# MEDIA is a monthly routine aiming to shift more focus to our mission: creating an alternative to traditional media where creatives are in full control of their narratives. We explore opinions, experiences and wishes that other media outlets will keep unheard.
THE CREATIVE
Profession:
Artist
Location:
Los Angeles
Introduction:
I'm Ibuki Kuramochi, a Japanese-born interdisciplinary artist. Immersed in Butoh dance since 2016, my fusion of performance art, video, and digital paintings delves into the poetic physicality of Butoh, eroticism, human anatomy, and post-human feminism.
Context:
My art has graced global exhibitions in cities like New York, Los Angeles, Tokyo, Paris, Sydney, Taipei, and Rome. Since 2016, I've immersed myself in the art of Butoh dance under the guidance of Yoshito Ohno at the Kazuo Ohno Butoh Dance Studio. In 2019, I had the honor of being featured as the Artist of the Year on the front cover of LA WEEKLY's special issue "PEOPLE 2019." Recent highlights include exhibitions at the Torrance Art Museum, New York Hall of Science, NFT MUSEUM, and the Craiova Art Museum in Romania. I've also shared insights through artist lectures at Tokyo's art colleges and the NY Film Academy.
THE ROUTINE
Is the current media landscape harmful?
Regardless of the present, the media has always been a powerful force in influencing people. It has been used for political and commercial purposes. Today, individuals can have their own personal media, transitioning from passive consumers to active transmitters. The stark contrast from the days of old media lies in the volume and speed of information. Sometimes, I feel as if my brain is being crushed by the overwhelming influx of information.
We are particularly immersed in video media on a daily basis. Our attention spans for images are dwindling, influenced by the constant bombardment of visual media, akin to the fast fashion that floods our daily lives.
As an artist working with media, I believe we are now challenged to decide what kind of works to create in this chaotic media environment, considering phenomena such as AI and deep fakes.
I create video art through a classical process similar to oil painting in the case of painting. I film and edit my own body and performance.
In a media environment full of political propaganda and capitalism, our role as artists is to use the medium of media and how much we can cultivate the thought of art in the medium.
Questioning the power of media:
I have a lot of basic questions about advertising, especially in the media. I think those are the best tools to gradually brainwash us on a daily basis.
My home country, Japan, is a developed country, but even among these countries, its gender gap index is the lowest in the G7 and 125th out of 146 countries, the lowest among East Asian countries. Despite its economic development, it is certainly one of the countries where feminism is least prevalent. Many of the advertisements we see in Japan are filled with contempt for women and sexism. The female representation presented through the medium of advertising forces us women to be submissive, without opinion or will, beautiful, and physicality taken in by youthful sexual exploitation.
In my work, I use my own female body to explore the themes of the uterus, ovulation, and the digital deconstruction of the body to re-examine questions of sexuality and gender. I have a particularly strong attachment to ovulation. In my video art Matrix, created in 2022, I examined the difference between the uterus and ovulation, between internalization and circulation.
Donna Haraway's Cyborg Manifesto and Rosi Braidotti's Post-human Feminism are favorite reads. I would like to continue to create artwork with critical reflection on women and the body.
One aspect that the media should do differently:
The insanity of social networking anonymity. The internet is filled with lies, hate, and abusive language.
This is only an act that can be done because it is anonymous and is the result of the loss of physicality.
It is so because one's body, one's responsibility, one's body is not involved.
There is no end to the number of cases in which many people have taken their lives as a result of online slander. In Japan, there were 21,881 suicides in 2022. Among them, the number of people who died as a result of slander is increasing every year.
Can you say the word "die" so easily when you are faced with a stranger in front of you?
I believe that a person with common sense would hardly be able to do so.
There is a big difference in terms of physicality between words that pass through one's own throat and become sound, words that are uttered and engraved in one's body, and words that are typed with a click on a screen.
In the anonymous world of the Internet, there are cases where people with common sense in physical space become frighteningly insane. I want them to come back to their own body.
This routine contributes to a new media format where Creatives are in full control of their narratives. By exploring alternatives to narrative journalism, GAHSP starts unconventional conversations, emphasizing values and problems that shape our lives collectively.
Routine Led by Julia Horvath
Image Courtesy of Ibuki Kuramochi
Unedited. Only Formatted.
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