The most important region of the subculture of Japan, Akihabara, is now considered to be the sacred ground of Otaku culture and its worldwide sending base. This techno-subculture originated in Akihabara, and is still growing.
"Otaku" refers to someone who is chiefly absorbed in subcultures such as comics, games, or personal computers. One example is Manga, which refers to (animated) cartoons. Its popularity has been largely expanding to be approved by a lot of different age groups. One representative work of this phenomenon is, for instance, "Ghost in the Shell".
Games make another good example. A turning point in game development were the 1990s. The integration of genres as Manga, Anime (the animated cartoon) and games has advanced under the aspect of mixed media. Manga became Anime, Anime is transplanted into games, and the game is novelised.
These genres, which concurred rapidly, are commonly referred to as Otaku culture. It is constituted by a group of people with similar interests, who project subcultural aspects into this phenomenon. Since the 2000s, Japanese Manga, Anime, and equal phenomena became accessible to an international audience. The word "subculture" began to appear in this context. It is now commonly used in reference to Otaku culture.
Recently, the notion of intellect has come to vary largely, and intellectual people who used to support high culture are now also paying attention to popular culture, and Otaku culture in particular. Since the diversification and subdivision of personal hobbies and preferences are widely spread, and the traditional conception of values disappeared, a reversal phenomenon came to the fore of a subculture taken to constitute a discrete category only coming to be widely accepted in general, and parts of high culture being grasped as a subculture.
Let us pay attention to "Cosplay", which spreads worldwide throughout Otaku culture and recently established large recognition among enthusiastic supporters.
"World Cosplay Summit" started to be held in Japan, because of large international popularity. In 2005, the preliminary contests were held in 6 countries all over Europe, America, and China, in 2006 they further were held in Thailand and Brazil, and it seems that the number of host countries for preliminary contests will increase in the future. 30,000 visitors were recorded attending "World Cosplay Summit" in 2008.
"Cosplay" refers to practices of disguise and transformation involving dressing up, e.g. as characters from Manga and Anime. Cosplay is a way of self-expression, and one may say “enhanced self” or “another performed self”.
Cosplay today spreads worldwide as described above and has been receiving a lot of attention, although it was not much noticeable a while ago, since people merely regarded it as a hobby in Otaku culture.
However, the French art critic Hervé Chandès defends japanese Cosplay related to Anime and Otaku culture as "Japonizm of the 21st century", and he regards these cultures as taking a big influence on the cultures of Europe and America now.
Does the reason for this phenomenon lie in the increase of popularity due to the change in interpretation and consideration in Cosplay?
Why do people want to Cosplay, and what is the background behind it that is becoming a worldwide social phenomenon like this?
One thing which it originates in is the desire for bringing a character who only exists in Anime (a virtual personality) into reality. In other words, it is the wish to project the self to a virtual person.
Second, it is the wish for a transformation that man fundamentally has and everyone hopes for.
There is a desire to go beyond oneself, to enhance ones own identity. What on earth is this our strong desire to become a different person? There are also desires for becoming a strong hero, a different character, or anonymous. Becoming another person may be necessary when someone realizes a moment which involves the freedom of a transformation in between the actual and the virtual.
It is already part of common knowledge that the concepts of transformation as metamorphosis, transformation as mutation, transformation as variation etc. are not only important subjects of art, but also constitute its methods and the strategies.
The different expressions of this transformation can be classified as the following three patterns:
1. Self-transformation;
2. Transformation by mixture of machine and technology;
3. Interactive integration of environment and work.
1. The first pattern indicates the conversion of an identity which is expected in general by the term "Transformation". It is exactly the "Body" of the artist himself to change, and its work takes the form of a performance or a photograph in which performance is reconstructed.
2. The second pattern emphasizes the relation between technology and the body. Bodies which have a symbiotic relationship with an electronic gadget, a mixture and a complementary relation, are presented as an art work. The effect that "Transformation" of a robot and a machine is projected to daily life (but not in a laboratory) can be seen here. Or, even if the element of "Cyborg" is approved to share with the first pattern, it can be acceptable.
3. The concepts of "Data Suit" and "BodySuit", which we often use, were introduced in order to further analyze this tendency. They are a creative application of a Robotic Suit/Powered Suit and a Wearable Computer. These "Suits" have already exceeded the notion of appliance or wearing on one's body, inasmuch as an importance of the concept is that 'wearing' them is almost like entering a body and then assimilate to it, or like them becoming a second skin of the body.
