メディア芸術とは何か?

Abstract

The term "Media Art" ("Media Geijutsu") seems to reflect a certain confusion in the contemporary Japanese culture, a confusion about the relation of art, technology and popular culture. While we have recently seen a strong political trend to favor Japanese pop culture like Manga, Animation and Interactive Game under the title of "media art, " we can hardly find serious theoretical studies on how we should understand "media" in today's context, or what its relation to fine art and popular culture is. On the other hand, through my experience as the director of contemporary arts and media arts festivals such as "Kyoto Biennale 2003" or "Ogaki Biennale 2006, " I have keenly felt that "media art" still waits for its proper definition, and is open for philosophical investigation into the nature and the function of media art in our society. My point is that it should be totally misleading to define "media art" as something like "a form of art using (digital or new) media." Media is not a method or tool of art, but the central question asked in various forms of artistic expression. In my view, "media art" since the late 1980s is something totally different from "computer art" in the 1960s, which was pursued as a form of Avant-garde art movement. The computer was not "media, " but a gigantic mainframe at that time, generally regarded as a mythical machine. After the 1980s we have seen digital computing in the form of "new media" penetrating deeper and deeper into the society, culture and our private life. Even most intimate areas of our private life are not free from the influence of media and technology. "Media art, " in its contemporary sense, should be understood as an activity to respond, critically and artistically, to this highly developed media-environment of ours. Many of us may normally think that we use technology because it helps us doing things easier. Under this utilitarian appearance, however, technology does have its own "aesthetic" dimension, which "media art" try to address through its various attempts to deviate media from its normal, instructed usage. It is crucially important to develop a new framework of aesthetics together with a renovated understanding of art. This does not necessarily mean the negation of classical aesthetics or modernist understanding of art, but an extension of aesthetics and art theory. To draw an outline of "media art" as I understand it, I pick up in this essay some of various attempts related to topics of "interactivity, " "network, " "body and life" and "the experience of the artificial." Owing to limited space I only gives a brief critical comment to each of these works. All works I mention here are those I am, through my research or curatorial activities, directly familiar with. I hope my attempt will be understood as a starting point to construct "aesthetics of the artificial, " a research field which I believe will constitute an important part in the investigation of technology-conscious art works and artistic activities in the coming decades.