In the 2008 [12th] Japan Media Arts Festival, many works featuring sound won prizes including Grand Prize winners TENORI-ON and PIANO NO MORI in the Entertainment Division and the Manga Division respectively. Among past award winners, there are many works that use sound as a theme. On the occasion of holding the Japan Media Arts Festival in Vienna, we therefore planned to introduce various media arts focusing on uniquely Japanese sensibilities and presentations of sound. We tried to highlight Japanese culture including feelings and sensitivities toward sound or sensibilities of onyu, where sounds are transformed into words unique to Japanese people, whose lives are attuned to the changing seasons in a rich natural environment. In doing this, our aim for the exhibition was to offer a variety of presentations that would allow the audience to experience how entertaining sounds can be, using all five senses, not only through listening but also through making, watching and reading them. The exhibition was divided into three zones -- “Make Sound,” “Read Sound,” and “Watch Sound” -- with displays of award-winning works from 12 years of the Japan Media Arts Festival

On September 11, 2009, the day before the Japan Media Arts festival in Vienna was opened to the public, the opening reception was held in the Baroque Suite located in the upper floor of the venue. Apart from the artists who came over for this exhibition, people involved in the art festival including Mr. Gerfried STOCKER, the director of Ars Electronica, people from art universities in Vienna, and local media representatives attended the reception, and the hall was filled with people. In the Baroque Suite reception hall, speeches were given by Mr. TANAKA Akio, the Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the Embassy of Japan in Austria, which supported the festival, and Dr. Claudia Rochel-LAURICH, the head of the department for the realization of cultural and scientific events abroad of the Federal Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Austria. Also,

Mr. TAMAI Hideo, the Commissioner for Cultural Affairs of Japan, who gave a speech representing the organizers, mentioned that 2009 is a memorable year to celebrate the 140th anniversary of establishment of diplomatic relations between Austria and Japan. He also mentioned that the Japan Media Arts Festival has built up close interchanges with Austria over 10 years, as well as JAPAN GAME, the exhibition at Ars Electronica, and the theme of this exhibition, “OTO.” He welcomed visitors and expressed his appreciation to those involved.

At the opening event held in the exhibition hall for visitors, a live performance by ISHIBASHI Motoi and MANABE Daito of SONIC Floor was held in the theater in the hall. They were chosen for the Jury Recommended Works in the 2007 Japan Media Arts Festival. The live performance, held in front of specially built screen, was in three parts.

The first part involved visitor participation using a cube of one of the exhibited works, Command Line Wave. The shining cubes change their patterns by using a built-in microphone to accurately receive sounds from the speakers as a command. Participants in the packed house held the cubes and tried to catch the commands issued from the speakers near the ceiling. Visitors watched the top of the shining cubes, which gave everyone a sense of unity in the hall.

The second part, pa++ern is their latest work, released in July. It consisted of a program of embroidery and its installation. With the program, symbols punched in by participants were converted into designs and embroidered on a T-shirt with industrial sewing machine. In this live performance, experiment was introduced for the first time. It involved the design data for embroideries being converted into a sound file, and the embroidery patterns recreated by the sounds played in the hall were projected on the screen.

The last session began with a showing of a video Face Visualizer, in which myoelectric sensors are attached to a face. Participants then received an LED to put into their mouths. This controlled device lights up in the mouth, with its light changing freely through synchronization with the sounds played in the hall. When you put the LED in your mouth and stretch your lips as wide as possible, the light can be seen inside your mouth. Participants enjoyed this device, which transformed a part of their body into a kind of musical instrument.