PYLON Research Trip
18 – 28 September 2006
Compiled by Michelle Hirschhorn,
PYLON Project Development Manager
Background
One of PYLON’s aims in 2006 was to develop new international contacts, with a view to raising the profile of the PYLON artists abroad by creating potential new exhibition, publication and collaboration opportunities.
We were particularly interested in Japan, as there is such a strong precedent of innovative partnerships between art and technology – particularly in the area of interactive media - and limited opportunities to develop a thorough understanding of these practices and how we might engage with them in the UK.
We therefore undertook a research trip to Japan, where we visited key institutions, curators, artists and universities working innovatively with new media. The PYLON artists had a unique opportunity to present their work directly to an audience of some of Japan’s most influential leaders in the field, as well as a chance to meet artists & see new work by leading professional artists and promising young students. We also established links with several of the top post-graduate media arts courses in Japan, with a view to furthering exchange with our affiliated UK universities.
Research Notes
Tue 19 Sep
The first day was spent settling in to the hotel and getting to know the surrounding area.
Accommodation was at:
Asia Center of Japan
8-10-32, Akasaka, Minatoku,
Tokyo,107-0052,
Japan
81-3-3402-6111 (TEL)
81-3-3402-0738 (FAX)
http://www.asiacenter.or.jp
Located in the neighbourhood of Akasaka (near Roppongi), the accommodation was ideal – very reasonably priced and an extremely central location with good transportation links.
Wed 20 Sep
Our first visit was to the NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC). ICC is probably the most established and widely known institution in Japan for the presentation of media arts. Established by NTT (the state telecommunications company) in 1997, ICC provides a platform for art & technology through exhibitions, events, symposia and publishing.
ICC closed last year due to budget cuts (ICC is funded privately by NTT), but reopened a scaled down version recently, which includes permanent & temporary exhibition space, a café & bookshop, education area and archive. We visited the exhibition ‘Connecting Worlds’ (which had just opened and was curated by Yukiko Shikata) and had a good discussion with Curator Minoru Hatanaka about the institution and his work, as well as introduced to him to the PYLON project and the artists’ work.
ICC (NTT InterCommunication Center)
Tokyo Opera City Tower 4F3-20-2 Nishishinjuku Shinjuku-ku
Tokyo 163-1404
Japan
Next up was the Mori Art Museum, which is located on the 53rd floor of the Mori Tower – 1 floor below a visitor attraction with breathtaking views of Tokyo. 
A new institution (open since 2003), the Mori Art Museum presents contemporary art & architecture and uses its location in the tower to attract wide audiences. Unfortunately the museum was closed for installation (the next exhibition was Bill Viola), but we met with Senior Curator Mami Kataoka, who told us about the exhibitions and public programmes and asked about our work.
Mori Art Museum
Roppongi Hills
Mori Tower 53 (f) 6-10-1
Roppongi Minato-ku
Tokyo 106-6150 Japan www.mori.art.museum
We then went to co-lab, a unique new venture providing affordable, shared creative space – including studios & offices - to artists, designers, architects, etc in central Tokyo. It was established in 2003 but new premises were completed in Dec 2005. co-lab rents most of the 7-story building and has 50 booths & over 100 creators. It's a very inspiring and collaborative environment. We met with Creative Director Haruaki Tanaka, Creative Facilitator Michie Iwatsuki and Artists Minim ++ (Motoshi Chikamori & Kyoko Kunoh) and Ryota Kuwakubo, who have studios there.
We presented our work to them, which was very well received. We then visited minim ++ and Ryota Kuwakubo’s studios, where they showed us their works too. Ryota’s work explores the boundaries between digital and analogue technologies. He also works for Sony, programming & designing prototypes and games. He currently has work in the Slow Life exhibition in Southampton and Art Futura in Spain. Minim ++ make interactive works that explore existence and identity through shadows.
They showed work in the UK as part of Lovebytes, Sheffield in 2004.
