Digital Art Exhibit “ETERNAL”, Inspired by Japanese Culture and the Concept of Time, Was Exhibited at Haneda Airport

The Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan is holding a new initiative called the “Japanese cultural media arts dissemination initiative in airports and other institutions” for inbound tourists.

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Overview of Exhibition at Haneda Airport
Date & Time: 11:00-20:00, Saturday, February 1 to Friday, February 7, the second year of Reiwa (2020) (Last entry is at 19:30)
Location: Haneda Airport (Ota-ku, Tokyo) International Terminal 4F TIAT Sky Hall
Content: A one-week concept exhibition to experience a world captured in digital art representing the everlasting story of “the space and time of 1000 seconds of silence”
Official website: https://jmadm.jp/en/

Haneda Airport exhibited “Japan Media Arts Distributed Museum ETERNAL”* in its International Terminal’s 4F TIAT Sky Hall. This installation connected inspiration from important Japanese cultural properties to not only traditional methods of creation and modernity but also the most essential factor in culture formation, the concept of time, in the form of a one-week concept exhibition to experience a world captured in digital art representing the everlasting story of “the space and time of 1000 seconds of silence” – the soul’s gazing toward hope.

The concept of time, which flows through the airport as people and culture come and go without pause, could be called inspiration itself – inspiration to feel one’s inner vision. This exhibit invited visitors into the world of “space-time called one thousand seconds of purity and tranquility” through four digital art pieces.

*For reference: Harmony (getting along with others), respect (honoring others), purity (cleansing one’s spirit), and tranquility (never being agitated) are the four basic elements of the Japanese tea ceremony.

The Agency for Cultural Affairs is hosting the “Japan Media Arts Distributed Museum” that will be deployed in 10 Japanese airports sequentially as part of a new project called the “Japanese cultural media arts dissemination initiative in airports and other institutions.”

The artists and creators featured in this exhibition capture the cultural resources borne out of various local cultures through fresh perspectives in places like airports, which serve as gateways to these regions. By showcasing the works of media arts, we invite visitors to explore the true spirit of these cultures throughout their travels.

Haneda Airport Exhibition Summary

Artwork 1: “intangible film”
Theme: Sanctuary
Motif: Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine / One Thousand Torii (Kyoto)

Description
One Thousand Torii (Senbon Torii) is located on the grounds of Fushimi Inari-taisha Shrine (Kyoto), an important Japanese cultural property. There are countless torii gates arranged in a row, and it is an artificial structure and space with the function of a passage. The torii gate serves as a sign and gate for entering the sanctuary. Why do people enter the gates? This is an installation focusing on the gates that form the Senbon Torii, which the viewer wears headphones to experience. Inside the intangible film that defines the inside and outside of the gate, structures formed by countless laser beams are floating. The viewer can visually and aurally grasp the behavior of the structure from both inside and outside the structure. An intangible structure, such as a spirit floating in space, calmly confronts the viewer and envelops them.

Artists:
FUJIMOTO Shohei
Based in Tokyo. After graduating from the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences (IAMAS), he transferred to Tama Art University’s Information Design Department and uses technology to create installations. He explores the relationship between living things and inanimate objects through these structures and behaviors and has exhibited both domestically and internationally.

KUNIMOTO Ray
Born in New York and based in Brooklyn. Graduated from Keio University with a Bachelor of Arts in Aesthetics and Science of Arts. He composes music and sound programming for installation works exhibited in museums around the world, and creates artwork using an original speaker system he developed as well as new musical experiences that also involve acoustic design in spaces.

Artwork 2: “Fragments (Airport Version)”
Theme: Japanese medieval literature, essays
Motif: Hojoki, Kawai-Jinja Shrine (Kyoto)*

Description
“The flowing river never stops, and yet the water never stays the same. Foam floats upon the pools, scattering, re-forming, never lingering long. So it is with man and all his dwelling places here on earth.”

Calligrapher KINOSHITA Mariko took this passage of Kamo no Chomei’s Hojoki and turned it into a work of modern art, filmmaker YAMAMOTO Synichi gave it a time axis, and musician Corey Fuller added sounds reconstructed from the words of Hojoki. Kawai-Jinja Shrine, a place of strong affinity to Kamo no Chomei, also served as inspiration for this piece. From KINOSHITA Mariko’s calligraphic concepts of sky and causation to Corey Fuller’s rich, ambient, interwoven stillness to YAMAMOTO Synichi’s meta-perspective on gazing out over a landscape, this collaboration highlights each artist’s worldview intersecting upon Hojoki. The theme is universality amidst an ever-changing view.

*For reference: Kawai-Jinja Shrine is an auxiliary shrine of Shimogamo-Jinjya Shrine (Kyoto), a world heritage site.

Artists:
YAMAMOTO Synichi
Media artist, filmmaker, and executive creative director of Omnibus Japan. Involved in numerous motion graphics using digital equipment, film credits, installations, and more, he produces many corporate motion logos and branding visuals but also, as an artist, releases spatial projections unbound from existing video platforms on the themes of scientific data and philosophy visualization, time, and space. He designs time axes as the extension of constructivist design but also uses video production methods to manipulate incidental desktop results, crossing over into video art, experimental video, media art, club music, electronica, ambient, TV programs, commercials, science visualization, immersive, and generative media. His full-dome artwork “Noesis”, which premiered at MUTEK.JP at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, has also been shown in Canada, Mexico, Belgium, Saudi Arabia and elsewhere.

