Japan Media Arts Festival will participate in transmediale, the media art festival in Berlin, Germany, from January 29th to February 2nd. transmediale 2014 afterglow has a highly collaborative format featuring over 80 artists, hackers, programmers, and designers in its Art Hack Day (AHD) from January 27th, The completed works of the AHD will be also be on display in exhibition areas during transmediale and there will be lectures and performances as well. Several artists from the Japan Media Arts Festival participate.

transmediale 2014　http://www.transmediale.de/
Term：    [Art Hack Day] Monday, 27th – Wednesday, 29th January, 2014 
             [transmediale 2014] Wednesday, 29th January – Sunday, 2nd February, 2014
Venue： Haus der Kultured der Welt （Berlin, Germany）
Admission： From 8euro （other prices available by ticket） 

Transmediale is a media arts festival, typically consisting of exhibition, symposium, screening and workshop programs, developed from its predecessor, the Video Film Fest started in 1988. As the tile of the festival suggests, transmediale evolved beyond video to explore art and digital creation which transcends genre and value. Each year has a curated theme, providing a reflection on the state of contemporary culture.
The 2014 theme is afterglow: the resonance of the digital, the traces of the pre-digital era in the digital era, or the traces of digital spilled over in the post-digital.

Japan Media Arts Festival participating in transmediale 2014 
ITO Gabin, a juror for the past three years in the Entertainment Division of the Japan Media Arts Festival, who has produced and developed content in diverse media, serves as director of planning for the Art Hack Day of artists creating works on the theme of afterglow and for presentation at transmediale 2014. 

Concept： exodus from formal internet 
Remember when people thought of the Internet as a place of liberty? When people regarded it as a frontier where they could gather in search of freedom? When we dreamed of its utopian future? We did indeed enjoy some new degrees of freedom and empowerment, and it seemed the technology would support the sort of future we desired. That all seems now mostly in the past. As the Internet become ubiquitous, through smart phones and home electronics, and took root in our homes, the initial thrill departed and left us with only an incredibly restricted space. Now anything we say can and will be used as evidence against us, both in and out of court. One slip of the tongue, and we're a laughing stock. If we show so much as the slightest sympathy for someone in a legally grey zone, we may be held culpable to the full extent of their supposed crimes. Today, we have to reflect on every impulse before we dare to go on-line, because the consequences can be dire. Today we must be at our most guarded and bland on-line.
How did we get here?
Reviewing the artworks, and artists, who have participated in the Japan Media Arts Festival, I found some who conformed to those restrictions and others who sought liberation from them. They are the ones who became the core of my directorial plan. Also, my curiosity was piqued by those who having tried digital expression afterwards reverted to analog modes. These are artists who have done more than merely traverse the world of media arts. They have come out on the other side. ITO Gabin, Planning Director 

Participating Artists:  exonemo, IDPW, MATSUMOTO Gento, MOHRI Yuko, TANIGUCHI Akihiko

IDPW,　Whatever Botton
Japan Media Arts Festival 2013 Entertainment Division New Face Award

The Whatever Button hit the bull's eye of afterglow sensibility in the post-internet era of ubiquitous social media, and received much publicity in Japan. How will people react in Germany, with its very high Facebook penetration? The exposure of work so closely identified with Japan in other cultures helps us identify the true nature of our own sensibilities. We look forward to re-capturing the essence of the Whatever Button by revisiting it again at the transmediale 2014.

exonemo, VideoBomber 
Japan Media Arts Festival 2016 Entertainment Division Jury selection 

Computer graphics have developed beyond the things we see with our naked eyes, and the resolution of video displays only continues to increase. The projectors and other output devices (including even smart phone movie apps) are shrinking and becoming ever more Intrinsic to our general surroundings. VideoBomber is a way to hack video expression itself, a fantastic highjacking which sweeps aside preconceptions about the uses of technology and what the latest gadgets are for. We pursue new modes of expression and skills that we derive from our surroundings while also maximizing the mobility and adaptability of the VideoBomber. (exonemo)

