Shiro Takatani

[1] Dumb Type began touring around the world and got recognition with their multidisciplinary shows Pleasure Life (1988), and pH (1990–1995) and S/N (1992–1996) After the death of the artistic director Teiji Furuhashi in 1995, some members left the company, while new ones joined it, as the composer Ryoji Ikeda.

He also joined the three-week British expedition "Cape Farewell" (a cultural response to climate change) in the Arctic, with scientists, writers, journalists and other artists from different countries.

Takatani also created and directed three theatre/dance performances: La chambre claire (2008),[5] referring to Roland Barthes's essay la camera lucida, CHROMA (2012), inspired by Derek Jarman's Chroma: A Book of Color, with original music by Simon Fisher Turner, and ST/LL (2015)[6] in which he is exploring how to consider the micromeasure of time and whether "art or science can ever truly express this hourglass world".

At this period, composer Ryuichi Sakamoto noticed Takatani's work and asked him to undertake the visual direction of his opera LIFE, created in 1999.

During 2013–2014, they presented in Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media [YCAM], on the occasion of its 10th anniversary, their performance LIFE WELL (with the participation of Noh actor Mansai Nomura), an installation with the same title and a new one: water state 1.

Furthermore, Takatani was the visual director for Sakamoto's project Forest Symphony in 2013 and they collaborated again for a special version of LIFE-WELL, commissioned for the 20th anniversary of the Park Hyatt in Tokyo, in 2014.

Other collaborations with Sakamoto include the installations PLANKTON - A Drifting World at the Origin of Life (2016), based on photographs by French biologist Christian Sardet, async (2017) and the theatrical performance TIME (2021).