International Symposium “Toward a Relativization of Art & Technology” Directed by Fujihata Masaki

2024.12.01(Sun), 2025.01.19(Sun)

Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT]

Date & Time: Vol.1 “From Art & Technology to Cosmotechnics”
Date & Time: December 1 (Sun), 2024 15:30-19:00 (JST)
Vol.2 “The Geopolitics of Art & Technology: Perspectives toward Future Generations”
Date & Time: January 19 (Sun), 2025 14:00-17:30 (JST)
Venue: Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT]
Capacity: 100 (First-come, first-served basis)
Admission: Free
Registration: To Register [First-come, first-served basis]
Accessibility and Support: * English-Japanese simultaneous Interpretation Available

CCBT is organizing a two-part symposium with media art pioneer Fujihata Masaki. Bringing together curators, philosophers, and producers from abroad, the symposium will revisit the relationships between art and technology:their historical developments, regional differences, articulations, and media.
* Live-Streaming: Available on CCBT’s official YouTube Cannel.

Can We Relativize Art & Technology, East & West?

Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] is organizing a two-part symposium with media art pioneer Fujihata Masaki. Bringing together curators, philosophers, and producers from abroad, the symposium will revisit the relationships between art and technology:their historical developments, regional differences, articulations, and media.
The symposium will mark the final chapter of Concerning Art & Technology, a series of lectures by Fujihata that began in May 2024 where each session examined themes such as the relationship between human and devices, the history of painting and viewing spaces, concepts and articulations, and life and machines. Each lecture engaged participants into discussions of the cross-sections of art and technology, and the East and West.
Designed in two-parts, the symposium will illustrate concrete examples in the history of art and technology and incorporate philosophical perspectives to explore how art, technology, East, and West could converge going ahead.

○ “Toward a Relativization of Art & Technology” Directed by Fujihata Masaki

Free admission (Pre-Registration Required)
To Register [First-come, first-served basis]: Please register via the form.
* English-Japanese simultaneous Interpretation Available
* Live-Streaming: Available on CCBT’s official YouTube Cannel.

* This Meetup series is part of the Research Partner Program at CCBT, an initiative that collaborates with researchers from both Japan and abroad to advance research and foster openness that contribute to the nurturing of civic creativity.

Vol.1　From Art & Technology to Cosmotechnics

Date & Time: December 1 (Sun), 2024 15:30-19:00 (JST)
Speakers: Yuk Hui (philosopher), Johnson Chang (curator), Fujihata Masaki (new media artist)
Moderator: Harashima Daisuke (thinker)

So far for nations, it can be said that their modernization was achieved by Westernization. However, in recent years, it appears that non-Western societies are taking their own unique approaches to modernization. Here, we welcome practitioners who are at the forefront of creating new contexts in this shift. First, Yuk Hui is a thinker who has steadfastly addressed the question, “is there philosophy in Asia?” and, by focusing on the indigenous philosophies, he advocates for the diversification of technology from a conceptual standpoint. Thus, proposing what he calls “cosmotechnics.”
Meanwhile, Johnson Chang has been a leading curator and educator in shaping Chinese art through methods different from those that conform to international art platforms.
Therefore, it seems we are at a stage where we must ask ourselves, “is there art in Asia?” In the pursuit of technological diversity, or cosmotechnics, we may come to realize the crucial role of art.

15:30-16:00 Introduction
16:00-16:40
[Presentation 1] Yuk Hui “Art and Medium”
16:40-17:00 Commentary
17:20-18:00
[Presentation 2] Johnson Chang “Art and its Contexts: That Which Makes Art Possible”
18:00-18:20 Commentary
18:20-19:00 [Discussion/Q&A]

Vol.2　The Geopolitics of Art & Technology: Perspectives toward Future Generations

Date & Time: January 19 (Sun), 2025 14:00-17:30 (JST)
Speakers: Ryszard W. Kluszczyński (curator), Shiba Masako (Co-Founder and Executive Director at BEAF), Fujihata Masaki (new media artist)

We can say that technological advancements centered on photography ultimately led to the emergence of contemporary art. Despite this, however, the field has increasingly distanced itself from directly referencing the technological components and has, instead, placed greater emphasis on their conceptual developments. Today, we live in an age of transformation driven by digital technology which creates an even greater impact than the invention of photography. Given this context, media art, whose core consists of digital technology, appears to be one the most crucial fields for expanding the landscape of art. Nevertheless, the criteria for evaluating works remain in flux due to geopolitical time lags and differences in the historicization of technology.
How can media articulations and digital technologies reconfigure the geopolitics surrounding “Art”? In this session, we will examine the historical evolution of the relationships between art and media technology across different regions, drawing from the practitioners’ experiences in Europe, Japan, and the U.S., and explore the possibilities of their curation in this particular landscape.

14:00-14:30 Introduction
14:30-15:10
[Presentation 1] Ryszard W. Kluszczynski “What Constitutes “Technology” in the Arts? Thinking through Curation”
15:10-15:30 Commentary
15:50-16:30
[Presentation 2] Shiba Masako “Supporting the Arts and Practices of the Next Generation: Initiatives of BEAF”
16:30-16:50 Commentary
16:50-17:30 [Discussion/Q&A]

Prelude to SymposiumーMeetup Series: Concerning Art and Technology

Media art pioneer Fujihata Masaki and CCBT co-organized Concerning Art and Technology since May 2024, a Meetup consisting of a series of lectures by the artist. Its goal was to create a learning space to explore how art and technology can contribute to future societies by bringing together all those seeking new perspectives in the creative field including artists, researchers, and the general public. Over 100 attended each lecture, joining Fujihata to delve into discussions on the intersections of science, art, philosophy, and technology.

