Japanese video art at Yuchengco Museum

The Yuchengco Museum is pleased to present Digital Dimensions, an exhibit that features the video-art projections of internationally renowned Japanese media artist Naoko Tosa, who was recently appointed as Japan Cultural Envoy 2016 by the Japanese government. 

In Digital Dimensions, which opens on February 11 and will feature Tosa’s Genesis video-art series, the museum’s galleries are transformed into a scenic environment that envelopes viewers in a sensual exploration of materials and ephemerality.

Inspired by Rimpa, one of the major historical schools of Japanese painting with a 400-year legacy, Tosa plays with Zen concepts of chance through her use of Japanese color inks to generate solemn forms in water, from which all life originated. A pioneering feature of her practice is introducing cutting-edge technology at the core of her creative process, playing with inks and dry ice captured by high-speed cameras.

“Art can make it possible for us to experience invisible worlds that cannot be captured by our normal sense of time and space. Such experiences would induce awe and move toward nature and its energy in our mind. This work makes it possible for the viewers to experience a world where time is expanded one hundred times,” Tosa said.

“Also, this work cannot be created using computer graphics, and dry ice is too complex to be expressed by a numerical formula of fluid dynamics. In other words, this is a hypernatural form of art that can be visualized only by using a high-speed camera,” she added.

Tosa’s practice covers a wide range of areas, from sculpture and visual arts to video art and digital art. She also explores photography, media art, and software art. After receiving her doctorate in art and technology research from the University of Tokyo, she became a fellow at the Center for Advanced Visual Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology from 2002 to 2004. She is currently a professor at Kyoto University.

Tosa previously exhibited her artworks at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, London County Hall, the Long Beach Museum of Art, the and Japan Creative Center, among others. Her works are in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, the American Film Association, the National Museum of Art in Osaka, and the Nagoya City Art Museum.

To give visitors a more enriching experience of Digital Dimensions, Tosa will share insights into her creative process and examples of her major works in an Artist’s Talk on February 11 at 2:30 p.m. She will also discuss the technology behind her art and how she bridges Japanese tradition and technology. The talk is free with museum admission (P100 for adults, P50 for students and seniors). To reserve slots for the artist’s talk, send an e-mail to info@yuchengcomuseum.org.

Digital Dimensions: Video Art Projections by Naoko Tosa run suntil March 31 and is presented with the support of The Japan Foundation, Manila, and with thanks to the Japanese government’s Agency for Cultural Affairs.

The Yuchengco Museum is at RCBC Plaza, corner Ayala and Senator Gil J. Puyat avenues, Makati City. Museum hours are from Monday to Saturday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. For more information, call (632) 889-1234, or visit www.yuchengcomuseum.org.