The LYM audio-visual experience: Lola Ajima and Yukao Nagemi
Lola and Yukao Meet is an audiovisual duo. In a mixed music artform, Lola Ajima associates electroacoustic compositions, voice and live cello looping. Yukao Nagemi develops his own environment for augmented performative drawing by adding digital effects on ink and tablet drawing. Works are created by combining traditional instrument performance (music and drawing) with the most cutting-edge digital processes for sound spatialization and live graphics. Their compositions confront generative processes in an innovative postmodern art form which questions our relationship to technology and information flow.
Lola and Yukao Meet are inspired by ancient myths and cultures, and how these strong human beliefs have survived in our society. Their performances are poetic in the sense that they articulate complex sensibility to contemporary dramas with a subtle mix of traditional expression and digital features. They do not tell stories as such, but however develop narrations during their performances with their own visual and musical languages both representative and symbolic.
Besides their collaboration in Lola and Yukao Meet, Lola Ajima and Yukao Nagemi also develop their own singular art practice. They have regular collaborations with other artists, both as a duo and as individuals: with musicians, composers, dancers, choreographers, theater directors…
Lola has an electroacoustic art career and enjoys to compose for classical musicians in mixed music projects where she augments classical instruments. She also works on sound and music for art short films and for contemporary dance. Yukao develops his own ink-on-paper drawings about myths and human psychology. He collaborates with musicians and composers for audio-visual compositions or improvisations.
Lola and Yukao Meet’s intricate association of soundscapes, music, graphics, and digital effects carries the audience through initiative journeys with references to human myths and dystopian artifacts of our contemporary lives.
“…art must must carry man’s craving for the ideal, must be an expression of his reaching out towards it; that art must give man hope and faith. And the more hopeless the world in the artist’s version, the more clearly perhaps must we see the ideal that stands in opposition – otherwise life becomes impossible! Art symbolises the meaning of our existence.” Andreï Tarkovski, Sculpting in time.
Presentation of projects: LYM_portfolio.pdf
Lola Ajima is the artist name of a singer/bass/cello player and composer. In her former band activity she amused herself with indie rock and dreampop/industrial. She has also composed soundscapes for contemporary dance performances and soundtracks for short movies. She has completed the electroacoustic composition education at Conservatoire Pantin, Paris.
Yukao Nagemi is the visual artist name of Christian Jacquemin. He combines figurative hand drawing with abstract generative digital effects. He questions our relationships to science and technology and their dramatic syndromes. As media, he uses ink and tablet drawing, live graphic performance, programs for generative graphical effects, and video.
Download: LYM Press archive
Facebook Lola and Yukao Meet
Contact via Messenger: Facebook pages @Lola Ajima or @Yukao Nagemi
Press – Web
Que le dessin devienne poésie avec Yukao Nagemi (2020)
Personal text based on cue words (in French) about my visual work, edited by Marie-Laure Desjardins in the online media ArtsHebdoMédias
Many thanks to Marie-Laure Desjardins and ArtsHebdoMedia for promoting media, mobile, digital… arts, and promoting and supporting events and artists in these domains.
Le cercle magique de Lola and Yukao Meet (2018)
A long interview (in French) about our project Völuspá by Marie-Laure Desjardins in the online media ArtsHebdoMédias
Lola Ajima est d’origine danoise, Yukao Nagemi est Français. Ils se sont connus à Berlin en 2009, et forment depuis à la fois un couple et un duo artistique baptisé Lola and Yukao Meet, s’inscrivant dans une pratique résolument transdisciplinaire. […] A travers Lola and Yukao Meet, les deux artistes poursuivent leurs recherches, entremêlant création sonore, art numérique, dessin et peinture pour créer de singulières performances.
Many thanks to Marie-Laure Desjardins and ArtsHebdoMedia for promoting media, mobile, digital… arts, and promoting and supporting events and artists in these domains
Explore an Underground World of Pixel-Based Microorganisms (2015)
Our project “generative nights” has been reported in the Creators Project:
Pixels pulsate, multiply, collide, and swarm in generative nights, an audiovisual “exploration of an underground world hosted by micro-organisms that infinitely replicate” created by Lola and Yukao Meet, the duo comprised of composer Lola Ajima and graphical artist and scientist Yukao Nagemi. Inspired by cellular automata, the graphical and audio patterns of their video collaboration are meant to spark the viewers’ imaginations with images of “industrial halls, cities at night or a biologist’s lab bench,” according to the artists.
Many thanks to this medium for their post about our work, and for all their efforts to promote the visibility of creative projects. – By Becky Chung — Jan 27 2015
La musique, ce n’est pas que le rap (2015)
Our band and rehearsal place (Les studios musicaux Les Ulis) have been reported in the blog Un Printemps aux Ulis of the French catholic newspaper La Croix:
Il est français. Elle est danoise. Il dessine et projette en direct sur un écran ses oeuvres grâce à une machine conçue par ses soins pendant qu’elle joue du violoncelle électrique à ses côtés. Ce n’est pas le genre de rencontre que l’on s’attendait à faire dans le sous-sol de la Maison pour tous des Amonts, un mardi soir. « Vous êtes tombés sur les bobos du coin », lance en riant l’artiste en répétition, Christian, qui se fait appeler Yukao Nagemi sur scène.
Dans le civil, ce scientifique est enseignant, tout comme sa complice violoncelliste qui est aussi sa compagne. Boe, elle, a choisi Lola Ajima comme nom d’artiste et le couple forme le groupe de musique expérimentale Lola and Yukao Meet. Ils se sont installés aux Ulis en 2008. Un choix de vie. « J’ai toujours eu envie d’y vivre, explique Christian-Yukao. J’aime le mélange des cultures et des nationalités. Pour moi, cette ville est un modèle d’avenir. »
Tous les mardis, à partir de 20 h 30 et pendant deux heures, le duo franco-danois répète dans ces studios aménagés par la municipalité en 2011.[…]
Many thanks to Pascal Charrier for reporting about our work, and for his focus on the city of Les Ulis and its many facets — June 15 2015
“..d-CONT is an interesting twist on The Game of Life. […] Fascinating stuff. Also recommended: CityWalks (2012), tres situationist. ” Matteo Bittanti @ GAMESCENES (2012)
Credits
Lola and Yukao Meet is supported by: The Danish Arts Council (Kunststyrelsen, kunst.dk)
Les Studios Musicaux, Le Café-Musique Le Radazik et La ville des Ulis, France.
Fonds de soutien à la création artistique numérique SCAN.