From The Portapak to The Aniputer: Experimentation and Exchange in Early Japanese Video Art

In February of 1972, the Sony Showroom in Tokyo’s Ginza district hosted “Video Communication: D.I.Y. Kit,” commonly considered the first exhibition of video art in Japan. Organized in part by Canadian artist Michael Goldberg, a founding member of Vancouver’s long-running video art centre VIVO, the interactive event encapsulated several defining elements of early Japanese video art: transnational collaboration, support from adventurous technological corporations, and formal creativity.

Informed by research recently conducted through a Japan Foundation fellowship, this presentation outlines the role of collaboration and experimentation in the first two decades of Japanese video art — particularly the fruitful exchanges of technology, workshops, and artworks between Japan and Canada — as seen through work by Japanese artists and collectives such as Video Earth Tokyo, Video Hiroba, and Keigo Yamamoto, as well as the conceptually connected work of Vancouver-based contemporaries Goldberg, Taki Bluesinger, and more.

• This is an exclusively online event. Prior registration is required. A secure link to the lecture will be sent to the registered email address 24 hours before the start of the event.

Jesse Cumming is a freelance curator, researcher, and writer based in Toronto, Canada. He has curated, co-curated, and presented programs with The Museum of Modern Art, Anthology Film Archives, The Musée des Beaux Arts Montreal, Collectif Jeune Cinéma, Art Toronto, Concordia University, The City of Vancouver Archives, and more. From 2014 to 2016 he contributed to Toronto experimental film and media programming collective Pleasure Dome and from 2016 to 2019 served as a Programming Associate with the Toronto International Film Festival. His writing has appeared in Cinema Scope, The Brooklyn Rail, Hyperallergic, Canadian Art, Prefix Photo, MUBI Notebook, NECSUS Journal, Filmmaker, and more. He presently sits on the steering committee of the Toronto Film & Media Seminar and is a founding collective member of MICE Magazine, a web and print publication dedicated to Moving Image Culture, Etc. In 2016 he established Vertical Features, a screening series dedicated to experimental non-fiction film and video.