International Workshop at Harvard University
Redefining Access:
Japanese Materials, the Archive and Research in the New Media Ecology
Date: September 5, 2015, 14:00 - 17:30
Location: Harvard University, CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge St. Kang Room S050, Japan Friends of Harvard Concourse
Presenters:
UESAKI Sen (Keio Art Center)
HIRASAWA Go (Meiji Gakuin University)
Ann Adachi (Collaborative Cataloging Japan)
Organized by: Alexander Zahlten, EALC, Harvard University
Sponsored by: Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University
Large parts of the rich history of Japanese film and experimental arts are still inaccessible or in troubling condition. What possibilities and challenges do new media offer for improving this situation?
This workshop invites three well-known practitioner-theorists to discuss their respective projects and challenges in collecting, archiving and circulating works from the rich media history of Japan.
Current technological possibilities redefine what access to media means and how we engage with materials – changing the very definition of access itself. This fundamentally changes how we do research, how we preserve materials and bring them into circulation not just for specialists but for a broader audience and for a richer understanding of moving image culture in Japan.
WORKSHOP SCHEDULE:
14:00 – 16:00 Presentations
Uesaki Sen (Keio University Art Center)
Sogetsu Art Center Records: Between the Event and the Material Corpus; or, On the Art after the "Obsolescence"
Hirasawa Go (Meiji Gakuin University)
New Directions in Research on Japanese Film: Examples from the Practices
of Excavation, Restoration, Archiving and Screening
Ann Adachi (Collaborative Cataloging Japan)
Overcoming the lack: a historical study and suggested solutions for preserving Japanese experimental moving image
16:15 – 17:30 – Roundtable with presenters (moderator: Alexander Zahlten)
Presenters Bio:
Sen Uesaki is a Japanese theorist and archivist at Keio University Art Center (Tokyo), developing new uses of databases for the archiving of the postwar avant-garde in Japan.
His writing focuses on the interface of the archive, especially in relation to Conceptual Art and postmodern conditions. One of his recent publications, ”A Sedimentation of the Archival Mind" (2013), describes the ephemeral condition of avant-garde art and the challenges it poses to institutions such as museums.
Go Hirasawa is a researcher and curator at Meiji-Gakuin University working on underground and experimental films and avant-garde art movements in 1960s and '70s Japan. His publications include Cultural Theories: 1968 (Tokyo, 2010), Koji Wakamatsu: Cinéaste de la Révolte (Paris, 2010), and Masao Adachi: Le bus de la révolution passera bientot près de chez toi (Paris, 2012). He has organized many film retrospectives internationally, including Koji Wakamatsu and Masao Adachi (Cinematheque Française, 2010) and Art Theater Guild and Japanese Underground Cinema, 1960–1986 (The Museum of Modern Art, New York, 2012).
Ann Adachi is Executive Director of Collaborative Cataloging Japan, an organization that provides archival and media preservation support to institutional and private collections of Japanese experimental moving image works. She has previously worked with the Museum of Modern Art in New York and organized a widely touring program of Japanese and American video art, Vital Signals.