The 2014 [18th] Japan Media Arts Festival Award-Winning Works Exhibition will be held in the Roppongi area from February 4th to 15th. A preview was held at the main venue, the Roppongi Museum of Art, on the 3rd.

The exhibition will showcase award-winning works selected from 3,853 entries in the four categories of Art, Entertainment, Animation, and Manga, works recommended by the jury, and the achievements of Special Achievement Award recipients. The venue is loosely divided into sections by category, and booths feature a wide variety of exhibits, including models and original artwork used in the production process.

"Sensing Streams—Invisible, Inaudible," a collaboration between Ryuichi Sakamoto and Daito Manabe, winner of the Excellence Award in the Art Category, was created for the Sapporo International Art Festival 2014. The work collects electromagnetic waves of various frequencies emitted by mobile phones and other devices, making them visible and audible through a self-luminous, ultra-high-definition large screen and speakers.

A new Tokyo version will be unveiled for this exhibition, maintaining the same large scale as the Sapporo exhibition. By operating a controller installed in the booth and selecting a frequency band for each district in Tokyo, users can translate ever-changing electromagnetic waves into perceptual information, sometimes appearing as a brilliant swirl of colors, and sometimes as a profound sound. This will provide an opportunity to gain a new perspective on the existence of familiar smart devices, which are essentially made possible by imperceptible electromagnetic waves.

Other award winners in the Entertainment category were "Ingress" by Niantic Labs, an internal venture of Google; "The Wound" by Anna Budanova in the Animation category; and "Five-Colored Boat," a comic adaptation of the novel by Yasumi Tsuhara by Yoko Kondo, in the Manga category.

In addition to the main venue, Cinemart Roppongi and the event bar "Super Deluxe" will host various programs, including screenings of award-winning works, talks, performances, symposiums, workshops, and guided tours.


[Event Information]
2014 [18th] Japan Media Arts Festival Award-winning Works Exhibition
Main Venue: The National Art Center, Tokyo (also held at Cinemart Roppongi and Super Deluxe)
Address: 7-22-2 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo
Period: February 4th to 15th
Hours: 10:00 to 18:00 (until 20:00 on Fridays)
Closed: February 10th
Admission is free