Joaquín ARAS

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Joaquín ARAS

Participating Project	International Creator Residency Program (Individual Projects)
Activity Based	Buenos Aires
City / Place stayed	Tokyo
Period	2025.1 - 2025.3

Purpose of the residency

During his time at TOKAS he will continue his research about film, affect and memory focusing on the art of benshi performance.
He will explore how benshi narrations can interact with different materials such as abstract images, blurred footage and lost films. Embracing the improvisational aspect of benshi, these loose versions of the films will be inspired by the performers own memory and imagination.

Plan during the residency

• Interview experienced benshi performers and film historians to learn more about the art form and its techniques.
• Research about the topic in libraries and archives.
• Visit locations of film theatres where benshis performed.
• Collaborate with benshi performers (or with other actors interested in practicing benshi) to make a series of videos.

Activities during the residency

During the residency, Aras attended benshi screenings and interviewed katsuben performers and silent film specialists to learn more about benshi history and techniques. He searched the collection of National Film Archive of Japan, as well as the Omochaega Toy Film Museum in Kyoto where he learned about rare film formats. He visited Katsuben No-Yu, a former sentō that is now a venue for benshi performances. He went to silent film locations. wrote an article for the Monthly Asakusa magazine, and attended to katsuben school. The result of his research was a new film installation titled “The voice of the centaur” made in collaboration with Kataoka Ichiro, a renowned Benshi. The piece presents a benshi performance based on a contemporary interpretation of an Argentinean silent film. He also produced a video installation with benshi narration for a jidaigeki film, a film poster, and a collage based on a chanbara film.

Outcome of the residency

Aras explored the art of benshi, a type of performance popular in Japan during the silent film era, learning its history and techniques through interviewing Benshi performers and experts in this field that welcomed him into the Japanese silent film community. During the period of the residency, Aras experimented with benshi as a form of collaboration between past and present. As a result of his research, he produced a series of new works ranging from collage to video. The main piece of his project is a new film installation made in collaboration with Kataoka Ichiro, a renowned Benshi. The work expands the limits of authorship as it deals with multiple translation exercises. In the future, he would like to continue exploring his collaborations with benshi performers to do further screenings and exhibitions in Japan and Argentina. Aras attended to the Silent Film Appreciation Society 800th Anniversary, the biggest event in recent benshi history. The one-day program at the Kameido Bunka Center included 22 films with performances of 15 musicians and 20 benshi (all of the active benshi in Japan). He also had the opportunity to receive a private visit to the Omochaega Toy Film Museum, where he got to see rare early film formats in motion and became friends with the museum directors, who later travelled all the way from Kyoto to visit the open studio at TOKAS.

Creator Information