We also toured the building and met other residents, including Paul Baron & Kosuke Fujitaka, co-founders of the website Tokyo Art Beat.
co-lab
RE-KNOW
Sanban-cho
28-7 Sanban-cho
Chiyoda-ku
Tokyo 102-0075
Japan
Minim ++
(Motoshi Chikamori & Kyoko Kunoh) www.plaplax.com
Ryota Kuwakubo
Tokyo Art Beat
Thursday 21
Today we made our first journey on the bullet train (which was fantastic!) to the prestigious IAMAS in Ogaki City, about a 2 ½ hour train ride from Tokyo. IAMAS consists of two schools: the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences and the International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences. The Institute is soley a graduate school for obtaining a Masters Degree in Media Creations. The Academy is a vocational college for students who have at least graduated from high school. The Academy was founded in 1996 and the Institute opened in 2001. Both schools were established by Gifu Prefecture as part of a strategy to promote advanced information technology and the culture that develops from it.
Our visit was organised by Artist and Assistant Professor Akitsugu Maebayashi, who uses located sound as an interface between body & environment in his work. Steve Symons had met him previously in 2004, when both were exhibiting in Futuresonic in Manchester. We had a good discussion and shared our work with him, and he demonstrated some of his new projects to us.
He also introduced us to Miki Fukuda, Lecturer and Producer at the CMC. However, we only had a brief conversation with her, as she was busy preparing for the Ogaki Biennale, which was just days from opening.
The Center for Media Culture (CMC) is an auxiliary research body that exists within the Institute, but acts as a link between the Institute and the Academy and serves as an interface connecting the institution’s activities externally, including the Ogaki Biennale and the International Artist in Residence Program (2 six month residencies are hosted each year).
We also had the opportunity to meet Artists Yosuke Kawamura (Mobium) and Susumu Hakumae, who were preparing the Mobium (mobile museum) bus for the Ogaki Biennale.
We even got to accompany them on the bus on a short errand to the local diy shop, which was entertaining.
Institute of Advanced Media Arts & Sciences (IAMAS)
3-95 Ryoke-cho Ogaki-shi
Gifu 503-0014
Japan
Akitsugu Maebayashi
Mobium
Friday 22
We met with Satoshi Fukuda, Producer of Digital Art Factory and Digital Art Festival Tokyo and Ann Tomoko Yamamoto, Associate Producer of Digital Art Festival Tokyo at their offices at NHK Enterprises, Inc., the Japanese state television company.
Digital Factory produces a weekly digital art TV show entitled Digital Stadium, whereby a panel of established artists & cultural leaders curate a selection of works from open submission and discuss the works during the show.
The festival, which began in 2003, showcases the ‘best of’ works that have featured throughout the year, alongside selected international works. The festival is biannual and takes place in central Tokyo at the Panasonic Center and the Tokyo Wonder Site. Artist Masaki Fujihata is an advisor to the festival.
We introduced them to PYLON and gave a brief presentation about each artist’s work, to which they responded very enthusiastically. Satoshi Fukuda also has links to the Tokyo Wonder Site (and generously offered to arrange a meeting for us with the Program Director later in the week), as well as the Yokohama Eizone, a new arts festival linked to the city’s regeneration efforts.
Digital Art Factory,
Tokyo / DAF Tokyo
NHK ENTERPRISES, INC.
Daisan Kyodo Blgd.
6F4-14 Kamiyama-cho
Shibuya-ku
Tokyo 150-0047
Japan
We then set off for an afternoon in Yokohama, about 45 minutes by train from Tokyo.
Our first visit was with Masaki Fujihata, Artist and Dean of the Graduate School of Film and New Media at Tokyo National University of Fine Arts and Music. Masaki Fujihata is a well established and respected Japanese new media artist. He told us about a solo exhibition of his work that was currently being shown at the Center for Contemporary Graphic Art in Fukushima and his new exhibition ‘Off Sense’ that he was preparing for the Canon Gallery, Tokyo in Oct. He has also previously collaborated with Bio Media Artist & Professor Yuji Dogane on art, science and technology projects exploring robotics, biological systems & consciousness.
He also heads a brand new media department (it opened in April 2006) at the Yokohama campus, which is very well resourced and provides industry standard facilities for two MA programmes (Film and New Media).
Graduate School of Film & New Media
Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music
2-5-1 Shinko
Naka-ku
Yokohama 231-0001 Japan
We the
n walked a few blocks to Bank ART 1929, an interesting independent gallery that is housed in a beautiful historic neo-classical building that is an ex-bank. The gallery presents a programme of visual art exhibitions and live events, and has a café and bookshop. Bank ART also has another site nearby that houses artists studios. We met with Co-Director Toshio Mizohata, who talked to us about the gallery’s work and the growing cultural sector in Yokohama.
