Exhibition Highlights
What’s Media Art?
This exhibition is designed to provide an opportunity to think about a subject now much discussed, media art/media arts. Media art is a form of art characterized by its participatory nature and by the use primarily of media that have appeared since the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, particularly computers and other electronic equipment. Media art in Japan was pioneered by avant-garde art groups in the 1950s and was quite active in the 1980s and 1990s. The encouragement of media art under the Fundamental Law for the Promotion of Culture and Arts (2001) and the introduction of the study of imaging media in Japans elementary and junior high school curricula in 2002 have provided further impetus. Since the Power of Expression, JAPAN exhibition of 2007 (commemorating the tenth Japan Media Arts Festival and the opening of the National Art Center, Tokyo), media art has been seen as a vital nexus connecting manga, animation, games, films, and other media. Interest is growing in supporting young artists in this field and in considering the form of media art center to come.
Early Documentary Videos: The first special Ars Electronica exhibition in Japan
Cyber Arts Japan, the first special exhibition of its kind in Japan, introduces the history of Ars Electronica, widely known as the largest media art festival in the world, with a focus on Japanese involvement in the festival. Here visitors will see a thirty-year record of awe-inspiring exercise of the imagination in works by Japanese artists unveiled to the world through Ars Electronica.
Introducing Historic Prizewinners
Cyber Arts Japan will present the prizewinning work and more recent work by prizewinners in all eight of the Prix Ars Electronica categories, except for u19, which is a domestic Austrian award, and the Media Art Research Award, which is for theoretical work. The work exhibited in the Computer Animation/Film/VFX, Interactive Art, Digital Music, Hybrid Art, Digital Communities, and The Next Idea categories will offer the opportunity to experience the many modes of expression and messages to society embedded in these works, which include delightful participatory works as well as works of tranquil beauty.
Installations Showcasing Japan’s Power of Expression
What is the power of expression, Japan? It is warmly appreciated by the Milano Salone in Europe and by ACM SIGGRAPH in the United States, was acclaimed for “packing spirit and skill into small objects.” Now the Device Art project in this exhibition (with the participation of Hiroo Iwata, Kazuhiko Hachiya, Maywa Denki, the Kuwa Collaboration, Sachi Kodama, and Masahiko Iwami), which will be synchronized with at the Ars Electronica Center museum will provide an additional opportunity, in conjunction with this year’s prizewinning works, to examine what forms that power of expression takes.
Proposing New Domains
The exhibition also proposes new possibilities for the next generation of media art to win international acclaim. The spotlight is on new hybrids, such as the cross fertilization of science and literature, and on fields unique to Japan, such as space art, developing under conditions of weightlessness(micro-gravity) or in space, fields now becoming part of our everyday life. It invites a reconsideration of the past, including experiments in public art using digital media, and explores new sources of inspiration.
Related Events
Cyber Arts Japan will be held in conjunction with the thirteenth Japan Media Arts Festival (February 3-14, the National Art Center, Tokyo) and the ICC Metaverse Project (until February 28, the NTT ICC). It will also include a lecture by Gerfried Stocker, artistic and managing director of the Ars Electronica Center and artistic co-director of the Ars Electronica Festival, a symposium on robots and device art with participating artists Kazuhiko Hachiya, Maywa Denki and more, and screenings of related films.
