Art × Communication = Open!

Tokyo’s home for art and technology opens its doors a little wider

Gregory Barsamian, Juggler, 1997 Photos Courtesy of NTT InterCommunication Center

In the nearly ten years that NTT’s InterCommunication Center has been open, it’s housed some of the most startling and innovative exhibitions in Tokyo. As the premier site for digital art, it plays the pivotal role in bringing the world’s best media artists to the city. But the past few years have seen its future turn cloudy, as the buzz surrounding it focused not on its work but the possibility of its impending closure.

With the debut of “Art x Communication = Open!” however, all the talk has changed. ICC has reopened with a renewed commitment to its role in the arts, and also in expanding the public’s knowledge of information technology research and its applications. Part of this initiative involves doing away with the admission fee for the galleries and creating a more relaxed and open environment that is available to a broader segment of the population.

To facilitate this aim of openness, the museum is divided into four zones: Archive, Network, Art & Technology and Research & Development—although the sections aren’t as rigidly separated as their titles suggest. The museum also maintains a library of arts and technology journals, and provides access to an anechoic chamber where visitors can take a break from the technology and experience absolute silence. In addition, there is a section devoted to new and emerging artists called “Emergencies,” which, rather than being a reflection on the work, is an invented term that mixes the ideas of agency, urgency and emerging.

Spread throughout the exhibit are playful interactive works like Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau’s A-Volve (1994), which allows visitors to create their own digital marine life and then interact with it in a glowing pool environment. Toshio Iwai’s Marshmallow Scope (2002) and Scott Sona Snibbe’s Boundary Functions (1998) also add a funhouse-like quality to the exhibition.

Other works lean toward the more exploratory, like Japan’s Information Technology Promotion Agency’s Monalisa application and the NTT Cyber Solutions Laboratories’ Air Jet Interface. In Monalisa, visitors’ images are captured and then slowly projected onto the wall. As the figure appears, it can be manipulated by speaking, singing or creating any other noise into a microphone at the center of the room. The Air Jet Interface is a three-dimensional game that uses a wand controller to trigger the release of compressed air.

Christa Sommerer & Laurent Mignonneau, A-Volve, 1994

As before, a group of computers are set up on the second floor to allow for comfortable onsite access to the institution’s substantial archives. New to the “open” ICC, however, is “Hive,” a web database that makes the archive’s video art collection, artist talks, lectures and concerts available all over the world.

ICC is an institution that has always invited experimentation and innovative ideas. In its new form it pushes beyond the image of a leading museum for technology and art, and adds a greater dimension of social interactivity. It is an environment meant to inspire and provoke, as well as entertain. With free access to the exhibition, archives and museum library (not to mention the first floor café), ICC has transformed itself into one of Tokyo’s coolest—and least expensive—hangouts for artists and technology lovers alike.

NTT InterCommunication Center, until July 2007. See exhibition listings (Shinjuku) for details. Hive can be accessed at http://hive.ntticc.or.jp

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