“Same old story: media art in East Asia” presented by Ma

Symposium:

• ISEA2009: 15th International Symposium on Electronic Art
• More presentations from ISEA2009:  

• Transformative Creativity - Participatory Practices I

• Same old story: media art in East Asia

• Jung-Yeon Ma

Venue(s):

• Waterfront Hall, Belfast, Ireland

• Abstract

  Art and art
  Japanese critic, former vice director and chief curator of InterCommunication Centre (ICC), Keiji Nakamura, lamented the degeneration of the term ‘bi-jyu-tsu’ which consist of two Chinese characters ‘beauty’ and ‘skill’ at the millennium in his essay on media art. He sighed with great regret that we could not help using the term ‘ah-to’ which means ‘art’ in Japanese Katakana character, generally used for direct use of a foreign language, instead of the term ‘bi-jyu-tsu’. What he felt shame for was, however, not the obsoleteness of a certain terminology, but the fact that there is no more clear difference between ‘bi-jyu-tsu’ and ‘non-bi-jyu-tsu’, a piece of artwork as a creative interpretation of the reality and the reality itself, which was very crucial for his generation born in the early 20th century. The result is a blind equalization of all factors in a society, including politics and the need to depend on another terminology to reflect a very uncomfortable change in the nature of art.

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Category:

• Paper