25th
Award-winning WorksArt Division

This was my last year as a jury member. Although I
never got used to the judging process until the end,
what I realized through three years of judging was that
the more opportunities to encounter works that arouse
mixed opinions and are controversial, the more the
jury members’ existing values and common sense are
shaken, leading to the birth of new perspectives and
discoveries. At the same time, the jury becomes bare
when facing the works, ultimately being responsible for
how well they understand and represent the message
of each work. In this sense, this year’s judging process
was full of thought-provoking discoveries, as well as
opportunities to question my own values. This must
have something to do with being in the post-pandemic
time. However, this does not mean that many works
contained a message directly linked to the COVID-19
pandemic; rather, through the works we frequently
found the development of new visions fostered under
the limitations in creative activities, communication, and
traveling. Encounters with such a group of works also
gave me hope. I wrote the previous Jury Critiques in
a tense circumstance right before Japan’s declaration
of a state of emergency for the second time, and the
situation is still tense this year, even without a state
of emergency. Considering these circumstances, approximately 1,800 entries to the Art Division is a great
success, even though slightly decreased from the 24th.
This year’s Grand Prize went to Sun and Moon Room
by “Sun and Moon Room” Production Team. While using
technology to control the trajectory of moving sunlight,
the system allows visitors to directly experience the
movement of light using various functions. This system
was materialized through community-based research
and collaboration with people from various fields, and
was highly praised by the jury. Sun and Moon Room is
a site-specific work, characterized by collaborative production, instead of an individual artist’s production. This
work materializes the nature-human relationship in an
increasingly online-centered life through technological
implementation and collaboration with a local community. I think this is a strong point of this work. Every
piece of art, especially those of Media Arts, is a result
of various collaborations of not only individual artists
but also various other people, including technologi
cal collaborators. While such collaborations are often
overlooked in a framework focused on artists, which is
typical in the Art Division, I found this as a great opportunity to emphasize the importance of collaboration
in the creative process.
In the Excellence Award-winner, Yamahyo Crossing
by YAMAUCHI Shota, the artist himself travels back and
forth between real and online worlds, parodying people’s desire to immerse themselves in an online game
that became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic.
mEat me by Theresa SCHUBERT criticizes the consumerist hierarchies between humans and animals through
her own performance, based on the concept of eating
cultured meat made from serum extracted from her own
blood. These two works are completely different—mEat
me in particular appears to be a shocking performance
and title—but both evoked empathy. In both works, solo
artists attempt to critically portray the social structure
and system by using their own body, while realizing humorous expressions.
The Special Achievement Award went to TONE
Yasunao, a pioneer of glitch and noise music. He formed
the music improvisation group, Group Ongaku, in 1960
with KOSUGI Takehisa, MIZUNO Shuko, SHIOMI Mieko,
and others. Since then, he has been actively working
beyond the boundaries between music and art.
While developing theoretical views to objectify audio
media, he has realized media expression by thoroughly
criticizing music itself. I think this award winning is
extremely significant.
Lastly, the issues of copyright and right of publicity associated with reproduced media are becoming
more complex now, as media expressions are created
with state-of-the-art technologies, including AI. In the
judging process, however, I think it is unclear who is
responsible for these issues, including legal decisions.
The jury is in a position to only judge the quality of
media expression, and I believe that active discussion on this will strengthen the foundation for future
media expression.

How will we look back on the year 2021 that passed
with the COVID-19 pandemic?
Yamahyo Crossing by YAMAUCHI Shota and Uber
Existence by HANAGATA Shin capture people living
in the era shifting into that of the metaverse, referring
to digital contents and services that are increasingly
sought after amid the pandemic. Against the backdrop
of a social structure that became more distinct due to
the pandemic, the latter work can be connected to Who
else if not you? by Daniel WETZEL / TANAKA Miyuki
/ KOBAYASHI Keigo x UEMURA Haruka / HAGIWARA
Shunya x N sketch, which makes viewers conscious of
their position in a community and of society. Furthermore, social distancing gave inspiration to S . P . A . C .
E . by ELEVENPLAY x Rhizomatiks, which proposes
new physical and visual expressions by combining photo shooting, machine learning, and image processing
technologies.
In 2021, more than a year had passed since the
pandemic started. What left an impression was the
performative works, which carefully scoop up a foregrounding and accelerating, already-changing reality,
instead of “the extraordinary” itself, and examine or use
it as a catalyst for an experiment.
As a final note, expressions using AI technology in
fact outnumbered works inspired by the pandemic. The
number may have already been on the rise for the past
few years, yet the motivations and interests of artists
span a wide range from the possibility of societal changes and environmental control via machine intervention,
reconsideration of the machine-human relationship and
a new aesthetic arising from there, to practical issues
such as social disparities caused by the data set bias.
Unfortunately, the level of technical achievement and
its relevance to the final expression were sometimes
hard to evaluate, based on the application documentation alone, leaving some issues. However, I expect a
deepening of AI and creativity in the future, including
examination of learned information and outputting it
as expression.

