Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life

Institute Benjamenta, or This Dream People Call Human Life 1995

7.70

Jakob arrives at the Institute Benjamenta (run by brother and sister Johannes and Lisa Benjamenta) to learn to become a servant. With seven other men, he studies under Lisa: absurd lessons of movement, drawing circles, and servility. He asks for a better room. No other students arrive and none leave for employment. Johannes is unhappy, imperious, and detached from the school's operation. Lisa is beautiful, at first tightly controlled, then on the verge of breakdown. There's a whiff of incest. Jakob is drawn to Lisa, and perhaps she to him. As winter sets in, she becomes catatonic. Things get worse; Johannes notes that all this has happened since Jakob came. Is there any cause and effect?

1995

The Moon

The Moon 1994

6.30

"A long time ago, I would often dream of the uncanny and mystical landscape that appears in moonlight. Irrational landscapes and spaces filled with unspeakable pleasures like a black object that revolves slowly while flying over the scattered clouds that float in the night sky, their lumps illuminated by the light of the moon." - Takashi Ito

1994

The Mummy's Dream

The Mummy's Dream 1989

6.00

The filmic version of a city in which all surface beauty has rotted away. In order to find images of death like landscapes of the city from which people have vanished, and buildings from which the decorations have been stripped away and the inner organs exposed, I walked all over Tokyo taking photographs, then animated them. (T.I.)

1989

Dizziness

Dizziness 2001

5.70

In the final scene of my last work, A SILENT DAY, a girl was filming herself with an 8mm camera on a railway bridge. Although the film doesn’t depict the incident, she later jumped off the bridge in an attempt to kill herself. Two girls witnessed her attempted suicide, and in this film I am attempting to depict the broken state of their psyches. In this piece, various images have been generated as a result of my professional interaction with a number of young people with mental illnesses, and the unstable state of mind which I have often experienced in recent days - Takashi Ito

2001

Devil's Circuit

Devil's Circuit 1988

5.80

A film in which the one 60-story skyscraper that soars in the spaces between roofs spins with incredible speed. I centered the circumference with its 400 or 500 meter radius on the skyscraper and divided it into 48 sections, then took photographs from those spots and shot the photographs frame by frame.

1988

Tokyo Loop

Tokyo Loop 2006

8.00

A series of 16 "short stories" created by the creator's group Images Forum.

2006

A Silent Day

A Silent Day 2002

9.50

A depiction of a girl’s uneasy state of mind as it wavers between life and death.

2002

3+1

3+1 1997

1

1997

A Manipulated Man

A Manipulated Man 2006

1

If there is a fixed number of words that a person speaks within his/her lifetime, and if that number is controlled from somewhere by someone, then it would probably be like the story in this film.

2006