"Critical perspectives:Japanese Media Art Production"-Yukiko Shikata

A & T FORUM: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES IN ART AND TECHNOLOGY

November 4, 2009 Yukiko Shikata

Critical perspectives ——

Japanese Media Art Production

Japanese mental & cultural tendencies

1. Homogeneity

2. Liquidity

3. Eclectic feature

4. Exquisite feature

5. Tactile feature

Ceaselessly the river flows, and yet the water is never the same, while in the still pools the shifting foam gathers and is gone, never staying for a moment…

—— Chomei Kamono “Hojoki(An Account of My Hut)” (1212)

Japanese took the foreign thought, technologies and systems and modified them to be fit into the things purely Japanese-like. Japanese history proves the words of Aristotle that all true creation starts from mimesis.

—— Octavio Paz, “Tiempo Nublado” (1983)

Experimental films of

Experimental Workshop (1951-)

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“Form in Created” (1953) Composition: Hideko Fukushima, Music: Kazuo Fukushima

"Adventures of the Eyes of Mr. W.S., a Test Pilot” (1953) Composition: Katsuhiro Yamaguchi, Music: Hiroyoshi Suzuki

Katsuhiro Yamaguchi “Vitrine” series (1953)

*paintings &sculptural figures behind the glass to be perceived by the views moving around.

Gutai group (1950s)



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Atsuko Tanaka “Electric Dress” (1956)

Kazuo Shiraga

*performative painting

body.

Saburo Murakami “Lacelation of Paper” (1955)

C.T.G. (computer technic group)

“Computer is a Good Illustrator - Random Kennedy” (1967)

*Drawings, outputted by X- Y- plottor by IBM, etc was

shown as multiples of silk screen or off-set printing.

“Computer Art” exhibition poster (1968)

E.A.T. (experiments in art and technology):“Froats” by Robert Breer, Fog by Fujiko Nakaya, Pepsi Pavillion, Osaka Expo (1970)

Fujiko Nakaya “Friends of Minamata Victims - video diary” (1972)Co-produced by Hakudo Kobayashi

*Video was used for triggering communication between the resisting young people, and with public on the street.





Fujiko Nakaya “Statics of an Egg” (1973)

*The video trying to make the egg stand on the desk triggers the sensitive feedback between the egg, person.

Fujiko Nakaya “Fog Sculpture” series

Guggenheim Museum Bilbao (1997) “Forest of Fog” Showa Memorial Park, Tachikawa (1992)

Eiichi Izuhara “Com Tree” (1973)

*The engineer developing CAD realized theprogram to generate tree-structures, bycollaboration with computer artists.

Minoru Yoshida “Synthesizer Jacket” (1974/2000)*Wearable jacket with the analogue synthethizer on it.

Minoru Yoshida “Bisexual Flower” (1970)*By the water flows down, the flower-like sculptureblooms up with the sound of analogue synthesizer.

Masaki Fujihata “Forbidden Fruits” (1990)



Masaki Fujihata

“Torso [Geometric Love]” (1987)

*Both sculptures are algorithmically produced and output physically.

Masaki Fujihata “Beyond Pages” (1996)*Book becomes interface for the user to interact beyond the real and the virtual. The work also refers to the relation between the sign and image.



Masaki Fujihata “Nuzzle Afar” (1997)

*Users become avatars and interact in a virtual space.



Masaki Fujihata “Field Works” (2001)*User can experience the perspective of artist equipped with GPS and video camera

moved around the sites, such as in Alsace, in a virtual space.


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Toshio Iwai “Time Spectrum II” (1985)3D Animation made while he was student of Tsukuba Univ. The movement of paper dolls changes accoring to the sound.



Toshio Iwai “Piano - as image media” (1996)

*Anybody can play piano freely by using the simple interface. Scores turns to the projected lights, then reach to the piano.

Toshio Iwai “Marshmallow Scope” (2002)

*Through this dool-shaped scope, the time and space is modified by realtime computer process.

Toshio Iwai “TENORI-ON” (2008) music instrument produced with YAMAHA

Dumb Type “S/N” (1994)The performance, followed by the installation, provoked discussions by raising social, political issues -- gender,sex, HIV, etc. -- as the performers told their stories bytraversing beyond real and fiction.

Teiji Furuhashi “LOVERS” (1994)co-produced with Canon ARTLAB*The first and last solo installation of Teiji Furuhashi,

the leading member of Dumb Type who confessed his

suffering of AIDS at the performance “S/N”.

Dumb Type “Voyage” (2002)*The installation version was consisted of geographical map image projected on the floor, overlapped by the scanning map images, with the sharp sound and laser lights. The body of the viewer is also scanned and projected.

NTT InterCommunication Center[ICC]

www.ntticc.or.jpTokyo Opera City Tower, Hatsudai (Nishishinjuku area), Tokyo

Sendai Mediatheque (Sendai, since 2001)

Architect: Toyo Ito.

Municipal mediatheque with exhibition space, city library and café, art shop. Iintroduces media

art works tentatively.

Media Centers in Japan

Miraikan (Tokyo, since 2001)Miraikan / National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation:

Has permanent exhibition of several media art works and also produces art & science exhibitions.

YCAM (Yamaguchi, since 2003)

Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media. Architect: Arata Isozaki.

Municipal media center with studios for the media art and performance, cinema, city

library, media lab for production and restaurant. Focuses on experimental media art

and many works have been already toured in and out of Japan.

Kazuhiko Hachiya “InterDiscommunication Machine” (1991)*The participants exchange what they see. Trying to communicateby watching the behavior of self from the perspective of the other.