MOHRI Yuko,　Calls
Media Installation(2013) 

Over the past several years, I've been presenting installations which  combine basic phenomena (light, gravity, noise, etc.) with small, locally-sourced objects to highlight trivial phenomena within the exhibition space. I want to edirect people's attention in new directions, for them to see the spaces differently. I consider my installations a way to awaken layered histories and special phenomena created within the building structures, which are already present within these spaces and buildings yet easily overlooked. In transmediale, I will attempt to invoke something of the place that is used as the stage for the AHD and transmediale 2014, utilizing tools which have been used to call human beings and other life forms since ancient times. （MOHRI Yuko） http://mohrizm.net

TANIGUCHI Akihiko, objects thinking too much 
Media Installation(2013) 

Today we live in a world of ubiquitous portable devices, of smart phones in everyone's pocket, which connect us constantly to the Internet. They have become the core mode of our intercourse with others. Media technology has merged with everyday life. Our event horizon includes activities taking place within computers and networks. It does not stop at the screen interfaces. Rather, these activities are contiguous to our physical life. The sculpture of thinking things is composed using minimal operations on devices from everyday life that give quiet, visual form to these themes. （TANIGUCHI Akihiko） http://okikata.org

Related Events 

[Artist Presentation]
Date & Time： Wednesday 29th January from 19:00　
Place： Exhibition Hall, HKW 
Participating Artists： exonemo, IDPW, MOHRI Yuko, TANIGUCHI Akihiko, etc. 

[Artist Talks]

Part One: Hitchhiking away from utopia
Date: Friday 31 January 16:00-
Venue: Foyer stage, HKW
Participating Artist: exonemo, IDPW / Moderator: ITO Gabin

Part Two: Somewhere beyond calculation: Where we arbitrarily "recognize" life
Date: Saturday 1 February 19:00-
Venue: Foyer stage, HKW
Participating Artist: MOHRI Yuko, TANIGUCHI Akihiko / Moderator: ITO Gabin

 Internet Yami-ichi (Black Market) Berlin,  http://berlin.yami1.biz/
Internet Yami-ichi (Black Market) is a basic market, where people can sell and buy goods and services, a meat space gathering point for the flotsam and jetsam of the internet. Inverting the customs of PR firms you can purchase "praise on twitter", at cut-rate prices from dubious persons, log rocks into the internet, and share apps which didn't make it into the iTunes store in a face to face environment. It's a BtoB or PtoP hive of monozukuri knowledge for the digital set, an homage to Japan's comic market culture, a celebration of commercial activities which are legal but rapidly being eliminated in the gentrification of the internet. Development of the Berlin iteration of the Internet Yami-ichi (Black Market) will actively pursue participation of local Berlin cultures. 

Date & Time： Sunday 2nd February from 12：00-20：00　
Place： Exhibition Hall, HKW

―Live Performance　
exonemo, Desktop BAM 

Desktop BAM is a live performance piece which exonemo first performed in 2010. Desktop images of notebook PCs with multiple QuickTime player windows will be projected on the walls of the venue. Mouse cursors controlled by software scripts race continuously between the files, far faster than any person possibly could use it, generating an array of patterns that imparts a sense of uncontrollable post-physicality and vitality. http://exonemo.com/

―Documentation
MATSUMOTO Gento, BCCKS　

BCCKS is an online service for reading, making, stocking, and selling both electronic and bound books. From a single interface, capable of both fully professional and largely automated design work, BCCKS can automatically generate and publish in multiple formats, including iPad, iPhone, android, PC, and professional Print-On-Demand books. The events of the day can thus be published immediately in something more substantial than a blog. At transmediale, Matsumoto will undertake a series of documentary design projects from individual artist profiles to portfolios, essays on the production process, and records of the festival’s vitality in multiple formats. The resulting BCCKS will be will be available for free online on the "BCCKS" site. http://bccks.jp/