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.