: : Fumihiko Sumitomo

: : printable version 

There is a certain dimension in which Japanese media art is clearly distinctive from that of other countries. In this text I will explore the social conditions that are the basis for this situation, and present my views on the future of media art in Japan. Finally I will introduce two groups of artists who I feel are working against the limitations of the contemporary situation.

The genre called media art became prominent in Japan in the late 1980s. William Gibson’s Neuromancer, which is partly set in Chiba, a town in the suburbs of Tokyo, appeared in Japanese translation in 1986 and enthralled many Japanese readers. Post-modern theorists of both high art and popular culture began to speculate excitedly about personal computers, virtual reality and the arrival of a network society. This was the period of the “Bubble Economy”, when the power of the Japanese Yen dominated the world economy. Within the country, real estate investment was overheating and marketing was at its peak. The notion of Japan as a technology-based country, that had underpinned its post-war economic growth, was further enhanced through the 1990s with the concept of Japan as an advanced consumer society with a distinctive technology subculture. As a result, Canon, one of the major Japanese electronic equipment manufacturers, and NTT, a telephone communication company, started philanthropic activities in support of media art.

As a matter of course, the media art produced within the context of these companies’ financial support tended to stress only the positive side of technology and art, often merely reflecting and reinforcing the development of technology itself. In Europe, on the other hand, the development of media art was significantly different, characterized by movements that utilized media art as a means of challenging the dominant culture and its media, such as the free radio and tactical media movements. These were attempts to recuperate, for the use of the ordinary people, communication technologies developed for military and scientific projects led by the state and corporate capital. For example, video art is nothing exceptional today, but it could only become widely established when cameras and monitors became cheaply available for private use. Consequently, despite using the same medium, video images produced for artistic expression and for mass media consumption are of a completely different nature.

An important point that distinguishes media art from other fine art is that, because it deals with technology, media art inevitably involves a social dimension. Such a tendency was already seen in the advent of photography, which reflected the world as it was on the printing paper regardless of the photographer’s personal intention. Photography deprived the work of art of its aura, its autonomy and its link to artists’ individuality. Considering this, it is quite natural that today’s media art should have a social dimension in regards to the military, economic and political contexts of technological development.

Yet most media artists active in Japan are unconcerned with this. Although some critics are interested in activism, few artists are concerned with social issues; Dumb Type’s works from a certain period such as “S/N” are among the few that are well-recognized. However, as a result of many universities promoting media art education, young Japanese artists’ skills in using new technologies are probably unrivalled in the region.

Nevertheless, I believe that otakus reflect a specifically Japanese social structure that has been obsessed with producing “novelty” and has avoided a critical examination of “novelty” itself.

As pointed out by many commentators, post-war Japan was marked by unprecedented development in terms of such semiotic consumption. On the other hand, since Japanese media art has rarely reflected on the political and economic system in which it circulates, it has often simply been consumed as part of this culture. Today’s Japanese media art may still be in danger of repeating the mistakes of post-war Japanese art. Thus I think it is necessary for those involved in media art in the age of economic and informational globalization to look back critically at such history.

In the early 1950s, there was a group called Experimental Workshop which presented work using slide projectors provided by the company that would later be known as Sony. Artists and photographers showed slides of various objects with recordings on magnetic tapes that would synchronize with the switching of slides. The music, referred to as musique concrete, included noise recordings. In the 1960s, experimental works using music and images were frequently produced and shown in venues such as the Sogetsu Art Center. Such works by avant-garde artists were included in the Osaka Expo of 1970‚ a massive international event said to have been attended by half the Japanese population. Artists such as Katsuhiro Yamaguchi and Fumiko Nakaya were appointed as artistic directors of pavilions in which various companies invested huge sums for promotional purposes. The artists took this spectacular event as a chance to realize large-scale projects impossible to realize on their own. From the companies’ viewpoint, these artists were invited as producers of “novelty”.

Thus a situation emerged where companies provide the latest equipment and artists present new artistic expressions using this equipment. Under such conditions, it is hardly surprising that there is little art produced that questions established values, or explores art’s relation to death or mourning. A sense of optimism about the technological future predominates.

The avant-garde artist constantly strives for something new. This requires having the ability to compare oneself to others. Museums, commercial galleries and art journalism are important factors in contemporary art today. In order to confirm that one is at the forefront in this realm, one should not be satisfied by being labeled “new” but should be a creator of “novelty”. Such awareness is not simply a product of the work itself but arises from the system that enables recognition of differences between works. In this respect, avant-garde artists should not merely be absorbed in art but should be conscious of their position at the intersection between art and cultural institutions and industries.

