Special Exhibition from the Japan Media Arts Festival
at the EYEMYTH Media Arts Festival

THE MEDIUM
AS SOMATIC IMPULSE

19(Friday)—21(Sunday) February, 2016
Sitara Studio /Venue:
Edward Cinema / Dolby Laboratories / Piramal Museum of Art, Mumbai, India
Sitara Studio (National Engineering Compound, Garage Lane, Kakasaheb Gadgil Marg, Near Congress Bhavan Opposite Indiabulls Finance Centre, Lower Parel, Mumbai)
Edward Cinema (514, Near Metro Adlabs, Kalba Devi Road, Tak Wadi, Mumbai)
Dolby Laboratories (S14, 5th Floor, 167, Guru Hargovindji Marg, Chakala, Andheri , Mumbai)
Piramal Museum of Art (Peninsula Corporate Park, Ganpatrao Kadam Marg, Lower Parel West, Mumbai)

Organizer: Japan Media Arts Festival | Co-organizer: EYEMYTH Media Arts Festival |Co-operation: The Japan Foundation, New Delhi / TodaysArt JAPAN / TAKAMATSU MEDIA ART FESTIVAL

Admission: Free (Edward Cinema need to festival pass RS200—)

http://jmaf-promote.jp/global/en/
Forest of Daxophone, UCHIHASHI Kazuhisa Photo: Ken Kato

ThemeThe Medium as Somatic Impulse
Planning director: UKAWA Naohiro
As former WIRED editor-in-chief Chris Anderson observed inMakers, the focus on creators is today being surpassed by the“Maker Movement” whose necessary elements are the web andsocial media using “desktop manufacturing” such as CAD and 3D
printers. The 21st century Industrial Revolution has already begun.
Simultaneously, the 2010’s have been marked by the abstract
painting trend of “The Medium of Contingency”. This is the approachof introducing chance into works in order to transcend the maker’s
own creative conceptions and even the laws of causality. But is it
possible for such opposing creative elements to resonate well!?
I confronted artworks with trying to explore these two overarching
concepts of our times in my works! Also, the world which emerges
at ground level! This wasn’t media or technology but human fleshand blood! Listen carefully and you can hear the artist breathing...
the hint of the artist’s after-fragrance... the finger marks and blood
stains which float up transparently... Yes, the artist’s gaze andconcepts become a creative light which surpasses technology
and ascends!! This was how I tackled the theme of the Medium as
Somatic Impulse! New catalysts and unprecedented technologicalinventions are only tools of the creator and mere vessels! Rock art,cave paintings, the desert line drawings of Nazca and the pyramids
can all be regarded as ancient media arts which bore the weightof mythology. Ever since extremely distant times, media andtechnology have only been tools of the imagination! Imagination
can become creativity! In short, isn’t the power of representing
somatic impulse in media the most important capability in art?
This has to be the way of the alternative futures that break soeasily through the stereotypical future image!!

UKAWA Naohiro
Genzai (Contemporary) Artist / Professor, Kyoto University of Art and Design /Representative, DOMMUNE
Born in 1968 in Kagawa, Japan. A multi-talented artist known for his wide range of activities
as a graphic designer, video artist, music video director, VJ, writer, university professor, andgenzai (contemporary) artist, among other roles. In March 2010, UKAWA founded a live
streaming channel DOMMUNE, which immediately attracted a record-breaking number ofviewers for its daily programs, and was greatly discussed both inside and outside Japan.
DOMMUNE was chosen as a Jury Selections at the 14th Japan Media Arts Festival.

Chapter 1 / The Medium as Somatic Impulse—Performance

LIVEMedia arts has developed together with the evolution of technology
and by definition has always been interdisciplinary.
Chapter 1 examines somatic impulse as the source of creativity andthe honeymoon of contemporary technology as live performance.

Chapter 2 / The Medium as Somatic Impulse—Live Collaboration
20 February (saturday) 22:00—

Installation

Venue: Edward Cinema

Daxophone, the Talking Wooden Instrument / UCHIHASHI Kazuhisa
The daxophone is a wooden instrument invented by the prodigious German designer and musician, the lateHans Reichel. With a percussion-like rhythm and sound like that of a stringed instrument or even the cry ofa wild animal, it produces a rich variety of music. Kazuhisa Uchihashi, Reichel’s bosom friend and the only
daxophonist in Japan, improvises on the instrument.

EXHIBITION

Chapter 2 is an installation that goes beyond the clichés of fastevolving prototyping technology, sensing etc. to achieve what may
be called the post-human interface. The themes include the mutualinteraction of the body and external world; technology and body; andredefinition of the space of everyday life.

11:00—22:00

Venue: Sitara Studio

Modular Synthesizer Improvisation / galcid+SAITO Hisashi
Featured Artists

This is the group of female analogue synthesizer unit Galcid and solitary “synthesist” Hisashi Saito. The live
improvisation applies mainly analog and modular synthesizers to the No Preset No PC theme. Visitors canexperience the unique sounds and rhythms of the moment which only the people there will ever know.

