The Agency for Cultural Affairs in Japan arranges Participation in Overseas Media Arts Projects (Organized by the Agency; planned & managed by NHK International Inc.) at overseas festivals and institutions to introduce outstanding media artworks in such fields as media art, video, websites, videogames, cartoons and comics with the focus on the exhibition, screening, presentation etc. of Award-winning Works from the Japan Media Arts Festival.

The Daily Reflections exhibition at the Total Museum of Contemporary Art will examine the contemporary nature and universality of media arts through works by Japanese and Korean artists. The exhibition has been planned and directed jointly by curators in Japan and the Total Museum of Contemporary Art in South Korea. The exhibition is being curated by Kenji Ueda, a curator of the Museum of Art, Kochi, and specialist in the media art field, and Nathalie Boseul Shin, chief curator of the Total Museum of Contemporary Art, to introduce Japanese and Korean media arts to a wider public.

With all the excitement, also, of wondering whether the exhibition could really be ready in time, I fixed on the themes of Mirrors and Movement. Mirror is a word which connects with Copying and Repetition. These are universals that frequently emerge in not only the history of art but also the history of culture. Sho Minase’s “I/F” and Wonbin’s “Species series” are certainly representations of that keyword, Copying, and Shunsuke Matsushima’s “Voice Portrait” copies, too, while simultaneously being a self-portrait that leads to the Mirror idea as well. The other key concept is Movement and Stillness. Youki Hirakawa’s “Frozen Leaf” appears to posses motion in stasis. This, too, is a universal philosophical theme.

Natalie, on the other hand, proposed many works such as “Google Maps 8- bit” which featured and utilized social media. She suggested the key concept of the Reflection of Society. In response to my proposal of the Mirror, she chose Reflection in both the optical sense and the meanings of reconsideration and introspection. I proposed Yuichiro Tamura’s “NIGHT LESS”, which uses Google Street View, as an exemplar of this.

I hope that this exhibition will successfully weave the contemporary phenomena of the social media with the universal, unchanging ancient themes of the Mirror and Time. Selection of the exhibition’s title was a convoluted process and this was only decided at the very last: Daily Reflections. This title, Daily Reflections, encapsulates both my proposal for reconsideration and introspection on hidden aspects of the everyday and Natalie’s for a reflector (mirror) on the contemporary society in which we live.
 - Kenji Ueda, Director of Planning

*image (left)
Sho Minase
I/F, 2012
video installation
courtesy of the artist