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Project / Bitwise Splitting and Merging of Pixels


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1. Laocoön / 4:00 / 2024
2. The Good Samaritan / 10:00 / 2024



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            このプロジェクトはワンタイム パッドと呼ばれる暗号化技術を使用して、すべての元の画像のバイナリー・データに、乱数によるビットごとの XOR 演算を実行することで、色情報を暗号化しています。 その結果、画像は暗号を解く鍵と暗号との2つのデータに分かれた状態になります。 アーティストの小島健治は、自分の周りの世界は混沌とした情報に満ちていると信じています。 目や耳の感覚器官は、混沌の中から視覚情報や聴覚情報などの特定の要素だけを、フィルターのように抽出して世界を構築します。 私たちはまるで暗号を解読するかのように、感覚器官の「鍵」を使って世界を構築します。しかしこれは科学的な手法を使ったアートのメタファーで、実践的な科学ではありません。
            このプロジェクトは、フランスのポスト印象派の画家ジョルジュ・スーラからインスピレーションを得ました。 スーラは、人間の目で色の要素を混ぜることによって作り出される、色について考察しました。 各色には、赤、緑、青の光の情報が含まれています。 混沌とした色のモザイクは、キーに一致する乱数を使用してデコードされ、元の画像になります。 アーティストの小島は、カオスから得られる視覚情報には聴覚情報も混じっていると考えているので、画像データの音楽変換も試みました。さらに、デジタルアートの最大の特徴は、本物のアート・ワークを無制限に複製できることです。 本物のアート作品が無制限にコピーされれば、その金銭的価値は消滅してしまいます。 彼は資本主義に埋め込まれたアートの異常な金融商品化した状況を解消し、アートに別の意味を与えようとしています。 金銭的価値がなくなってもアートに意味があれば、鑑賞者とのつながりが復活できると考えています。

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            The artist Kenji Kojima believes that the world around him is full of chaotic information. The sensory organs construct the world by extracting only certain components from the chaos, such as visual and auditory information, like a filter. So we construct our world with the "key" of the sensory organs as if we were deciphering a code. These are metaphors for art constructed with scientific methods, not practical science.
            The "Bitwise Splitting and Merging of Pixels" project began with the question, "With the development of generative AI, can we create art that is not an assemblage of past data?". Currently, all media is recorded in binary form. The project uses a cryptographic technique called a one-time pad to encrypt color information by performing a bitwise XOR operation with random numbers on all of the original image data. In other words, it can be said to be separated into two pieces of data: the key to breaking the code and the code.
            This project was inspired by the French Post-Impressionist painter Georges Seurat. Seurat showed how the human eye creates color by mixing elements of color. Each color contains red, green, and blue information. The chaotic mosaic of colors is decoded using random numbers that match the key and become the original image. The artist Kojima believes that the visual information obtained from the chaos is also mixed with auditory information. He tried to convert the data into music. Furthermore, the greatest feature of digital art is that it allows unlimited reproduction of real works of art. If a real work of art were to be copied indefinitely, its monetary value would disappear. He is trying to eliminate the abnormal financial situation of art, which is embedded in capitalism, and give it a different meaning. If art had meaning even after its monetary value disappeared, it would revive the connection with the viewer.


Show: Kenji Kojima's Biography
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            Kenji Kojima was born in Japan. He moved to New York in 1980 and began his artistic career in 1980. For the first 10 years in New York City, he painted contemporary egg tempera paintings using medieval art materials and techniques. He was strongly attracted to contemporary art, but he felt stuck in the future of modern civilization and under capitalistic art. He tried to experience the history of the creation of the European concept of art through actual materials and techniques, that is, the history of art that is not written in literature. He was particularly interested in the basic materials of painting, such as ground, pigment, and medium, rather than the visual theme. He noticed in the history of art that as society and people's minds changed, materials developed and visual art changed. His egg tempera paintings have been collected by Citibank, Hess Oil, and others.
            The personal computer improved rapidly during the 1980s. He felt more comfortable with computer art than paintings. Ecologically, he felt guilty about wasting materials in the name of art. Working on the computer was clean, did not waste material, and made him feel lighter. In the early 1990s, he moved his artwork into the digital arts. He was particularly interested in developing interactive artworks. He studied computer programming himself. His early digital works were archived at the New Museum - Rhizome, New York. In 2007, he developed the computer software "RGB MusicLab" and created an interdisciplinary artwork that explores the relationship between images and music. He developed interactive software for his art but soon ran into a big problem: the software would not run on the new operating systems. He converted the artwork to video while the software ran on the operating system. He also started making videos and was interested in ecological art themes. He programmed the software "Luce" for the project "Techno Synesthesia" in 2014. His digital art series has been shown at media art festivals around the world, including Europe1, Brazil2, the Middle East3, Asia4, and the USA, including solo exhibitions in New York City5.
            After Covid-19, he could not go out to shoot a video. He found many archival artworks on the net. In 2021 he started the new series "The Musical Interpretation of Paintings", which creates music from classical image data such as paintings, photographs, and films. The project "Bitwise Splitting and Merging of Pixels" manipulates color pixels by bitwise operation. Generative AI has been greatly improved in 2023. He is considering using Music Generative AI. Kenji Kojima Resume



