Takashi Ito
- 1981Spacy
- 1995Zone
- 1984Ghost
He turned hundreds of still photographs into films where the camera plunges through rooms and light hangs in the air.
Ito was born in Fukuoka and showed his first 8mm films with the city's experimental film group. He studied at the Kyushu Institute of Design under the filmmaker and video artist Toshio Matsumoto, whose short Ātman inspired his first major work, and graduated in 1983. He later became a professor at Kyoto University of Art and Design.
He builds films frame by frame from sequences of still photographs, rephotographing them under strict rules of movement. Spacy (1981) is made from 700 photographs of a gymnasium. Later films use long exposures, time-lapse and strobes, and in Thunder, Ghost and Grim, which he called horror films, light seems to float in midair. Takashi Inagaki composed the sound for many of them.
Spacy toured Germany after screening in Osnabrück in 1984, and the Centre Pompidou acquired it in 1995. Zone won a main prize at Oberhausen in 1996. Ito also made special-effects sequences for features by Sogo Ishii, including The Crazy Family (1984). His first feature, Toward Zero, came out in 2021.
Films
Where to start with Takashi Ito, in the order they were made. Runtimes are approximate.
Spacy
Seven hundred photographs of a school gymnasium, rephotographed frame by frame. The camera seems to plunge endlessly through the hall and into pictures of itself.
Still from Thunder to come. Thunder
Strobing light, light drawn with long exposures, and dark interiors. It started Ito's run of images that seem to float in midair.
Still from Ghost to come. Ghost
Shot frame by frame at night, with long exposures, in the company dormitory where Ito lived. Glowing images hang in the air.
Still from Zone to come. Zone
A faceless man is tied to a chair in a white room, surrounded by images from Ito's earlier films. It won a main prize at Oberhausen in 1996.