Nobuo Kubota is a Vancouver-born multi-media artist who incorporates his years of architectural experience to make video and film that explore the variety of structural possibilities—moving images and the construction of unique situations. Although the majority of his education and youth were spent in Canada, Nobuo ventured off to Japan in 1975 on a quest to study and explore his Japanese roots and heritage. In the process Nobuo not only fell in love with the culture, but the Japanese art form as well. Much of his work touches on both his Canadian identity as well as his Japanese roots. His film Chant (2007), for example, focuses on the concept of nature, derived through the merging of Japanese cultural philosophy (of being in touch with nature) and the 1960’s hippy movement of the West. Abandoning his 10-year architectural career in 1969, Nobuo received a Canada Council grant to study his passion for art in Japan. Today, Nobuo has exhibited numerous works of art and has recently received the prestigious Governor General Award.

I was honored to conduct this interview with Nobuo Kubota, for this week’s filmmaker profile

Who did you idolize growing up? Whether it be film-related or not, and why?

I idolized many architects such as, Mies Van der Rohe, Frank Lloyd Wright, Le Corbusier, the Bauhaus group, Gaudi etc. As an artist in the 60’s and 70’s, I was influenced by the Modernists, the Avant-guarde, the Minimalists, and the Abstract Expressionists. In film, as a teenager, I remember being fascinated by the work of Sergei Eisenstein and later on as an artist, I admired the work of experimental film makers like the Dadaists, Surrealists and was fascinated with the work of Michael Snow. In music and sound, one name stands out more than any other—John Cage.

Is there anything about your ethnicity or background that you believe has influenced your vision in making films or is perhaps attributable to your approach to filmmaking?

As a child, the war and the movement of the West Coast Japanese to internment camps in the interior of British Columbia had a profound impact on me. I felt as though it was an act of betrayal and injustice by the Canadian government.

Which aspect of your environment (i.e. where you were born/raised; your home life) had a significant impact on your perspectives - ultimately revealing itself in your work?

Back in 1975 I went to Japan in search of my roots and to study the culture. My motivation at the time was to follow Jack Kerouac’s “Dharma Bums” to Kyoto. I soon discovered that I could not truly understand the culture without studying Zen Buddhism and Shintoism. Eventually, after taking some time off to study my heritage, I came to love the culture and its art forms. My favorite work is the Shinto Shrine in the town of Ise which has been a great influence in my work. It is 1000 years old and to this day it is torn down and reconstructed every 20 years. The form is pure, explicit, elegant and timeless.

Please tell us some detail about some of your past projects.

My first video (circa 1985) was made at the Western Front in Vancouver at the invitation of filmmaker Kate Craig. At that time, the Western Front made their equipment and technical expertise available to the artists and developed a policy of inviting artists who were not film or video makers to try their hand at this discipline. So, for my first project, I decided to make a film of myself as a sound poet with a fixed camera on my face in the process of sound singing. Since video editing was an analogue system, I was able to apply a formula using two different wave forms, one for the ‘out’ tape and the other for the ‘in’ tape. The construction of the video was very complex but in simpler description, the result was a video/film in which the events resulting from the formula was an “oscillation” of past, present and future events. My second video was (circa 1990) again a sound video of a performance called “Mouth Mechanics” where I investigated (again with a fixed camera pointed inside the mouth) the vocal mechanism of voicing - the larynx, nose cavity, mouth cavity, tongue positions, lips and teeth in the process of making vocal sounds.

Can you give us a quick synopsis of your featured performance for this year's Reel Asian?

My featured project, Loop Holes was made in 2004. Originally, it began as a nine-monitor installation. In 2008, I changed the format to a split screen video. The nine images have been sequentially staggered and rearranged in a random pattern. By combining vocal layering and physical gestures, my performance is transformed into a textural chaos in the audio-visual field.

Do you have a signature or style to your work that makes it distinguishable from others'?

Between 1985 and 2009, I have made four short videos. Since they are all about vocal sounds, I suppose that could be construed as a signature until I decide to do something else. I favor the notion of applying a formula to my work, which ensures the process and outcome of a video without the necessity of making aesthetic, process or sequential judgments with regard to editing decisions. I also like the minimal use of a fixed camera with events moving across the lens, which is why John Cage has been a great influence on my video work.

By Christina Jung for Schema Magazine.

Check out Nobuo Kubota's installation Loop Holes at Reel Asian!

Filmmaker Profiles are done in partnership with Schema Magazine.