MASAKI FUJIHATA – LIBERATE TECHNOLOGY FROM CAPITALISM!
UCLA REGENTS PROFESSOR 2020
January 21, 2020, 6:00 pm

Our daily lives are surrounded by new media technology, which rationalizes our schedules, smooths out our communications with others, and speeds up business. Thank you, new technology! However: there is another side. We all are working like slaves for the capitalists to make things cheaper and faster. Less thinking – it is easy to click the button.

I believe that technology is something more than that. There are hidden domains that cannot be used to serve capitalists, but may stimulate the mind and raise new questions about our lives. There is room for philosophical depth in the work with new media. I am curious to discover these hidden aspects looming inside new technology. Most of my artworks have been developed along this line of thinking. I have tried put things on the table; to make them visible, touchable, and audible; to make it possible to interact as a form of art.

Masaki Fujihata is DMA’s Regents Professor 2019-20. He is one of the most renowned all Japanese media artists, known worldwide as a pioneer of using 3D printing, GPS, augmented and virtual reality, as well as geolocative media as possibilities for artmaking.