‘White Noise” by Lucian Moriyama: exploring the interplay between reality and fiction

Lucian Moriyama (b. 1991, Honolulu) is a Brussels-based artist who revisits cultural and material histories, excavating utopian forms and exotic fantasies. Art and fiction emerge as central themes in his work, which explores the gaps and exotic elements of art history, architecture and music.

Moriyama primarily creates sculptures in scaiola, a plaster-based technique that imitates marble and was widely used in baroque palaces, world fairs and as souvenirs from grand voyages. His sculptures form imaginary geologies, manipulated photographs, fictional books and sometimes even tragic-comic songs, exploring the interplay between reality and fiction.

His latest body of work explores music and the recording studio, a space where the ephemeral nature of music becomes a physical object. It is a magical space where a singer revives emotions, feelings or thoughts to create a magical object: vinyl. It is a space that can be compared to an artist’s studio, where even an idea takes shape as a work of art.

For his solo exhibition White Noise at Alkinois Project Space, curated by Sam Steverlynck, Moriyama will show a body of work related to music and sound. Whereas some wall sculptures evoke recording devices or the fetish of the ‘golden record’ as a phantasmagorical symbol for fame and success, some other works not only evoke sound but also produce it.

Among these sculptures, Lighthouse takes a central place and reimagines pirate radio, transmitting sound through a play of visible light, transforming lenses and shadows into musical materials. Working with plaster, stones, and light, Moriyama transforms the exhibition space into a sonic and sculptural installation that will be also activated live during a special performance at the opening of the exhibition.