Comissioner for Cultural Affairs / KAWAI Hayao

This year marks the eighth year of the Japan Media Arts Festival initiated by the Agency for Cultural Affairs in 1997.

Japanese media arts is an important field invigorating the country's culture and art. Due to its prestigious reputation both at home and abroad, the Media Arts Festival has been attracting more applicants from a rich mixture of nationalities.

In order to promote media arts, the Agency for Cultural Affairs not only organizes this festival, but also enthusiastically supports such activities as production and on-screen showing of media art works, facilitates communications abroad, and fosters talented creators in this field.

As the year 2005 marks the 40th anniversary of the normalization of diplomatic relations between Japan and Korea, various exchange programs are being held between the two countries as part of "Japan-Korea Friendship Year 2005". At this year's festival we will also co-host an exhibition of outstanding Korean media art works with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism Republic of Korea, with the Korea Culture and Content Agency (KOCCA) administrating this event. We hope to take this opportunity to further promote exchanges in the media art fields between the two countries in the future.

Public recognition of the Japan Media Arts Festival has been growing yearly. Last year we received a record number of visitors, exceeding 30,000, which was a significant increase from the first festival with only about 2,000 visitors.

As always, we will be holding a variety of events this year. We happily anticipate welcoming more visitors than last year and providing them with the opportunity to experience outstanding works of media arts.

In closing, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to all those who have generously extended their support and cooperation to help make this year's Japan Media Arts Festival possible.

Chairman,Computer Graphic Arts Society / NAGATA Keiji

When meeting artists and creators, I feel although they are in different genres, their passions for works are the same. Also as for us the audience, the point is all depends on wishing to appreciate excellent works rather than which genre the work belongs to.

Generally, Media Arts means a genre of modern arts laden with digital technology. However, people abroad stubbornly hold the idea that arts and entertainment are different things, so, in many cases, even though in a new genre of arts such as media arts, works of entertainment have not been taken into its category.

While on the other hand, Japan Media Arts Festival defines Media Arts as not only general media arts but also works of entertainment including games, animations and Manga, and it invites entries from all these genres.

Many entertainment-like arts or art-like entertainments are born in Japan and spread to the world. Japan Media Arts Festival is a rare competition on a global basis since it positively appreciates such works beyond existing frameworks. Increasing overseas entries are thought to be encouraged by this reason. Today, in the era of expanding globalization, it is essential to have an original stance of assessment. Japan Media Arts Festival creates a new area crossover a barrier of arts and entertainment; and aims to establish a unique position of evaluation of media arts in the world.

In addition, the Computer Graphics Contest for Students organized by the Computer Graphic Arts Society marked its memorable 10th anniversary this year. We have placed stronger emphasis on discovering young talents, and we have seen a wide range of entries. The quality of award-winning works, too, is getting surprisingly higher. Please enjoy the works of young generation who forges the future of media arts in Japan.