AGxKANSAI 2022 Art and Philosophy in the 22nd Century After ARAKAWA+GINS

Date: March 11–15, 2022 Venue: Kyoto University of the Arts, Kyoto, Japan
(on-site and online)

Greeting

Join

* Conference registration is closed.

Introduction

Having suffered much pain and endured much hardship during the COVID-19 crisis, now at the end of 2021, we humankind are slowly beginning the process toward regaining what we are forced to abandon. However, as many insist, we won't come back to the same world we used to live in, thus new values and life styles are needed. The contemporary artist Shusaku Arakawa and the poet Madeline Gins, from the 1990s onward, sought the creation of a new "environment" in which the senses of our living bodies are transformed. Based on this new sense of the body and on a critique of existing values, they sought to envision a truly livable society. The art and philosophy of Arakawa and Gins, therefore, provides valuable clues in a search for a new way of life required in the post-COVID-19 era.

Who are we and where are we going?—"puzzle creatures to ourselves, we are visitations of inexplicability." Arakawa and Gins posed these questions via multiple modes in the most profound manner, proposing concrete (albeit tentative) visions for the coming century. Recall that Arakawa always urged us: "do it, now!" Need we be reminded that the 22nd century is coming soon, now!

Embracing this spirit, AGxKANSAI 2022: Art and Philosophy in the 22nd Century After ARAKAWA+GINS, an international conference, is organized jointly by Studies of the Architectural Body Research Group at the Institute of Oriental and Occidental Studies, Kansai University and Kyoto University of the Art.

Since 2016, the Studies of the Architectural Body Research Group at the Institute of Oriental and Occidental Studies, Kansai University have promoted transdisciplinary research projects on Arakawa and Gins. Building on the issues and themes explored at previous Arakawa and Gins conferences (AG1: University of Paris X, 2005; AG2: University of Pennsylvania/Slought Foundation, 2008: and AG3 Online/Columbia University/Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, 2010), AGxKANSAI 2022 will explore the shape of art and philosophy toward/in the 22nd century through lectures, dialogues, presentations, exhibitions, and performances. "After ARAKAWA+GINS" at once signifies our desire to follow after their future-forward vision even after their untimely demise.

Video

Takashi Ikegami and Yasuo Kobayashi, "Metaverse: A Bridge to the 22nd Century"


Don Byrd, Alan Prohm and Jondi Keane, "Another Kind of Knowing"

Introduction

* with Japanese subtitle

Don Byrd, "A Radical Reordering (of, well, Everything): Notes toward a Book to be entitled, 'Another Way of Knowing'"

* with Japanese subtitle

Alan Prohm, "On Procedural Architecture and Efficacy in the Work of Arakawa and Gins"

* with Japanese subtitle

Jondi Keane, "How-to Know-how: The Taskings and Askings of Arakawa and Gins towards the Realisation of Living"

* with Japanese subtitle


Reversible Destiny Foundation, "Unfinished Business of the Unfinished"

* with Japanese subtitle


Arakawa + Gins Tokyo Office, "Reassembling Arakawa and Madeline Gins through Archival Research"

* with English subtitle


Virtual Tour of the On-Site Exhibition in English

Virtual Tour of the On-Site Exhibition in Japanese


AGxKANSAI 2022 photo album

Program: March 11–15, 2022

All the sessions (on-site and online) will be held live and connected online via Zoom, except for the pre-recorded talks and presentations. We will provide the recorded videos of all the sessions via the conference website during the conference term. You need to register for the conference to watch the videos on the website.

* Admission is free of charge, with pre-registration required.
* All the times in the program are in Japan Standard Time (JST; GMT+9)
* E and J in parenthesis within the program denote the following:
  (E): English session
  (J): Japanese session
  (E/J): English session with Japanese translation
  (J/E): Japanese session with English translation
* The details of the program are subject to change without notice.

DAY 1Friday, March 11

10:30 - 10:40
10:40 - 12:40
14:10 - 15:00
On-Site Paper Session 1 (E) Haruhiko Murakawa, "To Not Die"
Kei Hirakura, "Diagramming Ghosts: The Use of Movements-Images-Words in the Film For Example by Arakawa and Gins"
(E)
15:30 - 16:50

