The Japan Media Arts Festival seems to be expanding internationally

- HAMANO Yasuki (Professor, The University of Tokyo Graduate School)

The Art Division has seen many international entry works win prizes and, in recent years, more and more foreign works have survived until the final review.

The Japan Media Arts Festival started as a domestic exhibition, but there was serious discussion as to whether it should open its doors to overseas countries. The consensus among all the jury members was that it should do so. The decision was made because this opportunity to introduce outstanding works from overseas also concurs with the aim of the Japan Media Arts Festival, which is to promote Japanese media arts. It has been nearly 10 years since that decision was made, and there has recently been an increase in both the number of entries from other countries and the number of countries that make entries.

There is a reason why we do not announce that this festival is an international exhibition even after opening the door to overseas countries. It is because it was one of our aims to convey a new perspective that proclaims a group of works to be "media arts" from Japan, even though other countries have not recognized such works as art. In order to be an international exhibition, we need to open the door not only to works but also to jury members. However, for the reason stated above, the Japan Media Arts Festival jury is still made up of Japanese specialists. But if there are foreign experts who agree with the purpose of the Japan Media Arts Festival, they will also be acceptable as juries.

There is a strong tendency for commercial products that have had huge amounts of money poured into their production to avoid competition with works that have been a big hit. There is therefore a big difference in the number of works released in a year when there are a lot of hit products and a year in which there was none. This year, we found this tendency in animations and games, and it was especially noticeable in the screening results of the Animation Division.