From the Avant-Garde: Re-Conceptualizing Cultural Origins in the Digital Media Art of Japan

Misconceptions concerning digital artists in Japan make them out to be mere followers, savvy with technology but not necessarily the conceptual originators of their work. Examining the aesthetic and philosophical content of their work, however, reveals that their attitudes toward the exploration of process, performance and the inherent nature of materials come from innovative and daring avant-garde groups of the 1960s and 1970s in Japan, including the Gutai and Mono-ha groups, whose ideas predate those of the New York avantgarde schools, even outside of the technological milieu.