KINOSHITA Mariko
Calligrapher and part-time lecturer at the University of Hyogo’s School of Human Science and Environment. Carrying on this ancient East Asian traditional culture, her specialization is Chinese characters (divided into seal, clerical, cursive, semi-cursive, and printed scripts) but she also works with a harmonized style of Chinese and Japanese characters utilizing her feminine sensitivity. Her title lettering includes the 64th Shosoin exhibition (2012), the movie “Ask Rikyu” (2013), and NHK’s “Nippon Premium” (2015). She also did live drawing in front of an audience of 50,000 at a Major League season opener and, more recently, calligraphy installations. She coordinates various traditional Japanese culture projects and writes essays. In the first half of 2020 she will do another live drawing at the 1,300th anniversary of the Nihon Shoki chronicles and the lettering for a sake project by a famous Western liquor manufacturer (to be mainly exhibited overseas).

Corey Fuller
Born in the US, raised in Japan. Currently based in Tokyo. Musician, sound designer, engineer, filmmaker, and photographer. Since releasing his first solo album, “Seas Between” (“Dragon’s Eye” in the US), in 2009, he has released albums under his name, ILLUHA, and OHIO through longstanding New York label 12k. Touring Europe, North America, Japan, and other parts of the world, he has collaborated and released works with artists such as SAKAMOTO Ryuichi, Taylor Deupree, and Stephan Mathieu.

In February 2019 he released a new solo album, “Break”, through 12k. Fuller, also the descendant of Buckminster Fuller, has collaborated across an equally wide range of disciplines and created public artwork and ambient pieces (spatial music) in addition to his albums. He continues to expand his uncategorizable scope of activity with themes such as “nature and technology” and “silence in the city”.

Artwork 3: “Stillness”
Theme: Zen, zazen, meditative art tearoom
Motif: Kenjinji’s sub-temple Ryosokuin (Kyoto)

Description
This Zen-themed piece, made possible through the cooperation of ITO Toryo, assistant chief priest at Kenjinji’s sub-temple Ryosokuin in Kyoto, depicts one part of the Zen worldview through three-dimensional photogrammetric data, minimalistic pointillism, and an undulating soundscape. The generated imagery is an interaction of environment and video, reflecting the exhibition space’s environmental information in real-time so that, like the leaves in the shrine garden rustling in the wind, there is synchronicity between the virtual landscape and viewer’s environs. Furthermore, the soundscape making up the space undulates left and right, high and low in frequency, with overtones and gaps that produce new sounds to be noticed. Unable to be heard, or only able to be discovered in the silence, this immersive digital expression of ITO Toryo’s Zen nevertheless permeates the viewer.

Artists:
THINK AND SENSE
In an every-diversifying society, this technological creative firm uses technology as a basis for multifaceted approaches to the construction of frameworks and development of solutions, and does not shy away from social implementation.

OHNO Tetsuji / Intercity-Express
Intercity-Express is an audiovisual project by Tokyo-based artist OHNO Tetsuji. OHNO started working as a DJ in the mid-90's and produced his own works by the turn of the millennium. Besides his audiovisual performances such as “Triggering” (2014), he works as a music composer and producer for commercials. Throughout his journey as a musician he incorporated many different styles and genres, ranging from house to techno to noise and electronica, synchronized with generative design and color pattern visuals. Intercity-Express's very own sound is a synesthesia of all these different influences. Recent performances and exhibitions include MUTEK Montréal, MUTEK Mexico, MUTEK Barcelona, MUTEK.JP, Scopitone Festival in France, Sunscape Festival in Malta, FILE in Brazil, LPM in Italy and the Netherlands, an HPL media street event in Russia, and Shinjuku Creator's Fest in Tokyo.

Artwork 4: “Moment in Composition”
Theme: Tradition, family crest, circle, beauty of nature
Motif: Nihonbashi (Chuo-ku, Tokyo), balanced beauty of circular giraffe crest, natural shapes

Description
This video artwork is a digital application by media artist SEGA Seiichi of the Edo period crest-making technique of overlapping perfect circles by artists HATOBA Shoryu and HATOBA Yohji, inspired by a work* of art depicting a winged giraffe (a divine beast) statue, a symbol of luck and prosperity for Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district, and linked with the ambient sounds of sound artist Kyoka at the exact moment the beauty emerges. Kyoka’s sounds expand farther and farther outward like ripples from diverse angles on the surface of a compass, the stereo image of three-dimensional circles and ripples flowing through the space. It puts on display Kyoka’s years of research into the phase-based approach to creating 3D stereo images. This artwork conveys the beauty and harmony in the simple yet powerful combination of circles large and small as well as, when overlaid with waves and terrain symbolizing randomness, the mathematics hidden in natural patterns.