My first message as a new member of the jury is that
those who missed the awards should not lose confidence or become more impatient than necessary. The
Japan Media Arts Festival has a history and its own
unique magnetic field and context. As a jury member,
I sincerely faced the entries, had serious discussions,
and reached conclusions, while respecting that context. However, in not a few cases, the jury might have
failed to fully take into account the assumptions and
conditions of the entries, which were created and presented in their own specific contexts, and not for the
purpose of the Arts Festival. There might be a work
that would not receive an award, or conversely, win an
award if even one member of the jury had been different. For those who were not selected, I sincerely hope
that they will continue to work passionately and present
their work to the world.
An unexpectedly big hurdle in the judging process
was that many entries, such as VR and site-specific
works, could not be experienced in person. Despite our
desperate efforts to gather information and supplement
it with our imaginations, there were many frustrating
moments. Meanwhile, a little more effort from the applicants might have helped in avoiding some issues, such
as those related to the composition of the work, especially the technical information (materials, mechanisms,
level of implementation, etc.). In fact, quite a few works
were rejected because they lacked such descriptions
and were unable to be evaluated. Although it is understandable that some artists intentionally avoid detailed
descriptions of the composition when exhibiting the
actual works, proper provision of technical information
formed a very important basis in the judging process.
Nevertheless, I have gained many insights and
learned a lot through the screening of this year’s abundant entries. I am grateful for the opportunity and look
forward to another chance to encounter ambitious
works that will further “show off” the multifaceted nature
and potential of Media Arts.

During the call for entries this year, I was afraid of seeing a major decrease in the number of entries, since
many exhibitions were canceled due to the COVID-19
pandemic. However, I was relieved to see many entries,
much the same as in previous years. As for the quality, there were many excellent works just like last year,
thanks to the applicants as well as the Art Division selection committee members, who were responsible for
the preliminary screening and went through quite a few
entries. Thanks to their efforts, we were able to evaluate
many quality entries again this year. However, no entry
this year showed overwhelming superiority that would
be considered indisputably worthy of the Grand Prize,
so judging the Grand Prize candidates required careful
consideration from various points of view. Personally, I
think that the Grand Prize winner, Sun and Moon Room,
is a valuable example of utilizing this field in a rural area,
and has the power to propel people to visit the site and
experience the artwork firsthand.
As for the Excellence Award, Social Impact Award,
and New Face Award, a great deal of time was spent
discussing which award should go to which work. The
works that unfortunately missed the awards were listed
in the Jury Selections, resulting in a considerably larger number than last year. I would like to note that the
difference between the Jury Selections and the Awardwinning Works was within a narrow margin.
One thing that concerned me during this year’s judging was the trend from overseas entries; a considerably
large number of works were about climate change and
CO2 reduction. Although I recognize the significance of
the SDGs, I felt that the excessive abundance of works
with these themes might be an indication of the artists giving up on thinking. My idea of art is an activity
that starts from an individual’s awareness of an issue,
and is shaped into a piece after repeated research and
verification. I also think casually using only something
considered to be “social justice” as a theme is actually
risky. To my relief, “real” diversity was found among the
entries from Japan, but I wanted to note this point as a
finding from the judging process.

Each of the jury member’s expertise and taste are inevitably reflected in the selection of works. One juror may
rate a work highly, but if others do not, the work will not
be selected, which is sad, but overall, the jurors were
not so divided in their opinions. Therefore, it is likely that
the selected works reflect a global vision of the state
of Media Arts, rather than just a personal perspective.
One remaining problem is that most of the works
are installation (interactive/participative/performative)
works, and the only way to “experience” them is through
their documentation. The jury has to imagine the “reality”
of the work from its documentation. The quality of the
audiovisual recording and archiving of the work and the
design of the presentation is becoming more and more
important, and artists should consider the recording as
part of the work and work seriously on its archiving, in
order to have their work recognized.
Another problem that jurors need to be aware of
is the need to accurately identify plagiarism or works
that are even partial imitations of other works. As the
number of artists increases year by year and the media
of communication become more efficient, fashions become stronger and stronger. Many works look similar
because they deal with the same themes and use the
same techniques. The lack of originality and the absence of surprise makes it important for us to look for
the differences hidden in forms and techniques that are
too similar. As has often been the case, and especially
nowadays, due to the easy availability of information on
contemporary works and production tools, such fashions have unfortunately led to a leveling off of ideas,
aesthetics, and techniques. In any case, the Japan
Media Arts Festival is a great place to get an overview
of the current state of so-called “media art” worldwide,
and I am very grateful to have been invited to participate
in the jury.