With the first edition of “School of the Future”, the Ars Electronica Futurelab brings discussions about technology, society and art right into the heart of Tokyo. The event, which takes place in the Tokyo Midtown urban complex, includes an exhibition, discussions, lectures and workshops on future issues and their potential development.
Questions on the effects of new technologies on society will be examined collaboratively with visitors, and methods of how societies influence new technologies will be explored.
What should a school of the future teach? What should pupils of the future learn? With “School of the Future”, the Ars Electronica Futurelab seeks to encourage students to deal with groundbreaking topics that are not represented in normative classrooms. “Out of Control” Vol. 1 of the pop-up format, was devoted to the global information society and the constantly growing and accelerating flow of data and its information content.
Street Ghosts by Paul Cirio photo: Tokyo Midtown
Asemic Languages by So Kanno and Takahiro Yamaguchi photo: Tokyo Midtown
Artist Paul Cirio draws attention to the handling of internet privacy by printing people from Google Street View images and showing them, life-size, at their original locations. Street Ghosts raises biopolitical, economic and legal questions about privacy and copyright, and uses simple, analogous means to bring these issues to the general public. As part of the “Out of Control” exhibition, Cirio´s work stimulated numerous discussions, especially in situations in which passers-by met their own spirits.
So Kanno and Takahiro Yamaguchi’s “Asemic Languages” project focuses on information carriers and their forms. The artists fed an artificial neural network with manuscripts by international artists in ten different language, to have it develop the image of their own manuscript. The combination of the different sign systems and individual expressions resulted in sign forms without meaning. The work practices writing without literal meaning.
Read more about School of the Future in the interview with Kyoko Kunoh and Hideaki Ogawa of Ars Electronica Futurelab on the Ars Electronica Blog.
Credits
Ars Electronica Futurelab: Kyoko Kunoh, Emiko Ogawa, Hideaki Ogawa
Exhibition Artists: Paolo Cirio, yang02 + KANNO So
Collaboration with Tokyo Midtown