Digital Art Exhibitions:
the USA: 2024 the New Media Art Space at Baruch College, New York. / 2024 All Street, New York / 2023, 2020 Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, USA. / 2023 THE ELASTIC MIND, BROWARD College, Weston, Florida. / 2023 SOJOURNER, New York, NY. / 2022 Asian American International Film Festival, New York, NY. / 2012, 2016 Light Year, Brooklyn, New York. / 2021 UNCG International Sustainability Shorts Film Competition, UNC Greensboro, NC, USA. / 2019 The Harold B. Lemmerman Gallery, New jersey City University, Jersey City, NJ. / 2019, 2016, 2015 Williamsburg Art & Historical Center, New York, NY. / 2018 The Exchange, Bloomsburg, PA. 2018 WhiteBox, New York, NY. / 2015 ACM SIGGRAPH Digital Arts Community. / 2014 MediaNoche, New York, NY. / 2008 AC Institute, New York, NY.
Europe: 2024 Summer of Anthropocene, The New Museum of Networked Art, Cologne, Germany / 2024 DIGITAL VIDEO ART INTERNATIONAL STREAMING FESTIVAL 'The films of the Official Selection 2024', Vienna, Austria / 2024 Technocene Berlin Templehof, Germany. / 2024 Open Media Art, Košice, Slovakia / 2024, 2023, 2022, 2020, 2019 Ie Rencontres Internationales Traverse, Toulouse, France. / 2021 FEX comtemporary media art, Cologne, Germany. / 2020 Institut für Alles Mögliche, Stützpunkt Teufelsberg, Belrin, Germany. / 2019 The festival BINNAR, Vila Nova de Famalicão, Portugal. / 2019 MADATAC X New Media Arts Festival, Madrid, Spain. / 2018 Athens Digital Arts Festival, Athen, Greece. / 2018 Mitte Media Festival, Berlin, Germany. / 2017 Simultan Festival, Timisoara, Romania. / 2016 Simultan Festival, Timisoara, Romania. / 2016 Brave New World Beyond the Wall, Berlin, Germany. / 2015, 2013 ESPACIO ENTER, Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain. / 2014 BRAVE NEW WORLD, Berlin, Germany. / 2011 Jyväskylä Art Museum, Jyväskylä, Finland. / 2010 PROCESS Festival, Berlin, Germany. / 2009 RE-NEW Digital Art Festival, Copenhagen, Denmark. / 2002 Free Manifest, Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Brazil: 2023, 2022, 2020, 2016, 2012, 2011, 2010 FILE (Electronic Language International Festival) São Paulo, Brazil. / 2012 FILE RIO, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. / 2010 FAD (Festival de Arte Digital), Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
the Middle East: 2020, 2012 Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum, Turkey. / 2020, 2019 Paadmaan Video Event, Isfahan, Iran.
Asia: 2021 Thailand New Music and Arts Symposium, Bangkok, Thailand. / 2020 the 150th Anniversary Gandhi Event, Kolkata, India. / 2019 Capital Normal University College of Cape Cod, Beijing, China & China University of Mining and Technology Yinchuan College, Yinchuan, China. / 2018 Gunung Sunda Festival, Sukabumi, West Java, Indonesia. / 2016 CeC 2016, North-Eastern Hill University, Shillong, Meghalaya, India. / 2010 Contemporary International New Media Art Invitational, Wuhan University of Technology, China.

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