{"id":10286,"date":"2026-05-07T16:01:27","date_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:01:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/?p=10286"},"modified":"2026-05-07T16:07:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-07T22:07:25","slug":"kioto-aoki-findings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/2026\/05\/07\/kioto-aoki-findings\/","title":{"rendered":"Kioto Aoki: Findings"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"If
If pinholes were right side up, I would be doing handstands, Kioto Aoki, 2024. Courtesy of the artist<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In the finely attuned 16mm films of Chicago-based filmmaker, photographer, and musician Kioto Aoki, everyday phenomena\u2014sunlight pooling on a wooden floor, blades of grass shifting in a lawn\u2014become the material for exquisite compositions of sensorial and perceptual play. Grounded in an improvisatory sensibility and the embodied physicality of analog filmmaking, Aoki often edits her works in-camera and hand-processes them in her own basement studio. For this special evening, she presents a selection of 16mm films and debuts a new 35mm slide work. Musicians Robbie Lynn Hunsinger and Jamie Kempkers accompany the program with a live score, extending Aoki\u2019s improvisatory approach to the event itself\u2014one that opens onto larger questions about how we come to see and understand ourselves in the world around us.

Followed by a conversation with Kioto Aoki and audience Q&A.<\/em>

2013\u20132026, USA
Format: 16mm, 35mm slides, and live musical score
In English
ca 60 mins

ABOUT THE ARTIST<\/strong>

Kioto Aoki is a Chicago-based artist, filmmaker, photographer, musician, and educator. Her work has been presented at institutions including the Barbican Centre, London; the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago; the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco; the Heritage Museum of Asian Art, Chicago; Kobo Chika, Tokyo; and The Lab, San Francisco; among others and is held in the Joan Flasch Artists\u2019 Book Collection at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art Library and Archives. A fifth-generation member of the Toyoakimoto house, an okiya (geisha house) performing-arts family in Tokyo with roots in the Edo period, Aoki is a specialist in taiko, tsuzumi, and shamisen. She studied under her father, Tatsu Aoki (Toyoaki Sanjuro), and has performed professionally since childhood. She leads Tsukasa Taiko through Asian Improv aRts Midwest and maintains an active international performance and recording practice across traditional and experimental music.

PROGRAM<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the Grand Scale of Things<\/strong>
2014, 6 min
A playful look at the relation between words, implied actions, and potential consequences through light, hands, and shadow.

Mornings in Orange<\/strong>
2017, 3 min
An early morning fishing excursion.

Findings<\/strong>
2017, 3 min
An environmental exploration of space through bodies of light, with nods to Uta Barth, John Smith, and Maya Deren.

For Mt. Shamao<\/strong>
2018, 3 min
A film adaptation of Milad Mozari and Mitsu Salmon\u2019s site-responsive performance Mt. Shamao, commissioned for Experimental Sound Studio\u2019s Florasonic series at the Lincoln Park Conservatory.

????<\/strong>
2024, 3 min
Details on the ground and in the sky.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For Bucky Fuller<\/strong>
With Maggie Wong, 2019, 3 min
An homage to Buckminster Fuller, drawing on his belief that the Earth\u2019s rotation could be felt by a body aligned with the North Star.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aperture<\/strong>
2013, 9 min
A quiet investigation of the camera\u2019s aperture that draws attention to how we see.

Untitled 35mm Slide Performance<\/strong>
2026, 10 min

??????: If Pinholes Were Right Side Up, I Would Be Doing Handstands<\/strong>
2024, 3 min
A play between the filmmaker and a matte box, drawing a parallel between handstands (??? \/ sakadachi) and the camera obscura, where inversion becomes an essential orientation.

Tamago Stories One<\/strong>
2026, 3 min
The first in a series about mechanisms, economies, and ecologies of production through the confluence of eggs, photography, and the sun.

Double Run Eight<\/strong>
2022, 2 min
Sidewalks, trees, and sky run forward and backward across four frames of unslit double 8mm, reflecting embodied perception through the film\u2019s very structure. Shot on a Bell & Howell Filmo Double Run Eight camera from the Rod Slemmons Camera Archive.

Lightly Heeled<\/strong>
2024, 3 min
The artist\u2019s feet frame quivering flames in this hand-processed play of light.

Of What I Can See<\/strong>
2014, 3 min
A self-portrait through the artist\u2019s eyes and her cinematic instrument.

ACCESSIBILITY<\/strong>

Conversations at the Edge events have live captions (CART). The Gene Siskel Film Center is fully ADA accessible and its theaters are equipped with hearing loops. For other accessibility requests, please visit saic.edu\/access or write cate@saic.edu<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the finely attuned 16mm films of Chicago-based filmmaker, photographer, and musician Kioto Aoki, everyday phenomena\u2014sunlight pooling on a wooden floor, blades of grass shifting in a lawn\u2014become the material for exquisite compositions of sensorial and perceptual play. Grounded in an improvisatory sensibility and the embodied physicality of analog filmmaking, Aoki often edits her works […]<\/p>\n

Read More… from Kioto Aoki: Findings<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":337,"featured_media":10280,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[900],"tags":[907,909,908,910,906],"class_list":["post-10286","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-900","tag-analog","tag-black-and-white","tag-film","tag-kioto-aoki","tag-spring-2026"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/337"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10286"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10286\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10287,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10286\/revisions\/10287"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10280"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.saic.edu\/cate\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}