Bank ART 19296-50-1
Honcho Naka-ku
Yokohama-shi
Kanagawa-ken 231-8315
Japan
Next we headed to the Portside Gallery, where we saw the video installation Bild: Muell by Artist Kentaro Taki. We met Kentaro Taki at the gallery, as well as fellow Artist Masayuki Kawai and Co-ordinator Yoshiko Arioka who have just set up AKT, an organisation in Yokohama to help promote the artists’ work.
Kentaro Taki is also the Manager of VIDEOART CENTER TOKYO (VCTokyo), an independent association founded in 2001 and dedicated to videoart and other time based arts in Japan. VCTokyo aims to create an international alternative network for these art forms and raise their profile in Japan.
VIDEOART CENTER TOKYO
Sawanobori build. 9F3-12
Yotsuys
Shinjuku-ku
Tokyo 160-0004 Japan
And finally, we met artists Shiho Fukuhara, Reisiu Sakai and Yuji Dogane for dinner, where we discussed our work and they told us about theirs, including their new collaborative performance e (x) ternal you. It's a futuristic story where the genes of the deceased are preserved in trees, as a kind of ‘living monument’ (this idea is taken from Shiho Fukuhara’s ongoing project, Biopresence, where she and collaborator Georg Tremmel are transcoding human dna to trees). A galaxy of genes is what the researchers point out in their dreams. If humans are the bacteria of the earth, how do these bacterium dance in nature? The artists combine mythology, life science, song and dance to create a bio-science-comedy performance.
Shiho Fukuhara
Reisu Sakai
Yuji Dogane
wiki.livedoor.jp/dogane/d/FrontPage
e (x) ternal you
www.doblog.com/weblog/myblog/63388/2617795
Saturday 23
Saturday began with a brief visit to the famous Akihabara district, noted for its mega electronics markets & gadget shops!
We then went out to Tama Art University and met with Professor Akihiro Kubota, Artist & Research Associate Jiro Ishihara and Artist & Graduate Student Norimichi Hirakawa. Tama Art University is renowned for its New Media course (with esteemed artist Seiko Mikami also on the faculty) and we were lucky to visit at a time when the students had installed their works in the gallery & studios for examination. Our hosts had also arranged for several of the students to come and meet us to demonstrate their works, which was a real treat, as they produced some amazing interactive works.
Professor Kubota (who is an established sound artist himself), also told us about the department’s participation in the Mapping Sound Installation (a programme of sound works & events in the public spaces of YCAM), produced by the YCAM Inter-University consortium of IAMAS [Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences / International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences],Tama Art University, Tokyo National University of Fine Arts & Music, Yamaguchi University.
Unfortunately we couldn’t be in two places at the same time, so we missed the talk related to the new exhibition, Connecting Worlds, at ICC this afternoon. However, we met up with Curator Yukiko Shikata and the presenting artists exonemo, Wayne Clements and Taiga Tano later in
the evening.
This was organised for us by the sound artists Sine Wave Orchestra, who we had the pleasure of meeting up with earlier in the evening (along with exonemo) and sharing our work. We had a fantastic evening, with good food and great company!
Tama Art University
Department of Information Design
2-1723 Yarimizu Hachioji
Tokyo 192-0394 Japan
Professor Akihiro Kubota
Norimichi Hirakawa
Mapping sound installation msi.ycam.jp/en/index_en.html
Sine Wave Orchestra
exonemo
Taiga Tano
Wayne Clements
Sunday 24
Sunday afternoon we met with Yoshinori Niwa, a young performance artist who is organising an international performance art festival in Tokyo in October 2007; we met him in Harajuku and after we had talked about our projects, he took us into a park where local bands set up and play, which was great!
We then went to Shinjuku gyoen park to meet Christophe Charles, who was taking part in a symposium organised by the Institute of Environmental Art and Design. Afterwards, we adjourned to a local coffee shop where we were able to discuss our work with him and learn more about his work – he is a renowned experimental sound artist, musician and lecturer (he is Associate Professor at Musashino Art University, Tokyo and part time lecturer at Tama Art University).
Yoshinori Niwa
Christophe Charles
Musashino Art University
Institute of Environmental Art and Design
Monday 25
We made an early start today on our long (but very pleasant) bullet train journey to Yamaguchi, to visit the Yamaguchi Center for Arts & Media (YCAM). 
