Lab Members

Stelarc

http://stelarc.org/_.php   

Stelarc is an Australian performance artist, who has lived in Japan for 19 years. His projects and performances explore alternate anatomical architectures, interrogating issues of embodiment, agency, identity and the post-human. Stelarc’s works incorporate Prosthetics, Robotics, Medical Imaging and Biotechnology. 

Between 1973-1975 he made 3 films of the inside of his body. Between 1976-1988 he completed 27 body suspensions with insertions into his skin. He has performed with a Third Hand, a Stomach Sculpture and Exoskeleton, a 6-legged walking robot.  Fractal Flesh, Ping Body and Parasite are internet performances that explore remote and involuntary choreography via a muscle stimulation system. He is surgically constructing and stem-cell growing an ear on his arm that will be electronically augmented and internet enabled. For the 2020 Adelaide Biennial of Australian Art he exhibited and performed with a 9m long 4m high Reclining StickMan robot with online interactivity. His recent projects and performances in 2022 include Anthropomorphic Machine, Melbourne, Human / Code Ensemble, Yokohama and StickMan / miniStickMan, Melbourne. In 2023,  Corporeal Counterpoint at Keio Media Design, Yokohama,  Sculpting Sound, Krakow, and in 2024,  “KYOSHIN” Sonic Resonance at CCBT, Shibuya, Tokyo, followed by the UNESCO Creative Cities of Media Art Global Forum “공진”,G.MAP, Gwangju, South Korea.

 

1996 Honorary Professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, USA. 

2002 Honorary Doctor of Laws by Monash University, Melbourne, Australia. 

2010 Golden Nika, Ars Electronica Hybrid Arts Prize, Linz, Austria. 

2015 Australia Council Emerging and Experimental Arts Award, Sydney, Australia.  

2016 Honorary Doctorate from the Ionian University, Corfu. 

2013-2018, Stelarc was a Distinguished Research Fellow, Curtin University, Perth, Australia.

Curator: Anna Davis (Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art Australia)

https://www.mca.com.au/about-us/who-we-are/curators/

Anna Davis is a curator and researcher of contemporary art with over 20 years’ experience. As Curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art Australia, she is a leading advocate for the arts, shaping and presenting the museum’s artistic program, developing exhibitions and commissions, and contributing to the growth and display of its permanent collection. Anna has led major exhibition projects and commissions with artists including Tarek Atoui, Zheng Bo, Daniel Boyd, Yuko Mohri, Marguerite Humeau, Moon Kyungwon & Joonho Jeon, Patricia Piccinini, Stelarc and Lu Yang. Her exhibitions have been presented at institutions such as the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art (MMCA) Korea, Christchurch Art Gallery Te Puna o Waiwhetū, Aotearoa New Zealand, The Art Gallery of New South Wales, Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts (PICA), and TarraWarra Museum of Art, Victoria.

Anna’s research focuses on the intersections of art, technology, and future ecologies, encouraging critical thinking around these connections. Her curatorial practice emphasises creating new platforms for artists to present experimental work and fostering interdisciplinary dialogue with diverse audiences. In 2022, she was one of five co-curators of rīvus: the 23rd Biennale of Sydney, which highlighted non-human perspectives through a series of conceptual wetlands across the city. In 2015/16, she co-curated New Romance: Art and the Posthuman and was co-director of Energies in the Arts, a multidisciplinary research project presented in conjunction with her award-winning exhibition, Energies: Haines & Hinterding.

Anna holds a PhD in Media Arts from the University of New South Wales and is a frequent presenter on contemporary art. Her writing contributes significantly to the field, and she has edited and authored numerous exhibition catalogues and artist monographs, including Jenny Watson: The Fabric of Fantasy (2017), Claire Healy & Sean Cordeiro (2012), Sun Xun (2018), and most recently, Nicholas Mangan: A World Undone (2024), co-edited with Anneke Jaspers and published by MCA Australia and Lenz Press, Milan.

Daito Manabe (Rhizomatiks)    *Artist Collaborator with Stelarc

https://daito.ws/en/about/   

https://rhizomatiks.com/en/

Artist / Programmer / Composer

Born in Tokyo in 1976, Daito Manabe grew up immersed in music and programming under musician parents. After experiences as a DJ and jazz band member, while studying at Tokyo University of Science, he was influenced by Xenakis and began researching mathematical approaches to music generation, which became the foundation for his later creative work.

