Japanese Device Art….ART with a capital A?

In Machiko Kusahara’s text Device Art: A New Approach in Understanding Japanese Contemporary Media Art, Kusahara introduces the importance of technology in Japanese artistic movements since the war. What I found particularly interesting is that words didn’t really exist in the Japanese language for “art” until the nineteenth century, although Art, most certainly did exist, some of the most well known include the wave woodblock prints of Hokusai.











Hokusai



When I think of Japananese artwork in my field, Metalsmithing, I think of artists who employ organic materials and forms, like the work I saw recently in Germany of Q Hisabashi Shibata or the lovely combinations of fiber and metal of Sayumi Yokouchi. Kushahara points out this could be because the Japanese come into direct contact with so many natural events like typhoons, earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. Japanese artists are very aware of the life and power of the earth around them and show respect for their environment as well as objects or tools they posses that reference the earth.










Q Hisabashi Shibata












Sayumi Yokouchi






Sayumi Yokouchi





Tools are particularly poignant in this essay because of the respect show for them by the Japanese, since they are commonly made from organic materials, and tools are an entry point in understanding how technology has come to be so important in Japanese art. The tea ceremony is a cannocial discussion in Art history classes taught at art schools all over the US and is recognized as a critical extension of Japanese art. Kusahara details a very simple robot or tea carrying automaton that was utilized during the Edo period in Japan, that would deliver a cup of tea when a full cup was set on top of it and when the empty glass was returned to it, it would turn 180 degrees and then return to its initial position. Kushara considers this the precursor to Japanese robots and perhaps an introduction to the Japanese desire to work with technology. I feel like this example is important because it relates to my questions about the level of craftness versus artness in an object simply because it serves a function. Japanese Device Art is struggling to be considered as high art because it serves a function, similar to craft which is also outside of high art, commonly has a function, but begs to be considered high art.




Kusahara claim’s the aim is to bridge the gap between high art, commercial products, design, science and technology by questioning Western notions of high art. As Osthoff utilizes Myron Kruger’s words in his essay of the work of Lygia Clark and Helio Oiticica, “Many Aspects of virtual reality including full-body participation, the idea of shared telecommunication space, multi-sensory feed back, third-person participation, unemcumbered approaches and the data glove, all came from the arts, not the technical community (283).” So if Art has the authority to contribute to the scientific and technological community, why can’t experts in those fields contribute back to the arts and be considered themselves artists? If art is about constantly questioning itself, why does it hold strong to its title and not grant access to what should be clearly considered inclusive?