DAY 2Saturday, March 12

10:00 - 11:30
Online Roundtable (E/J)
Unfinished Business of the Unfinished
Reversible Destiny Foundation (Kathryn Dennett, Amara Magloughlin, ST Luk, Miwako Tezuka and Reiko Tomii) (E/J)
11:35 - 12:50
On-Site Roundtable (J/E)
Reassembling Arakawa and Madeline Gins through Archival Research
Arakawa + Gins Tokyo Office (Takeyoshi Matsuda, Haruka Seno, Haruka Kawaguchi and Momoyo Homma) (J/E)
14:30 - 15:40
On-Site Paper Session 2 (E) Masayoshi Someya, "A Long Way to the Reversible Destiny: Some Suggestions from the Ecological Perspective"
Satoshi Inagaki, "Against the Fear of Death: Arakawa’s Quest for Immortality and Benatar’s Anti-Natalism"
Hiroki Komuro, "'New Sensory Gravity' and the Mechanism of Losing Balance"
(E)
17:15 - 18:00

DAY 3Sunday, March 13

10:00 - 10:50
Q&A Session of Pre-Recorded Papers 1 (E) Ignacio Adriasola, "'Of No Use to Me…': On Desire and Negation in a Diagram"
Russell Hughes, "Puzzle Features: The DAO of A/G"
Kumon Tokumaru, "Beyond the Restrictions of Spinal Sign Reflex for Human Intelligence"
(E)
14:00 - 15:30
Roundtable with Pre-Recorded Talks (E/J)
Another Kind of Knowing
Don Byrd, "A Radical Reordering (of, well, Everything): Notes toward a Book to be entitled, 'Another Way of Knowing'"
Alan Prohm, "On Procedural Architecture and Efficacy in the Work of Arakawa and Gins"
Jondi Keane, "How-to Know-how: The Taskings and Askings of Arakawa and Gins towards the Realisation of Living”
(E/J)
17:00 - 17:40
Q&A Session of Pre-Recorded Papers 2 (E) Adi Louria Hayon, "Muddy Minds: On Arakawa and Smithson's Probable Perceptions"
Jiajia Qi, "No Where, Now Here"
(E)

Day 4Monday, March 14

13:00 - 14:50
On-Site Paper Session and Q&A Session of Pre-Recorded Papers (J) Takashi Sekiya, "From Mishima Yukio to Arakawa Shusaku, and from Arakawa Shusaku to Mishima Yukio" (On-Site)
Tomoaki Tateishi, "Cordinologist as DIY (Various "Procedural Architecture" Cases and a Request for Procedure Practice)" (On-Site)
Takuma Kuragaki, "The Mechanism of Not to Die" (Pre-Recorded)
Chihiro Ito, "Arakawa's Paintings and my Paintings in Contemporary America: My Works in Homage to Arakawa" (Pre-Recorded)
(J)
15:00 - 16:00
Q&A Session for the On-Site Paper Session 1&2 (E) Haruhiko Murakawa, Kei Hirakura, Masayoshi Someya, Satoshi Inagaki, and Hiroki Komuro (E)
17:00 - 17:50
Q&A Session of Pre-Recorded Papers 3 (E) Rafael Ortiz Martínez de Carnero "Towards an Active Space Experience: The Architecture of Arakawa and Gins as an alternative to our Contemporary Spatial Experience"
Anouk Hoogendoorn, Matisse Apsimon-Megens and Benjamin Muñoz, "RollingUnrolling: Landing Sites as Propositions for Digital Collective Spaces"
Ellen Vanderstraeten, "Whisper me Singing"
(E)

DAY 5Tuesday, March 15

About us

Arakawa and Madeline Gins in the 22nd Century: The Body and the Experience in the Reversible Destiny Mode
Arakawa and Madeline Gins in the 22nd Century: The Body and the Experience in the Reversible Destiny Mode

AGxKANSAI 2022 is jointly organized by the Studies of the Architectural Body Research Group (SABRG) at the Institute of Oriental and Occidental Studies, Kansai University and the Department of Environmental Design, Kyoto University of the Arts, with the cooperation of the Department of Performing Arts and the Graduate School of Environmental Design, Kyoto University of the Arts, the Arakawa+Gins Tokyo Office, and the Reversible Destiny Foundation. SABRG, directed by Naohiko Mimura (Kansai University), has promoted transdisciplinary research projects on Arakawa and Gins since 2016, and published the co-authored book Arakawa and Madeline Gins in the 22nd Century: The Body and the Experience in the Reversible Destiny Mode (in Japanese; co-edited by Naohiko Mimura and Takeshi Kadobayashi, Film Art, 2019) as well as numerous articles on Arakawa and Gins.

Arakawa and Madeline Gins in the 22nd Century: The Body and the Experience in the Reversible Destiny Mode
Arakawa and Madeline Gins in the 22nd Century: The Body and the Experience in the Reversible Destiny Mode

Contact

Studies of the Architectural Body Research Group
Institute of Oriental and Occidental Studies, Kansai University
Yamatecho 3-3-35, Suita, Osaka 564-8680, Japan
mail: agx.kansai2022[at]gmail.com

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