[ISEA2017] Keynote: Masaki Fujihata — Keynote

Abstract 

Masaki Fujihata is one of the pioneers of new media art, renowned in Japan as well as abroad. His CG work was much celebrated in the 1980s, before his interests shifted to creating 3D sculptures from data using 3D printing, as in his CNC-routed Geometric Love (1987), the stereolithographic Forbidden Fruits (1989), and his small scale sculptures using Micro Machine technology. In the mid-90s, Fujihata produced canonical pieces of what would later be called “interactive art,” including the multimedia installation Beyond Pages (1995-1997) and the exploration of networking technologies Global Interior Project (1995-). His work problematizes everything from how we interact with interfaces to the ways we might communicate in virtual space. In particular, his experiments with GPS technology beginning in 1992 takes a rather uncommon technical tack in gathering data, making for a meticulously composed and unexampled series of cyber-spacial creations that can only be called “the cinema of the future,” or “the shape of media to come.” His 2003 Field-work@Alsace compiled interviews about international borders. The 2009 musical piece Simultaneous Echoes was created in Northern Ireland. Fujihata’s latest signature piece is the 2012 Voices of Aliveness, created in Nante, France and assembling the shouts of bicyclists in virtual space. Global Interior Project #2 won the 1996 Golden NIKA Award, Voices of Aliveness won an Ars Electronica Award of Distinction in 2013, and Simultaneous Echoes received the 2010 Ministry of Education Award for Fine Arts. Guest professor at Kunst University Linz, Austria.

  • Masaki Fujihata, (born 1956, Japan) explores the possibilities of cinema, computer image, animation, interactive installation and internet. Fujihata studied at Tokyo University of Arts (graduation and master). In the 1970s, he produced animation films with traditional techniques, moving to digital format from 1983 onwards with the work “Mandala”, which was presented at festivals such as SIGGRAPH 83 and Video Culture of Canada, where he was awarded the first prize.