Cinemage is an audio-visual performance project initiated by New York-based electronic musician and photographer Aki Onda in 2005. With a title which references ideas of both ‘images for cinema’ and ‘homage to cinema’, the performance comprises slide projections of still photographs set to live guitar improvisation. The visual images in Cinemage are snapshots taken from Onda’s daily life. The images of Lost City (black-and-white, partially colour, 40 minutes, 2007) were shot in New York between 2001 and 2002. Aki Onda: ‘It was during the time when we were still in shock from 9/11. Everybody was living under an undefinable fear – not knowing what would happen in the future.’ The ceaseless flow of the images – still moments within a movement – against the ever-shifting, fluid guitar soundscape creates an experience not dissimilar to Chris Marker’s La jetée, but with another level of relevance related directly, of course, to Onda’s own life. For IFFR 09, Noël Akchoté plays guitar along with Onda’s visual images.
