Studio Lecture Series with Masaki Fujihata

Digital as Material, Tool, and Media

In Masaki Fujihata’s talk, he’ll discuss how his approach to materializing a digital piece is fundamentally different from working with other mediums. Fujihata believes that using digital as a medium for art making is quite new, and because of that, we do not know what it is, exactly, or how it behaves. It can be difficult to first develop a concept and then materialize it, and when an artist starts to combine technology and media, he or she may face unexpected challenges that were never faced when working with other forms of media.  By tracing several of his art pieces and projects, Fujihata will describe how the concept and digital meet.

Fujihata started out in the 1980s working in the fields of computer graphics and animation. Subsequently, in tandem with the dramatic developments achieved in digital technologies, he began pursuing their possibilities in artistic expression, boldly moving into uncharted territory in the world of art. His works, imbued with the special features unique to the newest technologies in interactive art, virtual reality and networking, raised a variety of issues that had never emerged in earlier media of expression, and in the process Fujihata breathed fresh new life into art. In his every endeavor, his stance, to see through to the core essence, always remains constant, however, as he earnestly probes fundamental questions having to do, for example, with human perception and awareness, and why humans communicate. The works and projects that are born from his unique philosophy and playful ideas are highly acclaimed both in Japan and abroad.