Encounters with art and technology at CCBT! Learning together and discovering the inspiration of making things.
“Inspiration Dojo” is a series of original workshops developed by the CBBT team with creatives from various fields, offering opportunities to discover the fun and ways of making things through encounters with art and technology. Participants learned the basics of digital creativity, including electronic arts and crafts using fabrication tools in CCBT’s Tech Lab as well as programming, design, moving image, and sound. Featuring different themes each time, a total of ten workshops had been held between July 2023 and March 2024.
Highlights
- Making Things with Creatives
The “Inspiration Dojo” workshops feature curriculums designed and led by various creatives, including artists and engineers. The participants meet them at CCBT and then experiment and create together, experiencing the fun of making things through art, design, and technology. - Nurturing the Ability to Realize Ideas
The “Inspiration Dojo” curriculums focus on originality, with the instructors supporting the participants so that they can achieve their own ideas. Through the process of imagining their own creative expression and using their hands to realize it, the participants stimulate their creativity and nurture their abilities to put ideas into practice. - Expanding Inspirations at CCBT
The “Inspiration Dojo” workshops deal with themes related to other CCBT programs like Showcase and Art Incubation. CCBT offers participants ways to explore new forms of expression and experiences after acquiring the basics at the “Inspiration Dojo” workshops, providing a forum for encountering further creativity that lies beyond those initial sparks.
Workshop Themes
Introduction to Digital Fabrication
Laser cutter workshop: Making a plastic figure
In this workshop, participants learn the basis of algorithm design and how to use a laser cutter. They utilize a system for making original patterns by combining simple shapes, as used to design the CCBT logo, and make a self-standing plastic figure
Teachers: Ito Yuya(Technical director), Hirase Miki(Artist)
Introduction to Digital Fabrication
3D printer workshop: Making a mini conveyor belt!
In this workshop, participants learn about the features of 3D printers and how to use them. They assemble original parts made with digital fabrication tools and machines, and build a small working conveyor belt. They investigate what the conveyor belt they make can carry and how it can be used to express something creatively.
Teacher: Nakaji Hiroaki(Artist,Engineer)
Introduction to Electronic Arts and Crafts
Using motors to make something that moves!
In this workshop, participants learn the basics of electronic arts and crafts as well as how electronic parts, circuit boards, and motors work. By changing the speed, spinning method, and movement, participants explore electronic arts and crafts as a way to implement their ideas.
Teacher: Nakaji Hiroaki(Artist,Engineer)
Summer Engineering Intensive Training
Observing and making movement!
In this workshop, participants learn about the mechanical structures that create movement, and programming that can control motor speed and rotation patterns, and then try to express unique kinds of movement. They experience the process of utilizing the technology that is appropriate in terms of its strengths and weaknesses.
Teachers: Nakaji Hiroaki(Artist,Engineer), Miura Daiki(Engineer)
Introduction to Video Production
Combining things to change the impression a video makes!
In this workshop, participants learn how to use 4K digital video cameras and video editing software. By making an original work, participants discover not only foundational techniques but also video’s hidden methods and effects, and explore the creative possibilities of moving image.
Teacher: Otsuto Masashi
Introduction to Sound Design
Exploring the world of sound with microphones and speakers!
In this workshop, participants learn how to use microphones and speakers creatively as well as the principles and special characteristics of sound. They first experience what it means to really listen to sounds by searching for and collecting them through an original system. Next, they try to express something visually using sound. Developing an understanding about how sound is transmitted by engaging in various activities, they explore the reverberation of sound.
Teacher: Kimura Yusuke(Director, Performer)
Introduction to Programming
Using algorithms to make a picture!
In this workshop, participants learn programming through existing algorithms. Referring to patterns from everyday life like sunflower seeds and shells, they create various kinds of patterns and graphics.
Teacher: Miura Daiki(Engineer)
Introduction to Programming
Using algorithms to make a picture!
In this workshop, participants learn how to use generative AI creatively. They gain an understanding about the advantages and disadvantages of the technology, which is able to learn from vast amounts of data and information, and produce new data, and then use programming to create an animation on a computer.
Teacher: Kurahashi Masaya(Engineer, Artist)
Introduction to Biotechnology
Observing a microscopic world with microscopes and slime mold!
By using paper microscopes to conduct experiments and observations of slime mold, participants in this workshop learn the basics of biotechnology. Giving both food and obstructions to the slime mold, something that is neither flora nor fauna, participants observe how it grows and moves, and discover the unique functions of living creatures.
Introduction to Biotechnology
Making a growth medium and getting in touch with the world of microbes!
In this workshop, participants learn about the existence of microorganisms that exist all around us by making their own agar growth medium while hypothesizing about what kind of environment is best for microbes to grow in. They collect microbes from their own hands, the floor of CCBT, or other locations that take their fancy, and then place them on the medium to observe.
Teacher: Haneda Misa(artist)