Open since 2003, YCAM is a new and well resourced cultural institution that pursues creative applications for media arts and information. Housed in a building with a public library, YCAM has studio & exhibition spaces, a large theatre and a cinema. We visited the current exhibitions Mapping Sound and Film Machine, a 3-d sound installation. Chief Curator and Artistic Director Kazunao Abe showed us around told us about some recent projects, including major commissions working with experimental sound by artists such as Ryoji Ikeda and Carsten Nicolai. exonemo and Ryota Kuwakubo have also recently exhibited here.
Yamaguchi Center for Arts & Media (YCAM)7-7
Nakazono-cho
Yamaguchi 753-0075
Japan
After leaving YCAM, we soaked our tired feet in one of Yamaguchi’s many public foot spas (the area is known for its mineral hot springs) 
before heading off to the Akiyoshidai International Artist Village. AIAV is a regional art centre in the hills above Yamaguchi, which runs an international residency programme for visual & performing arts. With striking contemporary Japanese architecture, the facilities include accommodation, café, studios, a small gallery & a theatre.
Akiyoshidai International Art Village
50 Akiyoshi nakayamada,
Shuho-cho, Mine-gun,
Yamaguchi Prefecture 754-0511
Japan
Tuesday 26
In the morning we met with Curator Machiko Harada, who gave us a tour of the facilities and told us about her work at AIAV. We also met artist Isamu Muto, who was about to present his mobile tea ceremony project. He is also a co-director of the Art Autonomy Network, a non-profit organisation set up in 2005 to support alternative art organisations and individuals presenting art activities not often represented in big institutions or commercial galleries, as well as to support cultural exchange.
Art Autonomy Network
We had hoped to travel on to Fukuoka to meet Mizuki Endo, Curator of Art Space Tetra, a small alternative space for arts & music. But unfortunately there wasn’t enough time, as we needed to get back to Tokyo for our meetings on Wed. So, we managed to get in a bit of sightseeing in Yamaguchi before heading back on the long journey to Tokyo.
Art Space Tetra
812-0028 / 2-15
Suzaki Hakata-ku
Fukuoka Japan
www.as-tetra.info
Wednesday 27
Today we met with Chief Curator Yuko Hasegawa at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo (MOT). Ms. Hasegawa is a well established & respected curator who has recently moved to MOT, after previously holding the post of Chief Curator at the 21st Century Museum, Kanazawa (where she curated the Matthew Barney exhibition ‘Drawing Restraint’); she is also Co-Curator of the 4th Seoul International Media Art Biennale, Oct 2006. We presented our work to her and then had a quick tour of the museum, which was unfortunately closed at the time during an exhibition changeover.
Museum of Contemporary Art, Tokyo
4-1-1 MiyoshiKoto-ku
Tokyo 135-0022
Japan
Next we met with Kayoko Iemura, Director/Arts Programme and Residency at Tokyo Wondersite. Tokyo Wondersite is a new organisation that operates over three sites in central Tokyo, including a gallery space, artist studios, cafe and accommodation. They run an international artist residency programme and also present a programme of talks and performances. Their main focus is emerging artists, working to create opportunities for Tokyo-based artists and raise their profiles internationally.
Tokyo Wondersite
COSMOS Aoyam SOUTH 3F
5-53-67
Jingumae
Shibuya-ku
Tokyo 150-0001
Japan
In the evening we finally caught up with Tetsuya Ozaki, Publisher and Editor in Chief of the cultural listings website REAL TOKYO and the bilingual quarterly art magazine ART iT, as he had been on deadline for the next issue of the magazine. We met at Super Deluxe, where exonemo were hosting a small gathering to celebrate the golden nica that they were recently awarded at Ars Electronica. Located in Roppongi, Super Deluxe is an extraordinary bar/club that presents all sorts of alternative culture, including live music, multimedia and film events. We met co-founder David Duval-Smith (who is also co-founder of the design company Namaiki Co. Ltd.) and Executive Producer Mike Kubek.
REAL TOKYO/ART iT
www.realtokyo.co.jp/english/art/f_art.htm
B1F 3.1.25
Nishi Azabu
Minato-ku
Tokyo
106-0031
Japan
Thursday 28
Bright and early Thursday morning we made our way back to Narita airport, to return to the UK.