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2022/09/1

Joining The Largest Media Arts Festival: Ars Electronica 2022 Exhibition & Performance in Linz, Austria

The Japan Media Arts Festival will participate in the Ars Electronica Festival 2022, as part of the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ project to exhibit winning works of art from the Japan Media Arts Festival and showcase live performances at the Ars Electronica 2022 festival.

Ars Electronica 2022 is a festival that celebrates art, cutting-edge technology, and culture. It is one of the largest media arts festivals in the world. Due to the global pandemic, it has been held in a hybrid system for the past two years, both offline and online. However, for this year, all programs will be held onsite with the theme, “Welcome to Planet B – A different life is possible. But how?”

The festival has invited art director and curator, YAMAMOTO Mayumi to overlook the planning for this year’s festivities. Two pieces of art will be exhibited at the Ars Electronica Festival venue: YAMAUCHI Shota’s Maihime, YAMAUCHI’s other work, Yamahyo Crossing won the Art Division Excellence Award at the 25th Japan Media Arts Festival (JMAF), and HIRASE Miki’s Projection for the next three thousand years, which won the 25th JMAF Art Division New Face Award. There will be live performances for Maihime during the exhibit. (Subject to cancellation due to weather conditions.)

【Exhibition】

1. “Maihime”
■Artist:YAMAUCHI Shota
https://jmaf-promote.jp/en/creators_file/art/2022/yamauchishota/

Photo by TAYAMA Tatsuyuki

This piece of work is by YAMAUCHI Shota, who won the 25th JMAF Art Division Excellence Award. A reorganized version will be displayed for Ars Electronica 2022. Footage of a human-skin-wearing gorilla and a poem will be projected on a large, displayed sign outside. During the performance, a performer wearing a suit with motion capture will connect with the gorilla on the sign. It will be a show that synchronizes both the performer and the footage.

Outline of work:
By personifying technology as a gorilla wearing a human’s skin, and by synchronizing it with the movements of the performer who faces it, this work aims to open up a new perspective on the relationship between people and technology. It asks just what it is that exists before our eyes or beside us, in an age where technology is a medium for many forms of communication.
Terrada Art Award 2021, Takahiro Kaneshima/Audience Award (2021)

Venue:
Johannes Kepler University, Sound Park

Performance Times (CEST):
September 7-9, 2022 ①15:00～ ②18:00～(30 min show)
September 10, 2022 ①15:00～ ②19:00～(30 min show)
*Subject to weather conditions.
*Dates and times may change.

2. “Projection for the next three thousand years”
■Artist:HIRASE Miki
https://jmaf-promote.jp/en/creators_file/art/2022/hirasemiki/

A material that has long been used as a recording medium, this work presents stone as a medium that does not use electricity and has the potential to remain intact even 3,000 years from now by applying modern mechanical processing techniques. There are three of the same works displayed currently.

Outline of work:
In this work, iconography is laser-engraved on a mirror-polished stone. Using light and reflection, the engravings are projected onto a wall. The work addresses the normalization of viewing iconography on electronic devices, and the energy crisis, by devising a way to reproduce today’s iconography and viewing methods in a hypothetical future without electricity.
25th Japan Media Arts Festival Art Division New Face Award (2021)
Yamanashi Media Arts Award Y-Gold (Grand Prize) (2022)

Venue:
Johannes Kepler University, Science Park 4

About Ars Electronica　https://ars.electronica.art/news/en/
Founded in 1979. Based in Linz, Austria, it is a global creative institution that has been proposing “a new vision of creativity and the future of society brought about by advanced technology” for 40 years. It creates meeting places that connect art, technology and society, and proposes a transversal future. Ars Electronica Festival, an annual international event on media art, is known as one of the world’s largest festivals of art, advanced technology, and culture. Ars Electronica Center, which functions as an art museum, has been in operation since 1996 and includes a studio for production and the Futurelab for research into the future of art and technology.
Hosting Prix Ars Electronica since 1987 (https://ars.electronica.art/prix/en/), the festival has awarded artists that innovated the media arts. In 2022, there were 2,338 applications from 88 countries. This year, many artists from Japan have won awards such as OryLab’s Avatar Robot Café DAWN ver. β, which won the Golden Nica Award in the Digital Communications Department or MIZUSHIRI Yoriko’s Anxious Body which won an award from the Computer Animations Department. MIZUSHIRI’s work was introduced at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and trade show Mifa.

Organized by Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan Media Arts Overseas Promotion
Operation by Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO)

About Japan Media Arts Festival Overseas Promotion: https://jmaf-promote.jp/en/

About VIPO: https://www.vipo.or.jp/en/about/

Official SNS account
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Contact info:
Visual Industry Promotion Organization (VIPO), Film & Video Department
Japan Media Arts Festival Overseas Promotion
Contact: NAGASAWA Yuko or TABUKI Kazue
Email: jmaf@vipo.or.jp