived supporting other criminals, the poor, and the diseased. In the short looping video NFT, we see various facets of Vota as she endlessly revolves around the masculine gongs, and with every turn we hear the sound of contemporary Korean Benedictine nuns singing evening chants that reflect on helping the sick, poor and young. Vota Julia high resolution video NFT 1090 x 1500 pixels 37 seconds

Aya Gozen As a mother of 4, and connected with two opposing Samarai families, Aya Gozen was know for her cunning strategies to protect her heirs. In the end, Aya Gozen lost her eldest daugh- ter, and sons, and ultimately denounced both sides of the bloody civil war. In the looping video NFT, the flat, disjointed, yet connected concentric patterns twist and turn through the compositional space, always drifting to the central portrait of Aya Gozen: hearing the sounds of contemporary children playing traditional taiko drums, Aya Gozen’s expression of gravitas is split between the beauty and delicacy of life, and the closed eyes of eternal mother lamenting her childrens’ death. AyaGozen high resolution video NFT 1745 x 1080 pixels 34 seconds

Acha: She was one of the concubines of Ieyasu Tokugawa, and was probably the most trusted one of all. She was assigned to order attire for the samurai on important meetings and occasions, which had strict hierarchical codes and meanings at that time. She was also asked to negotiate with Tokugawa’s ultimate opponent to end the battle in Osaka, which led to his solid status as the new governor of Japan (Shogun). After the successful negotiations, Acha was chosen to be an educator for his son, who became the next Shogun. She was well respected by three generations of the Edo governors as well as other samurais. In the video NFT we hear an old Japanese folk song, Sakura Sakura, which is about spring time, and also is symbolic of Japanese values. Rese- quenced over the clashing sounds of a contemporary video game that simulates Samurai battles in virtual reality, the nostalgic sound of the traditional Koto reflects Acha’s watchful eye as it peers out from the revolving narrative. Acha high resolution video NFT 2272 x 2000 pixels 47 seconds

Yoshi During the Warring States period, family members were often enemies. Yoshi was one of the brave, outspoken woman during such inner-family battles, twice. When she heard her close brother was nearly defeated by her husband, she got in her box carriage and traveled to see her husband in the middle of a battle. She begged her husband to stop, and he agreed. 10 years later, her son was almost defeated by her brother during a battle. She again went through the battle in her box carriage to ask her brother to stop, and successfully saved her son. Her son later became an important samurai ( Date Masamune). Despite her bravery, she was consid- ered to be a bad samurai wife or mother, possibly because her deeds did not reflect the samu- rai’s philosophy of self sacrifice. In the looping video NFT we see a double portrait of Yoshi floating through space in an abstracted box carriage. The sounds of traditional glass chimes, and recordings from the artists’ personal space, surround the carriage on it’s endless flight through the chaos of war. Yoshi high resolution video NFT 1920 x 1080 pixels 32 seconds