UCHIHASHI Kazuhisa
Guitarist / Daxophonist / Composer / Music arranger / Producer
President of the Innocentrecords label. Leader of the improvised
band Altered States. Engaging chiefly in improvised music since
1983, has performed with various musicians at home and abroad.
Not limited purely to music, has also produced music for film,
dance and theater and served for 30 years as music director of
the Ishinha theater group. Collaborations with other musicians
include actively providing venues for shared activity andimprovisation workshops around the world. Has organized the newmusic festival, Beyond Innocence, since 1996. In parallel to these
activities, has produced songs in recent years with UA, HaruomiHosono, Kururi, Tabito Nanao, Ichiko Aoba, Sizzle Ohtaka, Salyu andothers. Insists on the necessity of interaction between
improvisation and pop musicians. Also known for setting up theNPO, Beyond Innocence, and managing the Bridge “alternativespace” in Osaka. Has been looking out to other Asian countries inrecent years and travelling around Asia in search of encounters.
Enjoys deep ties with the Indonesian duo, Senyawa, with whom heformed a new band, Mahanyawa. Respected as a master ofGerman inventor Hans Reichel’s daxophone. Lives in Berlin.
http://www.innocentrecord.com/

DORAVIDEO / ICHIRAKU Yoshimitsu

galcid (Lena & Neon)

SAITO Hisashi(DORAnome.Computer)

Analog Synth Girls
Established by Hisashi Saito in 2013 as a girl analogue synthesizer
unit. No PC / No Preset produces free and wholly unpredictablesound and performance. The two girls produce their aggressive
sounds on a rough analog synthesizer and have a big visual impact
as well.
http://galcid.com/

Sound Designer / Creator
Made his major debut with GULT DEP on Victor Entertainment in1991. Participated in Y Setsu O and Hideki Matsutake’s Logic
System. Toured in Europe with 8bit Project, a group making
chiptunes from hit songs. Various releases with own grouppulselize from neuron records. Author of DTM Technique 99 (RittorMusic, 2010).

Retired from a long professional career in drumming in 2012 to
make a fresh start using the DORAnome, a device for the real-time
remixing of video and sound which he had developed together
with tkrworks over the years. Rather than playing music on readymade instruments, the idea was to make his own music fromscratch. He presents an utterly unique and individual world view.
http://doravideo.businesscatalyst.com/©Daito Manabe

Photo: Ken Kato

UCHIHASHI Kazuhisa / galcid (Lena & Neon) / SAITO Hisash / DORAVIDEO

neural portraits | MANABE Daito

Forest of Daxophone | UCHIHASHI Kazuhisa[2015 / Digital Photo][2014 / Media Installation / Jury Selections at 18th Art Division]

This portrait study uses a deep running algorithm for artificial
intelligence.*1 The image recognition algorithm described in
A Neural Algorithm of Artistic Style*2 is used to produce new,AI portraits from an original portrait photo of Daito Manabe
through the selection of particular stylistic features.

A sound installation involving only the performance of adaxophone – a wooden musical instrument – and a multitrack composition replayed through 17-channel multispeakers. Coupled with the music, video and light pulsates.
Assorted tones made using various wooden fragments
reverberate, and through their accumulation emerges aforest-like space in which the presence of nature and living
creatures hangs in the air.

*1 An advanced, multi-layered computer learning program using numericalmodels of how people acquire information through direct experience.
*2 A paper by Leon A. Gatys, Alexander S, Ecker and Matthias Bethge

Co-operation:
Exhibition installing support by Yokohama city art gallery Azamino
Surround system developed by Takayuki Ito (YCAM InterLab)
Projector shutter technical support by YCAM InterLab
Animation by Mana Fujiy

Chapter 3 / The Medium as Somatic Impulse—

GadgetChapter 5 / The Medium as Somatic Impulse—

Drawing Animations

EXHIBITION

Prototyping technology using CAD and 3D printing makes thiscentury social items. This is the Maker Movement. Chapter 3
introduces true alternative futures drawn from analysis of this trend,
which may well be called the Third Industrial Revolution, from theviewpoint of the exhibition’s theme, The Medium as Somatic Impulse.

11:00—22:00

Venue: Sitara Studio

The word animation derives from the Latin anima, spirit, andmeans to breathe life into lifeless drawings and make themmove. Chapter 5 features drawing animation as the first
impulse of expression, examining its avant-garde forms
across the Entertainment and Animation Divisions.

[2014 / Gadget / Excellence Award at 18th Entertainment Division]©2014 exiii Inc.

handiii is a myoelectric prosthetic hand designed to offer
flexibility and choice. Myoelectric bionic arms are prosthetics
that people who have lost limbs can control intuitively throughfaint electrical signals (myoelectric) in the muscles, which
are measured on the skin remaining on the arm. handiii
uses a 3D printer and smartphone in order to keep the costof the materials, and offers a choice of look to match theenvironment in which it is being used or the feelings of theuser, just like a watch or sneakers.