In 2006, he founded Rhizomatiks, exploring the fusion of technology and physical expression through collaborations with Perfume and ELEVENPLAY alongside director/choreographer MIKIKO, leading to innovative projects including AR direction for the Rio Olympics closing ceremony. He has collaborated with numerous artists including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Björk,  Nosaj Thing, Squarepusher and Arca, with his distinctive Audio Visual performances presented at international festivals worldwide, including Sonar Barcelona. Recently, through collaboration with neuroscientists, he creates works merging life and machinery using biofeedback systems with cultured neural cells. Currently heading Studio Daito Manabe, he pursues expressions that cross art, technology, and science.

Masahiko Inami  (Tokyo University)

Special Advisor to the President for The University of Tokyo, Deputy Director / Professor for Advanced Science and Technology

https://www.rcast.u-tokyo.ac.jp/en/research/people/staff-inami_masahiko.html

https://www.jst.go.jp/erato/inami/en/member.html

 

Dr. Masahiko Inami took up his current position as professor at the University of Tokyo after working at the University of Electro-Communications and Keio University.

His interests include “JIZAI body editing technology,” the Augmented Human, and entertainment engineering.

He has received several awards, including TIME Magazine’s “Coolest Invention of the Year” award and the Young Scientist Award and Research Category Award from the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology (MEXT). 

He is also a director of the Information Processing Society of Japan and a member of the Science Council of Japan.

His latest book is called “Theory of JIZAI Body” (Springer, 2023).

Artist / Researcher / Curator: Oron Catts  ( Institute of Advanced Studies, University of Western Australia)

https://research-repository.uwa.edu.au/en/persons/oron-catts

 

He is the Director of The University of Western Australia’s Institute of Advanced Studies. He Co-founded and directed SymbioticA, a biological art research center at UWA (2000-2024), now an independent lab. In 1996 he launched the Tissue Culture and Art Project which is considered a leading biological art project.He is a Visiting Professor in the Visual Identities in Art and Design Research Centre, University of Johannesburg. Catts was a Research Fellow in Harvard Medical School, a visiting Scholar at the Department of Art and Art History Stanford University, a Professor at Large in Contestable Design at the Royal College of Arts, London. Catts curated more than a dozen exhibitions, developed numerous artistic projects and performances. His work was exhibited and collected by museums such as Pompidou Centre, MoMA NY, Mori Art Museum, Ars Electronica, National Art Museum of China and more. His research was covered by The NY Times, Washington Post, Wired, Time, Newsweek, Nature, Science, and other TV, radio, print and online media.

Researcher: Kouta Minamizawa  (Keio University)

Professor, Keio University Graduate School of Media Design (KMD)

Project Manager, Project Cybernetic being, JST Moonshot R&D Program

KMD Embodied Media Project  https://www.embodiedmedia.org

JST Moonshot | Project Cybernetic being  https://cybernetic-being.org

Haptic Design Project   http://hapticdesign.org

After receiving his PhD. in Information Science and Technology from the University of Tokyo in 2010, he joined KMD and directs KMD Embodied Media Project, where conducts research and social deployment of embodied media that transfer, enhance, and create human experiences with digital technologies. His research expertise includes Haptics,  Embodied Interaction, Virtual Reality, and Telexistence. He also promotes activities on Haptic design as well as serves as a project manager of the Cybernetic being project under the Japan government’s Moonshot R&D program.

Researcher: Kai Kunze (Keio University)

Professor at the Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University

Research : Human Computer Interaction , Augmented Human, Wearable Computing

https://www.kmd.keio.ac.jp/faculty/kai-kunze

Kai Kunze works as Professor at the Graduate School of Media Design, Keio University, Yokohama, Japan where he directs an interdisciplinary research group “Geist”, focusing on Augmented Humans and applied Wearable Computing research. Previously, he held an Assistant Professorship at Osaka Prefecture University, Japan. He received his Ph.D. from Passau University, Germany. His research is centered on the exploration and development of technology tool sets designed to augment human capabilities and overcome our physical and cognitive limitations. His most significant research contributions are in placement-robust activity recognition. His work experience includes research visits at the Palo Alto Research Center.

