NAOKO TOSA

私の作品のコンセプトは、声や音とそれを表現した映像という異なるメディアの相互関係を作品として表現することです。

私は、ナムジュンパイクの影響を受け、20代からビデオアートの制作に勤しみ、その作品はMoMAのコレクションにもなりました。その後、優れた新しい芸術はその時代の最先端の技術で作り出されていること（例：奈良の大仏やエジプトのピラミッド）を発見しました。これにもとづき、30-40代はMITなどで新しい芸術創作のためコンピュータやAIの技術を学び、それらを使って人とアート作品がインタラクションするインタラクティブアートの創作に取り組みました。

しかし50代に入った頃、コンピュータの計算で作るデジタルアートの世界に、アート表現として物足りなさを感じました。もっと自分のアート表現に深い感動と驚き、そしてコンピュータの計算では表現できない自然の美しさやそれに対して感じる畏怖の念を探求することを目標にしました。そして、自分で開発したアート制作システムを使って、現代の技術でしか見えない地球上の自然の美を取り込んだ芸術を制作するようになりました。

また私は、芸術が生みだされる根底には作品を文化的文脈と関係付ける必要があると考えており、私の芸術はアート・日本文化・テクノロジーが融合した作品と言えます。

この芸術活動を実現するため、大学で自分のラボを作り、国内外の学生や他のジャンルとのコラボレーションを推進し、日本から世界へ発信しています。

翌年以降の海外活動としては、産婦人科医とのコラボレーションによって、新生児のエネルギーである産声や心音で飛び散る絵の具の映像（「サウンドオブ生け花」と呼んでいます）で表現した作品を制作しています。

さらに2025大阪・関西万博では、Future Life Experienceパビリオンにて、私が率いる京大防災研究所アートイノベーション産学共同研究部門が、TOPPAN・島津製作所の協力を得て、無重力空間を表現した新しいプロジェクトを公開します。パラボリックフライトなどで体験できる無重力空間、それはスキューバダイビングの空間に似ており、私たちが生まれる前に居たお母さんのお腹の中の羊水の空間をイメージした空間です。そこでは、観客が新生児になって、無重力のサウンドオブ生け花を鑑賞し、同時に母親の心音を聞くことで、今までに体験したことがなく、なつかしい擬似体験をして、観客は生まれ変わることができるのです。

The concept of my work is to express the interrelationship between different media, such as voice and sound, and the visuals that represent them. Influenced by Nam June Paik, I have been creating video art since my twenties, and one of my works has been collected by the MoMA. Later, I discovered that outstanding new art is created with the cutting-edge technology of its time (e.g., the Great Buddha of Nara, the Pyramids of Egypt). Based on this, I studied computer and AI technology at MIT and other institutions during my thirties and forties to create interactive art where people and artworks interact.

However, in my fifties, I felt that digital art created by computer calculations lacked something as an artistic expression. I aimed to explore deeper emotions and surprises in my art, as well as the beauty of nature and the awe it evokes, which cannot be expressed by computer calculations. Using an art creation system I developed myself, I began creating art that captures the beauty of nature on Earth, which can only be seen with contemporary technology.

I also believe that it is necessary to relate the work to its cultural context for art to be created, and my art can be described as a fusion of art, Japanese culture, and technology. To realize this artistic activity, I established my own lab at the university, promoting collaboration with students and other genres both domestically and internationally, and disseminating my work from Japan to the world.

Future overseas activities include creating works in collaboration with obstetricians and gynecologists, expressing the energy of newborns through visuals of splattering paint based on their cries (which I call “Sound of Ikebana”). Additionally, at the 2025 Osaka-Kansai Expo, the Art Innovation Academia-Industry Joint Research Division, which I am leading, at the Kyoto University Disaster Prevention Research Institute, will unveil a new project expressing zero-gravity space with the cooperation of TOPPAN and Shimadzu Corporation. The zero-gravity space, which can be experienced through parabolic flights, resembles the space inside a mother’s womb before birth, akin to a scuba diving environment. In this space, the audience will become newborns, appreciating the zero-gravity Sound of Ikebana while hearing the mother’s heartbeat, experiencing a nostalgic simulation that makes them feel reborn.

CV

Early life and education

After receiving a Ph.D. for Art and Technology research from the University of Tokyo, Tosa was a researcher at the ATR (Advanced Technology Research Labs) Media Integration & Communication Lab (1995–2001). Tosa was a fellow artist at CAVS, the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2002 to 2004. From April 2005 to March 2011 she was a specific professor at the Academic Center for Computing and Media Studies, Kyoto University; from April 2011 to June 2018 she was a professor at the Organization for Information Environment, Kyoto University; from July 2018 to April 2022 she was a specific professor at the Graduate School of Advanced Integrated Studies in Human Survivability (GSAIS);and from May 2022 she has been a specific professor at the Research Center for Disaster Reduction Systems, Disaster Prevention Research Institute of the same university.

Career

Naoko Tosa was named Japanese Cultural Envoy by the Agency for Cultural Affairs for the period of September 2016 – March 2017.[2] Toas’s work has been shown in the Museum of Modern Art,[4] New York, USA, the National Museum of Art, Osaka, Toyama, Nagoya City Art Museum and Takamatsu city museum of Art. Her works are also part of the collections at the Japan Foundation, the American Film Association, the Japan Film Culture Center, The National Museum of Art, Osaka and the Toyama Prefecture Museum of Modern Art. Her work, “An Expression” is in the permanent collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art.[5]

Naoko was one of the original members in the establishment of the Society for Art and Science in 2001. She has been serving as the Chair of IFIP TC16 Entertainment Computing Art & Entertainment since 2006 and was chair of the International Conference on Culture and Computing in 2013 and 2015.

In 2016, she was appointed as the 2016 Cultural Exchange Ambassador,[6] visiting 10 cities in 8 countries, and spent a month in Times Square, NY, screening “Sound of Ikebana Spring” on over 60 billboards and conducting cultural exchanges.