13th Art Division Critiques
SHIKATA Yukiko
What I was especially aware of were: whether the work makes creative connections traversing one media we have never seen before; how we evaluate works that are unknown and even undifferentiated; and if they cannot be viewed through the prism of our existing concept of values. In the latter case, we juries have to ask ourselves questions if viewers can read the possibilities that can arouse new forms of consciousness, interpretation, or human relationship, even though the artists themselves are sometimes not aware of. In the interactive and installation genres, several trends were observed: performance types of installation that require the presence of bodies; analog nonlinear phenomena; relationships between virtual and real space; and challenging environmental or biological science by humorous criticism. All can be said to weigh heavier on the process where phenomena break out and develop by establishing a distance from pre-established harmony. In such circumstances, I focused on works that open up encounters with foreign elements or new phases by making connections with a virtual system, or connecting and sharing them with more than one system.