On the afternoon of September 12, 2009, the first day of the general opening to the public, two symposium events were held in the Baroque Suite on the upper floor of the hall along with this exhibition. The first one was a presentation plus workshop by ISHIBASHI Motoi and MANABE Daito, who gave a live performance at the opening event. In their presentation, they introduced their previous works, their exhibited piece, Command Line Wave, and talked about their future activities, After that, they held a workshop using a device they had brought from Japan to visitors to experience.

Another symposium event was a presentation by two artists who brought their works to the exhibition, KATSUMOTO Yuichiro (Amagatana) and SAKAMOTO Nodoka (Tameikimajiri). SAKAMOTO talked about her past activities and works as well as tameikimajiri, which was displayed in the Vienna exhibition. SAKAMOTO has mastered various presentation techniques, and continues to engage in creative activities using whichever method is most suitable to express her images. One method she always uses, however, is to take everyday objects that we might find in a kitchen or a bathroom, and to convert them into works of art. Her talk was very impressive. KATSUMOTO Yuichiro introduced his concept of Stand Bytes, which are a blending of commodities and electronic equipment standing by in people’s lives, and that of Embodiment, which is a sense of unity generated in situations like driving a car. Then, while showing the remains of a plastic umbrella that he had continually repaired during the 2006 Japan Media Arts Festival, at which he won an Encouragement Prize, he mentioned that a work was something that is continually evolving. Also, he brought his work into the event venue and gave a demonstration.

In the Japan Media Arts Festival in Vienna 2009, screening events were held in the evenings during the exhibition period. Long animation films and outstanding works from the 2008 Japan Media Arts Festival were screened daily in the evening. Audiences could enjoy different films every day. There were four long animations shown in this event: PIANO NO MORI, Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door, Genius Party, and STAND ALONE COMPLEX: Solid State Society. During the screening of PIANO NO MORI, sometimes there were bursts of loud laughter from the audience. The audience enjoyed both the story and the sounds of piano that were played in the episodes. One viewer who visited every day to watch the films said, “Such wonderful visual works should be introduced every year.”

Mr. Georg Russegger, who works as a coordinator on the Austrian side, said on looking back on this exhibition, “The Japan Media Arts Festival in Vienna is the first opportunity for the Japan Media Arts Festival to be introduced in Europe as well as being one of the events related to Japan-Austria 2009. In this exhibition, which was widely opened to the general public in Vienna, a collection of Japanese creative works was introduced in one venue. I really appreciate being included in a wonderful project team entered on Japan and Austria. It was a great experience for me, as a coordinator between Japan and Austria, to organize the Japan Media Arts Festival in Vienna 2009, a big project mixing diverse elements of art, culture, crafts, technologies and entertainment. Moreover, the reason why I had suggested working as a member of a project team like this is that I felt it would be a revolutionary step to take this rare opportunity to organize an event in collaboration with members of CG-ARTS Society, whose backgrounds are so different from our own. As the director of CODED CULTURES, I feel deeply delighted to work together with the Japan Media Arts Festival and also introduce a program between the two cities of Yokohama and Vienna. In this context, I would like once again to celebrate this exhibition and this great collaborative relationship. I look forward to future developments and the opportunity for future collaboration.”

Looking at reactions of visitors such as the Viennese and other Austrians, as well as the international visitors who dropped in as part of their sightseeing tours, through this exhibition I got a strong feeling of how unique current Japanese culture is, with an expressive power that receives high acclaim abroad. Austria is the venue for Ars Electronica, the largest media art festival in Europe where not only Japanese media arts, but also animation, game, and manga are seen with great interest. The number of visitors reached 7,545 over 10 days, which can be considered evidence of a dramatic growth of interest in media arts in Japan. Also during the exhibition period, we had many interviews with local media. In addition, Margit FISCHER, the first lady of Austria, visited the Japan Media Arts Festival in Vienna and expressed her appreciation of the art works. I would like to exploit this experience to further the worldwide growth of Japanese media arts in the future.


WAKIMOTO Atsushi
CG- ARTS Society