Information
NAOKO TOSA
Title: The Art of ZEN (Projection view)
Year: 2002~2010
Medium: Screen, Rock garden, calligraphy, 2 Computer, Speaker, Mixer
Dimensions (cm): W600 x H300 x D400
Sponsored by MIT, JST, France Telecom R&D
NAOKO TOSA product for iPhone apps (Landscape Painting in Chinese ink style Sansui) » Link
ZENetic Computer is an interactive system which I developed while staying at MIT CAVS as an artist fellow and with which people can experience San-sui Zen in an interactive way. I was inspired by Sesshu’s San-sui artwork and discovered that San-sui is not a landscape of this world, but a kind of landscape of Shangri-La, and was obsessed with it. As an introduction to Zen, the audience draws digital landscapes by themselves, then enters the world of 3D landscapes that they have drawn and takes a walk. They can exchange various Zen dialogues with computer monk. There is no right answer, and the aim of the interaction is for the audience to gradually awaken to themselves through interaction. The system was exhibited at various places including MIT Museum, Japanese ZEN temples, etc. The development of the system was also sponsored by France Telecom and was exhibited at its laboratory. Picure 6 shows an article of TechTalk introducing the exhibition at MIT museum. The reference shows a paper published in Leonard by MIT Press.
ZENetic Computer
A computer-based Sansui Zen work created during my time as an Artist Fellow at CAVS, MIT.
Inspired by Sesshū’s sansui landscape paintings, I became fascinated not by sansui as a depiction of scenery in this world, but by its allure as a kind of utopian landscape, and through this fascination I came to know Zen.
As an introduction to Zen, viewers draw a digital sansui landscape and enter the 3D world they have created to wander through it. When they approach the river, they encounter the Zen dialogue of Hyōnenzu; when they approach an old man, Daruma Anjin; when they approach a flower, Nenge Mishō; and when they approach a tree, the sound field of the sound of one hand. Through these Zen dialogues, viewers interact with a computer Zen monk. The system provides no answers; through the interaction, the viewer gradually begins to awaken.
Reference
ZENetic Computer Survey Responses by Generation
MIT News – Zen and the art of computers