JAPAN MEDIA ARTS FESTIVAL

Part One “From Ukiyo-e to Animation”

In the first part of “From Ukiyo-e (wood-block prints) to Animation”, we focus on depictions of two animated films released last year. Yasuhiro Yoshiura’s Patema Inverted is a feature-length fantasy animated movie describing communication between the earthly world and the other underground world where the action of gravity between both worlds is upside down. The scene showing a boy standing on the ground and holding a girl falling down to the sky creates on the screen a symmetry of a strong feeling of tension about verticality and inversion. It reminds us of Mt. Fuji drawn by Katsushika Hokusai in his Thirty-Six Views of Mount Fuji – Mt. Fuji Reflected in Lake Kawaguchi in Kai Province (Koshu Misaka Suimen), showing it in summer and then when it becomes snow-capped in winter as reflected on surface of the lake. Hiroyasu Ishida’s rain town is a story about a young girl in a “rain town”. This work uses only tranquil music and the sound of falling rain to gently depict scenes of a rather dark, yet beautiful world that makes one feel a certain sense of loneliness and nostalgia. Japanese artist’s attitudes to observe Nature seasonally have remained unchanged until today. Moreover, diagonal slashes depicting rains, blanketing the entire picture of Ukiyo-e artist Utagawa Hiroshige’s Sudden Shower Over Shin-Ohashi Bridge and Atake (Ohashi Atake no Yudachi), which was based on the then leading-edge exquisite woodblock printing technique, which is in fact timeless.

Part Two “Physical World”

In the second contrast of “Physical World”, you will see two types of installation art on a large scale with vector of ups and downs. Ei Wada’s sound installation work Toki Ori Ori Nasu – Falling Records –shows that open-reel tapes, discharged from outdated audio players installed on the top of four tall columns, fall down with sound and finally are rewound again to go up. In addition, Soichiro Mihara’s the blank to overcome shows bubble makers building bubble columns up in the air.

Part Three “The World of Images and Information”

The third part introduces ups and downs in “Images and Information World”. In his work, Takayoshi Tsuchiya deals with a computer program that repeats simple up-and-down movements randomly. Masaharu Sato takes out only vertical movements of daily life to create a short looping animation and demonstrate mechanical repetition. These superficial movements do not reflect reality, losing the original meaning, but have been visually refined.

Part Four “Rounding and Floating”

The forth part is about “Rounding and Floating”created with sounds and pictures. Life is Music of SOUR, a Japaneserock band attracting attention for its experimental music videos, uses a compact disc as the phenakistoscope, and reproduces not only rotating movements but also primordial animations for music reproduction purposes. In addition, the music video of Sayonara Ponytail, an anonymous band, uses the representation of a girl character that appears in an original manga to bring a unique feeling of floating into experimental live-action images.