Otakus are avid consumers of “novelty” as much as avant-garde artists. They accumulate an enormous amount of information related to computer games and animation. Rather than consuming this information as it is, they appropriate it by adding a different story or flavor according to their taste. This information is then exchanged among groups via the Internet or game and animation festivals. Such phenomena are the actualization of what Roland Barthes referred to as the transformation of readers into producers, in accordance with the shift from traditional works to “texts” that allow for free interpretation and quotation.

The condition in which there is no clear distinction between a work’s producer and recipient enables many amateurs to produce new information and artistic expression. This is one of the most significant trends happening today. The revolutionary power of new media is that not only those with political or economic power, but a much larger group of people have become influential in the production and delivery of information. Otakus are at the forefront of this phenomenon.

However, otakus lack social awareness; they hold a world-view that is extremely self-enclosed. In other words, they are well equipped with skills in utilizing information and media but end up only producing and exchanging trivial personal narratives. They enjoy the content supplied by industries such as game companies and TV networks, and for the most part are uninterested in ideas such as “copy left”. Since otakus are constantly faced with information in quantities almost impossible to consume, they are satisfied being immersed in it. As a consequence they remain unconcerned with their social environment.

This situation can also be considered in relation to globalization. Due to the development of transportation and communication technology, the flow of information and people has accelerated faster than ever before, while at the same time its control by the state and big business has been facilitated. In the art world, the 1990s was a period when such changes were reflected in international shows. Despite the general opinion that international art shows such as biennials or triennials were old fashioned, what actually happened was the reverse: international shows in cities such as Havana, Gwangju, Tirana, Vilnius and Dhaka proliferated throughout the world. As the gap between centre and periphery in geo-political terms seemed to diminish after the collapse of the post-war world order in 1989, countries at the periphery started to hold international shows in competition with each other in order to mark their own cultural presence. Until then, general trends in the contemporary art world were easily grasped just by looking around at the Venice Biennale, Documenta and the Basel Art Fair, and browsing through Flash Art magazine. Nowadays it has become filled with names we can hardly pronounce. Nevertheless, large publishers like Phaidon and Taschen have been quick to publish books that cleverly summarize such multicultural movements. Similarly, international shows try to keep up with the trend by appointing influential curators. In this way, “novelty” is constantly presented before our eyes and continues to be ensured.

Basically I do not think such developments are that bad. On the contrary, I believe that, despite a certain amount of control over information, it is good for the art world to be filled with unfamiliar artists’ names. What is important is for us to be conscious of is how the system works. In other words, whether it is art fairs, international shows or publications, we should be aware that they all try to consume art by producing “novelty”. The situation in which works and artists of totally different origins are brought together in the same group show and compared to each other has become possible only through transportation and communication technology. This is thought to bring about a completely different experience from viewing these works in isolation or in local contexts. The works distinguish themselves from each other, generate new contexts and become transformed into signs.

How are we to live in this highly consumerized society?

There is a young generation of artists who have been born out of Akihabara’s junk arcade yet produce works that are not so easily consumed.

Exonemo is a duo who started their activities on the web. In one of their famous early works called “Discoder” (2000), a web site slowly breaks down accompanied by sound as the viewer touches the keyboard at random, pressing keys into an HTML code usually invisible to us. Other examples of their work are those that remix images according to keywords searched on the web, or web sites in which strangers can play with each other by producing sound. They have produced what they call “Perpetual Machines” involving toy tanks controllable by mouse. Exonemo also work with sound performances using both analogue and digital technology.

Ryota Kuwakubo has produced various toy-like devices through his extraordinary talents with both software and hardware. In his work “PLX” (2000-2001), two people compete on opposite sides of a two-way game-player screen, but each screen provides misleading information unrelated to the other player’s actions. This work suggests the strangeness of communication, in which two people may suddenly realise they have been talking about completely different things, or two people talking about different things may suddenly feel they understand each other.

Both artists have a strong interest in the behaviour of people using technology. Thus they design interfaces that anyone can handle with ease. Though they both have a thorough understanding of technology, they do not stress technological innovation because their primary interest is in people’s gestures in handling technology rather than the “novelty” of technology itself. In fact, their work has more of an analogue feel than a digital one. They even produce, through their advanced technological skills, different, unintended uses of certain technologies in a kind of device hacking.

In a society where we are constantly expected to consume new things, we tend to be attracted by “novelty”. Yet such new things cannot be called art unless their use leads us to rediscover ourselves and our media. In this sense, the two artists introduced here both produce interesting work despite being otakus fascinated with gadgets in Akihabara.

Fumihiko Sumitomo is a writer and researcher, and curator at the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa, which opens in 2004. He is Deputy Director of Artists Initiative Tokyo (AIT) and contributes to various art magazines.