Hiroshi Ishiguro (Osaka University)

Professor of Department of Systems Innovation, Osaka University

Visiting Director of ATR Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories

https://www.irl.sys.es.osaka-u.ac.jp/

Hiroshi Ishiguro received a Ph. D. from Osaka University, Japan in 1991. He is currently Professor of Department of Systems Innovation at Osaka University, Visiting Director of Hiroshi Ishiguro Laboratories at the Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute (ATR), Project Manager of MOONSHOT R&D Project, Thematic Project Producer of EXPO 2025 Osaka, Kansai, Japan, and CEO of AVITA, Inc. His research interests are interactive robotics, avatar, and android science. Geminoid is an avatar android that is a copy of himself. In 2011, he won the Osaka Cultural Award. In 2015, he received the Prize for Science and Technology by the Minister of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology. He was also awarded the Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum Knowledge Award in Dubai in 2015. Tateisi Award in 2020, and honorary doctorate of Aarhus university in 2021.

Researcher: Hideo Iwassaki (Waseda University)

Director of metaPhorest (bioaesthetics platform), Professor, Waseda University

metaPhorest: https://metaphorest.org/en/about/

Biologist and artist. Director of metaPhorest (bioaesthetics platform), Professor, Waseda University. He is interested in the complicated relationship among scientific, philosophical, cultural, historical and aesthetic views of life. In 2007 he founded metaPhorest, an interdisciplinary art/science platform, where both artists and biologists share space for science and art simultaneously. He has also studied molecular microbiology and chronobiology, and is a co-founder of the Japanese synthetic biology society (Japanese Society for Cell Synthesis Research). He has received the Excellent Award of the Japan Media Art Festival, Research Awards from Japanese Chronobiology Society and Japanese Society for Microbial Genomics, etc.

Researcher : Tomoko Shimizu ( Tokyo University of the Arts )

Professor at  the Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts

https://www.shimizu.geidai.ac.jp/about

Professor at the Graduate School of Global Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts. Her areas of specialization include cultural theory and media studies. Focusing on the intersections of art and technology, her research engages with themes such as animal, gender, the body, and posthumanism. She holds a Ph.D. in Literature from the Doctoral Program in Literature and Linguistics at the University of Tsukuba. She previously held teaching and research positions at Yamanashi University and the University of Tsukuba, and served as a visiting scholar at the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, Harvard University (Fulbright Fellow), and at Freie Universität Berlin. She is the author of Bunka to Bouryoku (Culture and Violence: The Unravelling Union Jack) Getsuyosha 2013, and Dizuni to Doubutsu (Disney and Animals: Breaking the Spell of Magic Kingdom) Chikuma Shobo 2021. Her co-translation works include: Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly by Judith Butler, Declaration by Antonio Negri and Michael Hart, and Surveillance after September 11 by David Lyon.

Naohiro Ukawa (Founder of DOMMUNE )

https://www.dommune.com/

Curator:  Leonhard Bartolomeus ( YCAM Curator , Ruangrupa Curator)

https://performingarts.jpf.go.jp/en/article/6821/

Curator of Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM)
Based in Indonesia’s capital of Jakarta is the artistic collective “ruangrupa” that engages in a wide range of community-centric activities, from organizing exhibitions and festivals, producing radio broadcasts and engaging in online publishing, surveys, research and more (including serving as artistic directors for documenta 15 in 2022). As of 2019, a member of the collective, Leonhard Bartolomeus, has joined the curator team of the Yamaguchi Center for Arts and Media (YCAM), an organization known for its progressive explorations of forms of expression utilizing media technology.

 

Curator : Bob Edrian (Independent Curator / Writer)

https://www.bobedrian.com/about/

 

Bob Edrian is an independent art curator and writer based in Jakarta, Indonesia. His research focuses on the development of media art and sound practices in the arts. His curatorial projects include 5 Seniman | Suara | Ruang (2013), Bandung New Emergence Vol. 6: Listen! (2016), Intomedia (2017), Soemardja Sound Art Project (2018), International Media Art Festival Instrumenta (2018-2019), Pancaran Citra Lokal (2020), Universal Iteration (2021-2023), and Festival Komunitas Seni Media (2024). Bob was awarded the SSAS Curatorial Research Grant 2016 funded by Selasar Sunaryo Art Space and Sidharta Aboejono Martoredjo (SAM) Fund for Arts and Ecology. He was also selected as a participant in Kelas Penulisan dan Kuratorial Seni Rupa by Jakarta Arts Council and Ruangrupa Jakarta (2016), Para Site Workshops for Emerging Art Professionals in Hong Kong (2018), and CULTIVATE: Professional Development for Curators and Art Managers by in-tangible institute in Bangkok (2024).

*His curated exhibition related to Stelarc  https://www.nowjakarta.co.id/instrumenta-2-machine-magic-showcases-intersection-between-arts-and-science-fiction