1st Summit Meeting on Film and New Media Studies

Time and Date:: 14:00 - 18:00, Sat. March 27th
Venue:: Lecture Room 1(Dai-ichi kogishitsu), Main Building, Faculty of Fine Arts, Ueno Campus, Tokyo University of the Arts　［ACCESS］; Admission Free (No reservations required)
Panelists: Masaki Fujihata, Michitaka Hirose, Otomo Yoshihide, Jeffrey Shaw, Nobuhiro Suwa, Wang Jun-Jieh (Simultaneous interpreting is available in Japanese and English.)
Organizer:: Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts

Part 1: The human being as a nodal point

Masaki Fujihata, Michitaka Hirose, Jeffrey Shaw, Wang Jun-Jieh

Technology has reached a certain degree of maturity. This is not a time to talk about technology. Since the 1980s, computer graphics have been introducing amazing new aspects to the realm of visual art, and the emergence of virtual reality caused a major shock to the way we perceive the real world.
Now that the taste of newness of such technologies is gradually fading away, we invited two pioneers and central figures who were right there when it all began, to illustrate what exactly they were after in the first place, and discuss whether they have managed to obtain it, or are striving for new, higher goals.

Part 2: The school as a factory

Masaki Fujihata, Otomo Yoshihide, Nobuhiro Suwa

The era of interdisciplinary collaboration and cross-over has come to an end. Against the backdrop of increasing meaninglessness of distinguishing between creative disciplines, three artists representing the fields of film, music and media art will get together to review the cultural situation since 2000 from their respective areas, and exchange ideas how to overcome the present cultural obstruction.
Rather than imparting knowledge, their aim has to be to create. The focus of education has already shifted from classifying to discovering, whereas the question is now how schools can provide the appropriate settings. The meaning of art universities has instantly gained importance, and this event aims to conceive and formulate a suggestion.

Panelists

Masaki Fujihata

Media artist. Professor at the Department of Inter Media Art, Tokyo University of The Arts. Fujihata started out in the early 1980s working in the fields of computer graphics and animation, and continues to produce interactive works and projects born from his unique philosophy and playful ideas since the 1990s. His solo exhibition “The Conquest of Imperfection” was first held at the Center for Contemporary Graphic Art (CCGA, Fukushima) in 2006, and then again in 2008 at Cornerhouse (UK). Through his works, Fujihata makes us ponder what “reality” is and how it comes into existence, and how we should approach the new world that will be enabled by the media of the future. Publications include “The Conquest of Imperfection” (NTT Publishing) among others
Masaki Fujihata’s home page

Otomo Yoshihide

Guitarist, turntablist, composer, producer. Next to leading several bands including ONJO and FEN, he continues to work independently in a broad range of fields and on an international scale. Otomo has provided soundtracks for more than 60 movies, and in recent years has showcased his work under the title ”Ensembles” in a number of music themed exhibitions. "Ensembles09", a compound concert/exhibition project realized in collaboration with various artists, was staged in a guerilla style in 2009. Unveiled in the same year and shown at film festivals in Japan and abroad was Chikara Iwai’s filmic portrait “Kikoe”. Otomo published his first essay on music, "Musics" (Iwanami Shoten) in 2008. Improvised Music from Japan

Jeffrey Shaw

Jeffrey Shaw has been a leading figure in new media art since its emergence from the performance, expanded cinema and installation paradigms of the 1960s. He has pioneered and set benchmarks for the creative use of digital media technologies in the fields of virtual and augmented reality, immersive visualization environments, navigable cinematic systems and interactive narrative. Shaw was founding director of the ZKM Institute for Visual Media Karlsruhe(1991-2002), and appointed Professor of Media Art at the HfG Karlsruhe in 1995. In 2003 he returned to Australia to set up and direct the UNSW iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research. Since 2009 Shaw has been Chair Professor of Media Art and Dean of the School of Creative Media at City University in Hong Kong. Jeffrey Shaw's homepage

Nobuhiro Suwa

Filmmaker. Debuted as a director with the movie “2/Duo” in 1997. Suwa has received praise for his unique method of working with improvisation rather than fixed scenarios. His second movie, “M/Other” was awarded the FIPRESCI Prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1999. Most of his later movies, including ”Un Couple Parfait” (which won a C.I.C.A.E. Award and a Special Jury Prize at the 58th Locarno Film Festival), the “Place des Victoires” segment in the movie “Paris, je t’aime” (which opened the ‘Un Certain Regard’ selection at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival), and the recent “Yuki & Nina”, are set in France. Suwa has been a professor at Tokyo Zokei University since 2002, and in 2008 he assumed the post of the university’s President.

Michitaka Hirose

Michitaka Hirose is a professor at the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, the University of Tokyo. His research interests include human interfaces, interactive computer graphics, wearable computers and virtual reality. He was a project leader of the Multimedia Virtual Laboratory project, and the Scalable VR Contents project sponsored by the Ministry of General Affairs. Currently, he is a project leader of the Digital Public Art project, and head of the Cyber Interface group of the Ministry of Education sponsored IRT project. Prof. Hirose received his BE, ME and Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 1977, 1979 and 1982 respectively. He is a member of the ACM, IEEE and vice president of VRSJ (Virtual Reality Society of Japan).

Jun-Jieh Wang

Artist, independent curator. Graduated from the HdK Art Academy in Berlin. A pioneer of video art in Taiwan, Wang is one of the country’s few noted media artists. He received the Hsiung-Shih New Artists Award in 1984, the Berlin Television Tower Award in 1996, and the Taishin Arts Award in 2009. Wang participated in various major international exhibitions, including the Gwangju Biennale, the Venice Biennale, the Asian Art Triennale, and the Taipei Biennial, and curated such international art shows as the “B!AS International Sound Art Exhibition” in 2005, the “Dirty Yoga” themed Taipei Biennial in 2006, and “Grand Illusion” in 2009. Wang is currently an assistant professor at the Department of New Media Art at Taipei National University of the Arts, and Director of Center for Art and Technology.

Inquiry: Graduate School of Film and New Media, Tokyo University of the Arts ）TEL: +81-(0)50-5525-2672／FAX: +81-(0)45-6560-6202
E-mail: loop [at] gsfnm.jp

［↑UP］