Lecture 1: Living as Human Being [Guidance]
Lecture 2: Tools and Devices [About Humans]
Lecture 3: Extremely Shortest Art History [About History of Paintings]
Lecture 4: Viewing and Engaging [About Seeing Artworks]
Lecture 5: Conception and Medium [About Conception]
Lecture 6: Life and Machines [About Knowing]
Lecture 7: Revision! Concerning Art and Technology
Lecture 8: Artwork and Expression [About Value]

Muramatsu Masahiro

Fujihata Masaki

New media artist

A pioneer of media art in Japan. In the 1980s, he created computer graphic works such as “Mandala 1983”, then transitioned to creating sculpture works like “Geometric Love”. In the 1990s, he started producing interactive art works like “Beyond Pages”. During the same period in 1996, his network-themed work “Global Interior project” won the Golden Nica award at Ars Electronica. Since 2000, he has been presenting installation works dealing with images and virtual space issues, such as “Morel’s Panorama”, “Mirror of Indiscrimination”, “Ruska’s Room”, and “Eternity of Visions”. At the same time, he began working on more public-oriented projects. In 2001, he started a fieldwork series using GPS, which developed from “Field-work@Hayama” to “Field-work@Alsace”, and then “Voices of Aliveness” in 2012. In 2018, and again in 2022, he realized a large-scale AR public art project based on history, “BeHere / 1942”, in Hong Kong and Los Angeles respectively. In recent years, he has been developing projects that deal with NFTs, such as “Brave New Commons” and “My First Digital Data”.

http://www.fujihata.jp/

Yuk Hui

philosopher

Yuk Hui is Professor of Philosophy at Erasmus University Rotterdam, where he holds the Chair of Human Conditions. He is the author of several monographs that have been translated into a dozen languages, including On the Existence of Digital Objects (2016), The Question Concerning Technology in China: An Essay in Cosmotechnics (2016), Recursivity and Contingency (2019), Art and Cosmotechnics (2021), Post-Europe (2024) and Machine and Sovereignty (2024). He is the convenor of the Research Network for Philosophy and Technology and a juror for the Berggruen Prize for Philosophy and Culture.

https://digitalmilieu.net/

Johnson Chang

curator

Johnson Chang (Chang Tsong-Zung) has had a central role in putting Chinese contemporary art on the map and is perhaps best known as the founder, owner and director of Hanart TZ Gallery, which became the first in the city to deal in contemporary Chinese art when it opened in 1983. He started putting on exhibitions in the late 1970s, and went on to organize iconic shows including The Stars: 10 Years (1989) and China’s New Art, Post 1989 (1993-97), and helped launch the careers of artists including Zhang Xiaogang, Zeng Fanzhi, Wang Guangyi and Fang Lijun. He is the co-founder of the Asia Art Archive, and a guest professor at the China Academy of Art in Hangzhou.

https://www.hanart.com/?lang=en

Harashima Daisuke

thinker

Daisuke Harashima is a Research Associate of the Future Robotics Organization at Waseda University, Tokyo. He writes and teaches on humanities and technics in contemporary information societies from the perspective of fundamental informatics and neocybernetics, with a focus on the difference between living beings and machines, reflecting on the modern technological conditions and to realize new values based on the respect for life. His books include Cybernetics for the 21st Century Vol. 1 (co-authored, 2023), Future Society and Meaning (co-authored, in Japanese, 2023), Adventurers in Media Theory (co-authored, in Japanese, 2023), Autonomy in the Age of AI (co-authored, in Japanese, 2021), Frontiers in Fundamental Informatics (co-authored, in Japanese, 2019), and he has published in the journals Bijutsu Techo, Shiso, Gendai Shiso, Eureka. He is the translator of Yuk Hui’s Recursivity and Contingency (2022) and co-translator of Tim Ingold’s Being Alive (2021) in Japanese.

Ryszard W. Kluszczyński

curator

Professor of media, cultural, and art studies, Department of New Media and Digital Culture, University of Lodz, Director of its Transdisciplinary Center for Art and Science Research, and Professor at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lodz, Poland. Kluszczyński investigates the issues of new media arts and cyberculture and interactions between art, science, technology and politics. He serves as Artistic Director of Art & Science Meeting Program in the Centre for Contemporary Art (Gdansk, 2011-), and was Co-curator of United States of Europe (2011 – 2013), Curator of the Second International Biennale of Contemporary Art “Mediations” (Poznan, 2010), and Chief Curator of Film, Video and Multimedia Arts in the Centre for Contemporary Art – Ujazdowski Castle (Warsaw, 1990 – 2001).

Dave Krugman

Shiba Masako

Co-founder and Executive Director, BEAF

Based in New York, Masako Shiba has extensive experience in managing cultural organizations with a focus on contemporary Asian art. She served as the inaugural Director of the Asian Cultural Council Japan Foundation before co-founding the Brooklyn Experimental Art Foundation (BEAF) in 2024, fostering cultural exchange and research between the U.S. and Japan. As a co-founder of the blockchain art company ONBD and Chief Artistic Director of the space startup Spacetainment, she spearheaded the first-ever art exhibition on the exterior of the International Space Station (ISS), later curating its terrestrial debut as part of the 2023 Osaka Kansai International Art Festival. A recognized expert in digital art, she has spoken at leading conferences such as WebX and NFT NYC and contributed to the catalog for Takashi Murakami’s solo exhibition at the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco.

https://www.beaf.art/home

Production: Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT]
Organizer: Tokyo Metropolitan Government, Civic Creative Base Tokyo [CCBT] (Arts Council Tokyo, Tokyo Metropolitan Foundation for History and Culture)

registration form

flyer【PDF】