NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]

A song erased by its own recording

ICC occupies the fourth floor of Tokyo Opera City. Its Annual 2026 exhibition explored what recording technology preserves and what it removes. In YoungEun Kim’s To Future Listeners I, shown in that exhibition, a Korean song recorded by Alice Fletcher on a wax cylinder in 1896 undergoes repeated digital noise reduction. The software also treats the singing as noise, gradually fragmenting it. Listening to that change gives the exhibition’s large question a precise form: when does cleaning a recording begin to erase the voice?

Light becomes sound; sculpture appears to move

In Resistance Array, shown by suzueri and Satoru Higa in the same 2026 exhibition, relationships among social-media posts about the 2019 Hong Kong and Chilean protests become a network projected on a wall. A laser carries recordings from the protests; when it meets a receiver, the light becomes sound. The apparatus makes the passage from signal to audible voice part of the work.

Gregory Barsamian’s Juggler uses a different mechanism. Three-dimensional figures rotate on a cylindrical frame under synchronised strobe light. A telephone receiver seems to become a bottle, milk, dice and a bone in one continuous motion. Juggler was also included that year. Together, the works show ICC approaching sculpture and animation, communication and collective memory through different devices.

A one-person work in the anechoic room

SUGAI KEN’s “…Huh!?”: Pseudo-echoic Room in the 2026 exhibition placed one listener at a time in an anechoic room, hearing recorded creaks and footsteps without normal reflected sound. It unsettled the relation between a sound’s location and a sense of who was present.

Choose the exhibition and experience

ICC opened in 1997 and followed its Open Space programme with ICC Annual exhibitions from 2022. Film lengths and any one-person experiences affect the pace of a visit. Choose from the work descriptions, distinguishing free and paid areas and separate bookings. For a first visit, this guide suggests 60–90 minutes, with any experience wait added. The 5F lobby’s Art & Science Chronology and HIVE corners are free.

Read it with

SOMPO Museum of ArtPainting or media art — choose one.

Shinjuku Chuo Park“QUIET COUNTERPOINTS” · Free · walk

Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden“QUIET COUNTERPOINTS” · ¥500 · garden

Hanazono Shrine“QUIET COUNTERPOINTS” · Free · worship

Before you go

Hours and fees

Tokyo Opera City Tower 4F,3-20-2 Nishishinjuku, about two minutes from Hatsudai’s East Exit. Usual hours are 11:00–18:00; admission and booking conditions depend on the exhibition or experience.

Good to know

Closed Mondays (Tuesday after a Monday holiday), between exhibitions, at year-end and for regular building maintenance. Individual experiences may have age, mobility or sensory-environment restrictions and separate bookings; read the work’s access conditions.

Time

Allow about an hour for ICC Annual. About 20 minutes on foot from Shinjuku, or 2 minutes from Hatsudai Station (Keio New Line) East Exit.