Japan Media Arts Festival in İstanbul

Japan Media Arts Festival in İstanbul

Japan Media Arts Festival, established in 1997, is a unique and original festival from Japan, which includes different categories such as Art, Entertainment, Animation and Manga. The Festival's main mission is to provide opportunities by bringing new works of excellence into the field of the media arts, fostering and inspiring the process of creativity. The Japan Media Arts Festival exhibition organized in İstanbul for the first time at Pera Museum focused on two specific aspects of media arts: the Creative Mind and the Narrative Mind. The exhibition explored these two aspects through award-winning works from past Japan Media Arts Festival exhibitions as well as more recent works. Pera Museum, celebrating its fifth year, has through its exceptional exhibitions since it’s founding, cherished and embraced young artists' works and the different mediums of art. With this exhibition, the Museum brought together creative works by Japanese artists that fuse technology and expression in the most extraordinary styles. The exhibition was open from the 6 ^th August – 3^rd October 2010 and complemented with artist presentations, panel discussions and film screenings.

Creative Mind

The Japanese term Monozukuri / Creative Mind has several meanings, which include not only production engineering but also spiritual traits. Monozukuri sustains the development of Japanese industry and culture by being an integral part to create affluent lifestyles. Referring to the industrial products of mass production and including the creation of works such as traditional craft, whose techniques were passed onto generation to generation, Monozukuri is based on artistic and creative works. Creative Mind section consists of interactive arts and installation works employing new media and technologies, pursuing a high degree of expression and utility.

Narrative Mind

In ancient times, Monogatari / Narrative Mind was spread by word of the mouth from person to person. Once expressed with characters and by illustration, the storytelling became universally prevalent. In the history of Japan, there were times when storytelling employed unique means of expression: the emakimono / picture scrolls to depict Monogatari. The mediums and forms of expressions of Monogatari have been changing and developing within the times.

In the Narrative Mind section, Japanese contemporary Monogatari was introduced through various examples of manga, animation and game. Furthermore, this section also explored the artists' creative skills with their impressive original drawings and storyboards.

ANIMATION

Ever since TEZUKA Osamu's Astro Boy was broadcasted as the first TV animation in 1963, Japanese animation has shown a truly rapid progression. Films made by skilled directors and animators, with their creative innovative expressions, heightened the Monogatari / Narrative Mind. Animation artists have been receiving great acknowledgements abroad where their films not only captivate children but also adults as well; among them most notably Spirited Away by MIYAZAKI Hayao, which won the Berlin International Film Festival Golden Bear in 2002 and gained worldwide recognition. Additionaly, MIYAZAKI, YAMAMURA Koji's Mt. Head and KATO Kunio's House of Small Cubes works have won the grand prize in Annecy International Animation festival in 2003 and the Oscar Academy Award in 2009 respectively. ?

MANGA ??

Japanese manga developed remarkably after the Second World War. TEZUKA Osamu applied motion picture techniques to Japanese manga, and subsequent manga artists created the manga of the new era. After the broadcast of the TV animation in 1963, manga started to play an important role, as the origin of the animated cartoon. For today’s society the concept of not only animation and game but also live-action film and drama are inseparably connected with manga. The most significant reason for the development of Japanese manga lies within the excellence of its structural and visual depiction of Monogatari / Narrative Mind.

GAME

The development of Japanese video games was triggered with Space Invaders, which went on sale as an arcade game in 1978, becoming a great success in Japan. Following on from this success, Family Computer went on sale in 1983; reading the response from consumers, the industry was prompted into devising various home video game machines that preceeded one another in rapid succession. From the technical point of view, the development of the photo-realistic imagery of graphics and improvements to the interface, hence enabling people to operate with more and more ease became crucial factors for game development. From the content's aspect, the Monogatari / Narrative Mind is recognized as an important element for game, as it is for manga and animation. In remote corners of the world people embark on common adventures in the shared virtual space where a different and unusual kind of Monogatari is experienced.