Organizer	:	Japan Media Arts Festival Executive Committee(Agency for Cultural Affairs, CG-ARTS Society)
Place	:	Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography, Yebisu Garden Place 1-13-3, Mita, Meguro-ku, Tokyo
Date	:	2006. 02. 24 (Fri) - 03. 05 (Sun) 10:00 - 18:00
Admission fee	:	Free, excepting some of simultaneous events
Number of visitors	:	68,119 (58. 6% increase vs. last year)

Festival hosted five exhibits including Award-winning Works of Japan Media Arts Festival on Exhibition, 2005 [the 11th] Computer Graphics Contest for Students, Device Art Exhibition by past award-winners and others, Leading Edge Technology Showcase which introduced technologies for presentation, and Media Art in the World which introduced overseas media art festivals.

Screened a range of visual works of art, entertainment and animation. About 120 works including award-winning works in each division of the Japan Media Arts Festival this year, fine works of the Animation Division in Computer Graphics Contest for Students, and visual works from overseas media art festivals in the 1st Floor Hall of Tokyo Metropolitan Museum of Photography.

A total 9 symposia were held including Award-winners Symposia attended by this year’s award-winners and jury members; Theme Symposia in which media arts were discussed from different perspectives; i. e. to consider current conditions of education of media arts in Japan or to question artistic aspects of techno gadgets.

In addition to Collaboration of Animation Films with Students from Asia and CG Carnival Special Program: Evolution of FLASH Animation at the festival venue, various events were held at Super Deluxe in Roppongi, Tokyo Metropolitan Art Space in Ikebukuro, and BankART Studio NYK in Yokohama.

Prior to the festival, an award presentation ceremony of the Japan Media Arts Festival was held on February 23 at the Westin Tokyo. To award-winners from each division, the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology, KOSAKA Kenji presented diplomas of merit and head juries of each division presented trophies. Also, the Special Achievement Prize which recognized a person who marked a great achievement in the area of media arts in Japan was awarded to MIYAWAKI Osamu, a founder of KAIYODO. At the celebration after the ceremony, there was a live performance by an Excellence Prize winner in Art Division, Six String Sonics, Thewhich added fun to the party.

notion mold The world of media arts is expanding with increasing speed every year. notion mold is a space design in which feelings stirring behind the creation such as wishes and expectations of artists existing in the background of works which had made an entry into the Festival were replaced with forms as a design metaphor. Symbolic figures reaching out from the entrance were created with see-through fabric. They proceeded organically farther into the exhibition hall folding upward and downward. The area's award-winning works were exhibited where the audience stepped in, as if he or she were guided by something, were lighted softly with category color zone by zone. A function was interwoven into the color which gave a vague hint of a contact point between an work which the audience was facing and the audience themselves. LEDs were added to captions of works exhibited the same as last year. In my space construction, those lights were the same number as the artists who created works and asserted themselves gently in the semi-darkness of the exhibition space. I hope that every visitor feels the unconventional ethos which is free from ready-made ideas that the entire media arts hold. I wish to present the dynamism of media arts which evolves and grows clearly even if they are still in chaos in a visible shape. I produced the entire space with such a thought as my design concept of this year. TANIGAWA Junji, JTQ Inc.