Kazuhiko Hachiya “PostPet” (1997-2006) *Virtual pets deliver your e-mails but sometimes behave weird. © Sony Communication Network Corporation



Kazuhiko Hachiya “Open Sky” (2003-)

*Fantasic R&D project inspired by the anime “Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind” (Dir.

by Hayao Miyazaki). The artist seeks to fly with DIY personal plane with jet engine.





Maywa Denki “Nonsense Machines” exhibition (2004)

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*Maywa Denki (fictional company) produces humorous instruments with eccentric

ideas and play them live by wearing the costume of engineers. Instruments are

produced for the market. Management by the Yoshimoto Entertainment Co.

Motoshi Chikamori + Kyoko Kunoh “KAGE” (1996)

*Different virtual “KAGE(shadows)” appear by touching the cone-shapedinterfaces. A Poetic work by connecting the virtual and the real.



Ryota Kuwakubo “PLX” (2001)

In this hand-made game, the lights appears the same

position on displays, but each plays different games/stories.



Ryota Kuwakubo “Loop Scape” (2003)

In this hand-made shooting game, you might be killed

by your own shot because of the round shape of display!



Ryota Kuwakubo









“Prapared Radio” (2006)“VideoBulb” (2001)

“Bitman” (1998-99)

“Duper/Looper” (2001)



exonemo “FMS (FragMental Storm)” (2000) *sample images (collage)*This software remixes the retrieved texts and images realtime from the web sites, through the search engine, by typing in the words whatever in your mind. Like the floating fragmented “memories” to be accidentally combined like a storm…

exonemo “VHSM (Video Hack Slash Mixer)” (2003)*Images from 3 video projectors overlapp. Each projector shows R, G, B. The fan attached in front of each projector cuts up images and project on the wall. Images are consisted of old personal films of the citizens & from Internet. The audience can interfere the images by own shadow.

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exonemo “Object B” (2006)*4 projections on the cube, sharing the virtual space of modified shooting game. 3 of 4 “users”are hand-made junk machines being automatically activated, and one real user plays the game together. By shooting, new object appears and starts to accumulate.Terribly nonsense; asking the notion of “interaction”.

exonemo “The Road Movie” (2005) for “MobLab” project

During the 3 week-journey of “MobLab” project by bus + mobile technology, exonemo captured the surrounding photos of bus every 5 min., then released the whole journey in the downloadable PDF files, to be folded as Origami. People can keep the whole journey as hundreds of bus paper models..!

Seiko Mikami + Sota Ichikawa “Gravicells” (2004)

Seiko Mikami + Sota Ichikawa “Gravicells” (2004)*Within the space a virtual field of gravity and opposing forcepull against one another. The entire space changes as themovements of users are converted into dynamic image,sound and light in real-time.

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doubleNegatives Architecture “Corpora in Si(gh)te” (2007-)

doubleNegatives Architecture “Corpora in Si(gh)te” (2007-)Virtual architecture being generated according to the environmental data, fed bythe smart network of sensors outside of the building. Each node autonomously judges environmental conditions and the stability of the structure, based on which the structure as a whole (the Corpora) changes, continuously.

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Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani “LIFE - fluid, invisible, inaudible …”(2007)

Ryuichi Sakamoto + Shiro Takatani “LIFE - fluid, invisible, inaudible …”(2007)Images from projectors attached above the “screen” with water and fogs shines down, connecting the imagery while ceaselessly melting, floating endlessly. The combination of images, the sounds are randomly chosen and never the same.

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Norimichi Hirakawa “DriftNet” (2007)

Norimichi Hirakawa “DriftNet” (2007)Big waves surge in a screen-filling computer-generated ocean. When you move, as if crawling through the waves of information generated from the data, you see a link emerging between the waves.

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Ryoji Ikeda “data.tron” (2008)

Space consisted of huge amount of mathematical data, or abstract

images. And white noice. Extreme, Immersive, sublime direction.

Ryoji Ikeda“test pattern [nº1]” (2008)

Keiko Kimoto “Ambiguous Green” (2008)

*This room, shown at ICC, consisted of two rooms; the existing project "Imaginary Numbers" in the first room, and output generated in real-time in the back room.

Keiko Kimoto “Imaginary Numbers” (2002)These beautiful and delicate images, evocative of natural phenomenon such as spirals and whorls, are created using simple mathematical formulae.

Keiko KimotoExperiments of running “Coupled Oscillators” or “Reaction Diffusion System” (ICC, 08- 09)

In a back room, 400x400 oscillators were connected and run 10 months for the real-time process of creation. Visitors could observe them slowly changing as though aliving form. They gained a complexity that was unpredictable from any of its components.













Two vectors in Media Art

1. Showing the Japanese tendencies by using technology: Design, Play, Entertainment-oriented. Narrative, representative.ex. Toshio Iwai, Maywa Denki, Kazuhiko Hachiya, Ryota Kuwakubo

2. Taking meta- and critical-approach, asking the role of media, art & technology, the way of perception: Abstruct, process-based.

ex. Masaki Fujihata, Dumb Type, Seiko Mikami, dNA, Keiko Kimoto

Mission G: sensing the earth

May 16, 2009 - February 28, 2010@ICC “Open Space2009”@ NTT InterCommunication Center[ICC]

doubleNegatives Architecture / Hajime Narukawa /Pachube+M.K.I.+M.K.I./ PACT SYSTEMS / Yusuke Murakami + The 50th Japan Antarctica Research Expedition+National Institute of Polar Research

COOP HIMMELB(L)AU:FUTURE REVISITED

September 19 - December 23, 2009 NTT InterCommunication Center[ICC]

"Critical perspectives:Japanese Media Art Production"-Yukiko Shikata

Technology

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