In 2018, during the first major renovation of Itami Airport in over 50 years, I composed and designed the music for a large-scale video installation located in the airport’s central public area.
The commission came from a production team responsible for visual design within public spaces.
From the outset, the challenges were clearly defined.
The music needed to avoid asserting itself within a vast airport environment.
It could not become a source of stress for visitors spending long periods of time in the space.
At the same time, while accompanying a video installation, the sound was required to function as ambient music for the surrounding area—without drawing attention to repetition.
To meet these conditions, I adopted a design concept I described as “music that functions like an air purifier.”
Sound subtle enough to go unnoticed, yet effective in conditioning the atmosphere of the space.
Rather than prioritizing musical development, the structure focused on maintaining clarity and balance while preventing repetitive patterns from registering consciously.
This allowed the sound to integrate naturally—not only near the video installation, but across the broader circulation routes of the airport.
On site, the result aligned closely with the original intention.
The music blended seamlessly into the airport environment, maintaining calm even during long waiting periods typical of air travel.
The success of this project lay precisely in its lack of visibility.
The music remained unobtrusive, yet demonstrably effective in shaping the overall atmosphere.
This was not simply a matter of composing music for an image.
It was a project in which sound and space were designed as a single, inseparable system.
