10th
Award-winning WorksArt Division

In the days when Internet websites were not so common it was considerably easier for a stylish homepage to become famous. However, we have now become so used to them that they have become a normal part of our daily life. I think that what this means is that websites are now at an artistic turning point. If they limit themselves to presenting only beautiful still or moving imagery, they will not achieve their full potential. Nonetheless, a homepage cannot be considered a work of art unless its form of expression is artistically skillful, even if it is otherwise rich with meaning. Although we have received a number of interesting web works this year, none of them have won a prize in the Art Division; this was because we could not find among them an artistically superior or salient piece.
We hope next year's entries in this field to be well motivated and ground breaking.

I still believe that an image has the power to change the world. I want it to be able to shock me, as though I were struck in the face; that is art, I believe. It is difficult to identify such a work when exposed to a large number of varied still images; it would have been easier in the context of an exhibition or published medium. However, with the aid and advice of Ms. HASEGAWA Yuko, I have managed to choose 11 Recommended Works. Mr. NAKAE Masaaki's ROCKET portrays a rocket carried by a train, travelling at high speed with the sun setting in the distance, and another standing in a park amongst deer; the contrast between rockets and their situation is amusing. It was a pity that we could not find a work that possessed depth by virtue of its ordinary appearance, as was the case with award winning works in the past, such as Mr. HASHIMOTO Norihisa's life-size, Mr. KANO Yoshiyuki's Organization paper or Mr. FUTOYU Masaharu's FUTOYU GINKO-∞ YEN#SAM/ Indeed, it was Mr. HAYASHI Shunsaku's epic, Sagrada Familia Project that primarily drew our attention this year.

It has been a few years since I last served on a jury for the Japan Media Arts Festival , so it was very interesting for me to come back and judge this year's entries. First of all, I noticed that the artists who have been winning prizes at the Computer Graphics Contest for Students, a gateway for young media artists, a real so presenting highly accomplished art work. There must be pros and cons with regard to this phenomenon, but I personally take it positively. Secondly, it was apparent to me that many entries are taking advantage of digital composite techniques. Although these techniques are themselves not very different from the VFX used for commercial films, the works are inspired by personal matters, which give them unique points of view. However , I have doubts as to whether they are successfully conveying their messages to the viewers clearly. My impression, in general, is that there were few outstanding moving image pieces in the category of the Art Division. This is a problem for this style of media arts expression at the moment.

In the Installation category, there were a wide variety of entries, from large screen projections to sculptures and interactive pieces. In presenting a female boxer fighting against the reality in front of her, whether virtual or physical, front is simple, but its visual impact and sensual impression is fresh. Drives captures as portraits the faces of people in passing cars, through use of a high speed camera. It is impossible for us to stare at the faces of passing people in reality, but this work shows them to us in the style of classical portraits; the ambivalence of this work is interesting. Works such as AQUATIC, from which sounds of water are induced by body movements of a person, or Media Flies, which produces abstract images created by the synergy of the random movement of insects and of the viewers, are not very new with their conceptions, but their interfaces and results are sophisticated. Also, there were impressive installation works that employed familiar materials poetically and with a degree of warmth; uku-fuyu puts feathers dreamily into the air, and PingPongPixel regards each of a number of colored ping-pong balls as a pixel; the low tech of these pieces is quite amusing.

Animation Division
Manga Division
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Jury Critiques
[Critique by work category] Interactive art, Others
YANOBE Kenji
Artist

This year, my general impression of the entries for this category was that they mostly strike a good balance between technique level and artistic expression. For instance, one can see that OLE Coordinate System is not just a game software style tool, but also a "moving painting", that shows the artist's intention clearly. Similarly, ×man vibration can be interpreted as a "moving sculpture", as it stimulates our imagination by simply allowing us to observe the experiences of the people who put it on. Furthermore, those entries that have the character of child educational software, such as Drawn or Sosu Hockey, are also completed with a refined sense of expression. With the essence of " humor", these works are converting advanced digi tal techniques gent ly and beautifully into analog; this may be the equation of modern media art.

The Art Division must set the pace for the future progress of the Japan Media Arts Festival. The international recognition that this festival has gained over the last ten years is a great achievement, but we cannot afford to rest on our laurels, stagnating after a period of planned and development. This years Grand Prize winner is Imaginary·Numbers 2006; it is a visual image that is also being exhibited at Milano Salone; the presentation of high quality, delicate lines moving infinitely in a finite universe have impressed people around the world. An Excellence Prize winner, front, depicts the bruised face of a woman so powerfully that we almost feel her pain. The Excellence Prize winner from the Interactive Art category, OLE Coordinate System, is an excellent piece that cleverly reuses the images of Escher. As we have top prizes winners from the Installation, Interactive Art, and Still Image categories, we feel increasingly confident as to the future success of the Festival.