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between art and technologies by setting the foothold to New York. EAT is the mother
group of Center for Advanced Visual Studies (CAVS) established in MIT, 1967.
Gyorgy Kepes, who had defected to America and became a professor of the
department of architecture, was there. He invented large movements in various fields
like urban life, environment and life, the fusion of art and science, as well as the
architecture. Kepes founded the CAVS, and became as a director of it. It was 1968,
when whole America had hoped for new arts. CAVS has the longest history as a
laboratory of art & technology (and it is now at 3F above the main gallery of MIT
Museum). It was an pioneer of performance and collaboration, and its effect to post
generations is so large.
Artists like Namu June Paik, Charlotte Moorman who is cellist and collaborated
with Paik, Scott Fisher who invented 'Head Mount Display', which created virtual
reality (VR) technology are typical members of it.
I worked as a fellow from 2002 to 2004, invited by Prof. Steven Benton who was
the 4
th
director of it. He was a recognized authority on a study of holography, and he
invented the rainbow holography. He is also one of those founded MIT Media
Laboratories. He took me in so that CAVS can change its motto from “art and
science” to “art and computer”, that means, from analog to digital. My expected role
was to blow Asian wind of digital arts on CAVS, which had been deep-rooted in
European culture.
3.3 We Cannot Take Our Culture Off
Have you had impatience about communication and thought, “Communications
usually succeed, but why do they occasionally fail?” It fails because you
communicate with someone supposing that they should be able to understand you.
Communications are needed, however, for they cannot understand you. If you get it,
you will find how to communicate with them calmly.
If we have understood all of us already, we do not need to communicate with each
other. Japanese people has a strong pride of homogeneous race, so we apt to have
relatively the same feelings, impressions and opinions about someone's actions,
phenomena and a course of our society. As they typically call it a 'direct
communication from mind to mind (Ishin-denshin in Japanese)', we are prone to think
something supposing that they should understand us.
The characteristic of Japanese becomes obvious when we go abroad. That's
because we face the condition that we cannot make ourselves understood even if we
have thought they should be able to understand. Many other Japanese looks hard to be
normal, like herbivorous animal living with carnivorous animals.
In America, however, especially Anglo-Americans often communicate with
considering that a person cannot understand them, I think. Actually, I had colleagues
from Germany, Greece, Lebanon, Japanese, Chinese, French and Anglo-America.
Southern Europeans usually use a nonverbal communication like Japanese, which
makes me feel a sense of closeness. However, Anglo-Americans keep a distance
when they communicate. Somehow, they do not open their hearts, or they tend to
hesitate at showing their feelings. This fact shows that they communicate with
considering that a person cannot understand them.
