“Toshio Iwai Archive and Research” presented by Kimura-Myokam

Toshio Iwai, who has been internationally acclaimed as a leading Japanese new media artist since the mid-1980s, and Hiroko Kimura-Myokam launched the “Toshio Iwai Archive & Research” project in 2021.

This project aims for digitizing and for organizing archival materials which has been stored by artist himself. Due to non-public papers, it is difficult to access to them and research has not progressed. Although in recent years Iwai has been known as an old media artist; a picture book artist, until the early 2000s, he was an artist not only in the field of new media art, but also in a variety of other “new media” industries including video games, virtual sets for television programs in the early 1990s, and the electronic musical instrument “TENORI-ON” (2007, Yamaha). While his various achievements have had a high impact on the next generation, there are currently few opportunities to see his past works. In addition, A comprehensive evaluation of his work has not been conducted due to the interdisciplinary knowledge required to contextualize and understand his broad range of activities.

Usually, what is required of an archivist is to be as objective as possible and to organize the materials for any future reevaluation. In this project, however, the artist himself is engaged in organizing the materials, and Kimura-Myokam is rather seeking ways to push Iwai’s subjective viewpoint as an archivist.