*For reference: The giraffe crest depicting Nihonbashi’s giraffe statue, an important cultural property, was created at the “NIHONBASHI MEGURU FES” held in Nihonbashi, considered an origin point of culture. The winged giraffe signifies Japan’s road network beginning in Nihonbashi and “flying” all over the country.

Artists:
SEGA Seiichi (Visual)
Creative technologist and media artist at Omnibus Japan. He has created numerous video works of art that develop and implement high-end CG incorporating generative and physics simulations as a non-photorealistic, abstract approach to expression. In the past few years he has produced TV credits and corporate branding in addition to releasing artwork domestically as an artist and doing live performances. With technique that merges concepts and algorithms, he produces video using a variety of devices such as stereoscopic, spherical, and cubic displays. In 2017, he released a public artwork at Shinjuku Creator’s Festa entitled “immense veins” in which a globe continuously transformed conceptually. He also displayed a spatial installation, “Extra Dimensions”, on the theme of events or phenomena existing at the same point on the time axis. At MUTEK.JP 2018, he participated in the full-dome stereoscopic artwork “Noesis” which visualized abstract or scientific concepts.

Kyoka (Audio)
First solo female artist under raster-noton, one of the world’s top experimental and electronic music labels. She is currently with Raster-Media, a multimedia organization based in Chemnitz and Berlin. Active in Berlin and Tokyo, she charms the world with her unique musical expression, using frequencies to convey unexpected, multidimensional sensations spanning art, science, physics, and all other genres to people of all generations. Since 2007, she has been based in Los Angeles doing improvised live acts and composing. From 2008 to 2010, she released one EP in her “ufunfunfufu” series under German label Onpa))))) each year. From 2012, she released “iSH”, “IS (Issuperpowered)”, and “SH”, each two years apart. Her live performances have garnered high praise in Japan and overseas, and in 2016, her performance at Berghain, called the greatest club in the world, thrilled listeners and was considered a best act. From 2017 to 2018, she was invited by a Spanish provincial government and the EU to reside at an art technology center and devoted herself to the creation of installations. She has also worked on commercials for Apple (global), ABC-Mart, ORBIS, and others.

HATOBA Shoryu (Family Crest)
Third-generation Kyogen family crest artist. Born in 1956. While working as a hand-painter of crests on kimono, he became increasingly interested in passing on family crest-making techniques in a new form of expression, and began producing crest artwork at age 50. His first foray into the digital world was “MON-MANDALA”, expanding his scope from design to art. Now one of the few artisan designers to combine the Edo period crest technique of drawing only perfect circles and straight lines with digital work, his activities are diverse. He appeared and worked in NHK Educational TV show Design-AH “Mon”.

HATOBA Yohji (Family Crest)
Crest artist born in 1983. Grew up surrounded by crest-making due to his father Shoryu’s work. In 2010, the establishment of a new workshop awakened him to the potential of design, and he began learning Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop on his own. Being raised in constant proximity to family crests, a trove of design, and studying calligraphy from age 8, cultivating a sense of balance, serve as the foundations of his current design work. Training in crest-making under his father, he now conveys its appeal to Japan and the world.

Creative production: MUTEK.JP
MUTEK, which began in Montreal, Canada, in 2000 is an internationally-renowned arts and culture organization that develops digital creativity, electronic music, and audiovisual art, supports the discovery and training of talented individuals, and seeks to spread arts and culture. Based on the concept of always supporting the creation of new ideas and content, MUTEK has built a creative platform that provides a place for free, experimental expression to go out to the world. So far, it has grown to hold major international festivals in seven countries: Montreal, Mexico City, Barcelona, Buenos Aires, San Francisco, Dubai, and Tokyo. MUTEK.JP launched MUTEK Japan Association in 2016 as the first country in Asia, aiming to promote the development of digital creativity and create a place for participants and artists to interact and create together, not only in Japan but around the world. Furthermore, by supporting the discovery and training of talented individuals, linking with arts and culture institutions, and tapping into MUTEK’s global network, it shares the arts from Tokyo with the rest of the world.

Haneda Airport Exhibition Details
Date & Time: 11:00-20:00, Saturday, February 1 to Friday, February 7, the second year of Reiwa (2020) (Last entry is at 19:30)
Location: Haneda Airport (Ota-ku, Tokyo), International Terminal 4F TIAT Sky Hall
Admission: Free
Artists: FUJIMOTO Shohei, KUNIMOTO Ray, YAMAMOTO Synichi, KINOSHITA Mariko, Corey Fuller, THINK AND SENSE, OHNO Tetsuji / Intercity-Express, SEGA Seiichi, Kyoka, HATOBA Shoryu, HATOBA Yohji
Creative Production: MUTEK.JP
Supporter: Tokyo International Air Terminal Corporation
Organizer: Agency for Cultural Affairs, Government of Japan “Japanese cultural media arts dissemination initiative in airports and other institutions in the first year of Reiwa”

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Contact information

Inquiries from the press regarding this document
Japan Media Arts Distributed Museum Office PR Team
Person in charge: Yukinori Aoki
Mail: yukinori.aoki@dentsu-pr.co.jp