11:00—22:00

Venue: Sitara Studio

A Family Story | UESHIMA Shiro / ASAI Yuki / KANO Akira / KANNO Satoko / AIHARA Sachie /audioforce / IZUMIDA Takeshi / TEKKEN [Japan]

6handiii | KONDO Genta / YAMAURA Hiroshi /KONISHI Tetsuya

SCREENING[Jury Selections at 18th Entertainment Division]Anzen unten no shiori (Safe Driving Guide) | AC-bu (ADACHI Toru / ITAKURA Shunsuke) [Japan]

7[Jury Selections at 18th Entertainment Division]

YAMASUKI YAMAZAKI | Shishi YAMAZAKI [Japan]

8[Jury Selections at 17th Art Division]

Remember me | HASHIJI Misuzu / Remember me production team (SAKAI Yosuke,

9Representative) [Japan][Jury Selections at 17th Art Division]

Short filmOVERSEAS

Chapter 4 / The Medium as Somatic Impulse—

Short ﬁlm OVERSEAS

Shor t films only from all over the world expressing
fundamental concepts structured around the three elementsof time, place and body have been selected from among theaward-winning works of the 18th Art and Entertainment
Divisions. The trends in short films in 2014 are examined interms of Medium as Somatic Impulse.
1SCREENING

3245©Antonella Mignone, Cristiano Panepuccia

Photographer: Asaf Saban, Dancer: Shira Barel

11:00—22:00

Venue: Sitara StudioKintsugi | APOTROPIA (Antonella MIGNONE / Cristiano PANEPUCCIA) [Italy][Excellence Award at Entertainment Division]

21The Mute | Hilla BEN ARI [Israel]©Edelkrebs EntertainmentDrawing Animations

678©Natalie Plaskura©Friederike Hoppe

9[Jury Selections at Art Division]
3

KAWURAS | Hendrik LACKUS / Lars SICHAU / Andreas MEVES [Germany][Jury Selections at Entertainment Division]

4

FAINT | Natalie PLASKURA [Germany][Jury Selections at Entertainment Division]

5

WE ARE OUTSIDE PLAYING IN THE GARDEN | Friederike HOPPE [Germany][Jury Selections at Entertainment Division]©2014 YOSHIMOTO KOGYO,All Rights Reserved.
©YOSHIMOTO R and C CO., LTD.

©2014 AC-bu©2013 Shishi Yamazaki All Rights Reserved. ©2014 HASHI J I Mi suzu/CHIMASKI /SPEEDSTAR RECORDS
All rights reserved.

Related Events

WORKSHOP
The Synthesizer Academy

19 February (Friday) 15:00—17:00
Venue: Dolby Laboratories
Lecturer: galcid + SAITO Hisashi

They take various vintage synthesizers and the latest modular synthesizers from Japan and explain their structures andhistory with the actual sounds to transfer even more tangible technology.
Register: hello@unboxfestival.com

TALK
The W in V

21 February (Sunday) 15:00—16:30
Venue: Piramal Museum of Art
In collaboration with Piramal Museum of Art*Reservations not required
Participants: UKAWA Naohiro / Avinash Kumar / Dr. Padini Ray Murray
This event will bring Japanese designer, visual artist and music video director Ukawa Naohiro, digital artist and academic
specializing in digital humanities, games studies and design Dr. Padmini Ray Murray, and design strategist, researcher andartist, and one of the co-founders of Quicksand (plus one half of the Music group BLOT!), Avinash Kumar, who will present
their experiences and examples on the female form in new media and video games. The session will be followed by a panel
discussion.

PROGRAM SCREENING
20:00—20 February (Saturday)
Venue: Edward Cinema

Beyond the Technology

17:30— / 20:30— Entertainment & Animation Selection 2015

WORLD ORDER in BUDOKAN, WORLD ORDER Suidobashi Heavy Industry "KURATAS",©2013 Crystal Navigation INC. / PONYKURATA Kogoro / YOSHIZAKI Wataru
CANYON INC.
©Suidobashi Heavy Industry*Reservations not required

3RD, Hedwig HEINSMAN / Niki SMIT / Simonvan der LINDEN ©Monobanda PLAY / DUS
architects

Boundary Line, NAKATA Ayaka ©2014 AyakaNakata

The Japan Media Arts Festival, established in 1997, is a comprehensive festivalof the Media Arts (=media geijutsu). It recognizes and provides an opportunity
to appreciate works of outstanding artistic and creative merit in a diverse rangeof media, including animation, manga, and games. Prizes are awarded in four
divisions: Art, Entertainment, Animation, and Manga. It holds an annual exhibitionof award-winning works, as well as symposiums, screenings, and various otherevents. The Japan Media Arts Festival is evolving into a major international
event. The 19th Japan Media Arts Festival received a very large response – about
4,417entries from 87 countries and regions in total.

19th Japan Media Arts Festival 3 February (Wednesday)—14 February (Sunday), 2016
Exhibition of Award-winning Works: Venue: The National Art Center, Tokyo
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/JapanMediaArtsFestival
Twitter: @JMediaArtsFes_e

http://j-mediaarts.jp/en.php

Inquiries:
Overseas Media Arts Festivals Participation Office (Within NHK International, Inc.)
E-mail: jmaf-info@nhkint.or.jp

http://jmaf-promote.jp/en/