"The person is not born as the organics. The organics is made." This citation from Simone de Beauvoir constitutes a minimum assumption of an art which treats the subjects of transformation and metamorphosis. This body certainly was always involved in "Construction", although it is often considered as "mine (my own body)". In the past, art would have already worked on these subjects, if it would have been tried more to scrutinize the fiction of this "Construction". The problem is that this "Construction" never took place at the will of "oneself = subject", but may happen in an operation of sudden conversion by chance.
"Cyborg" is a machine, but also a metaphor, and everything is done to establish the concept, and to throw it out to the average of linguistic practice. "Cyborg" can already be found in the kinds of expression which involve "text, machine, and metaphor". (This direction is also a basic strategy in the philosophy of Bernard Stiegler who, influenced by Jacques Derrida, analyses Stelarc and Virtual Reality.)
While the development of interplay between the transformation and variation of the first pattern has been accelerating lately, the 2nd and 3rd patterns just started an overwhelming infiltration of our daily lives via technology. At present, one could perhaps say that "media art" in a wide sense is what allows developing the influences of ideas about "Cyborg", and "Suit".
An especially interesting point is that “BodySuit” has its distinctiveness not only as an interface, but can also be used to play musical instruments involving a transformational process of the body with technology. It is insufficient to only try to see the performers' skills in utilizing a new tool here. This medium draws out the potentiality of the body (man) which on the contrary confronts the body (performer) as an "extension" (with a new musical instrument), and derives a "transformed body and sound" to challenge our habituated body.
Here lies a relation to "A Thousand Plateaus" by Deleuze/Guattari. One should consider that such a tool, machine, our meditation, the desire, and man’s body are something much related to each other. Deleuze/Guattari named these 'Desiring-Machine‘ or 'Machine' to connect among man's activity, and tool, and machine.
This is the reason why Deleuze/Guattari make good use of the term 'machine'. Occasionally, it is called machinic (machine principle). That is to say, "All become machine"
In "A Thousand Plateaus", the idea of the Body without Organs often appears. It is Antonin Artaud who is referred to as having first used this expression. Deleuze explaines that the idea of the Body without Organs was employed to constitute a basic means for an analysis of the crises of twentieth century Europe.
The image of this idea is alluded to in the following poetry of Artaud.
"Under the skin the body in an over-heated factory,
and outside,
the invalid shines,
glows,
from every burst pore."
(Antonin Artaud, "Van Gogh, the Man, Suicided by Society", trans. Mary Beach/Lawrence Ferlinghetti. In: "Artaud Anthology", San Francisco: City Light Books, 1965, p. 158).
The impulse of schizophrenia is written down here exactly. However, Deleuze understood that this impulse was the real thing. Maybe he knew this by an intuition that original true consciousness of man was such a thing. Seemingly, a 'Desiring-Machine‘ looks like the relationship between the machine as a tool and a body. As a matter of fact, man's body itself is said to be the machine. In this work, the underlying theme is that the Body without Organs is something which lacks a core, and that our actual “identity” is merely such a thing.
Let's take a look at this relation by the examples of "BodySuit", "Avatar" and the Cyborg in images within our work. It can be considered that "BodySuit" is manipulated by a performer's intention. The robotic "Powered Suit" is controlled from the outside. However, both can be put on the same line in the sense of a body which is enhanced by the medium of the electronic device. In other words, the meaning of existence of a virtual body and an extended body is intentionally mixed.
Considering the relation between "BodySuit" and the Cyborg, one has a physical body, whereas the other seems to exist in a virtual world only. In opposition to a human body, the body of a robot is artificially created. On the other hand, one can develop the discussion of a depicted virtual body opposing to the artificial body of a robot, even though it exists physically.
Concepts in this work are to pursue a dualism of the relation between an artificial body and a real body. Although reality and virtuality seem to stand in mutual conflict, both can act upon each other, and their meanings may change in correspondence to the understanding of an audience, and depending on the context. The context on hand presents a conceptual coming and going between reality and virtuality to the audience. This performance challenges the public to confuse its understanding of reality as opposed to virtuality. The work was composed to emphasize the importance of this idea. While “Extended Body” was conceived to be formed with this fundamental idea in mind, the theme of “Augmented Body and Virtual Body” raises the question of what is the relationship between man’s body and his identity. Man and the machine seem to be in dualism and mutual conflict. However, it is more correct to say that both coexist interwoven as described by the above-mentioned conceptions, and considered to be integrated as one to be "Extended Body".
Therefore, our identity doesn’t merely remain inside our body, but it also communicates with the outside, and is finally extended.
Historically, art has always been relating to the societies in which it exited, and it has been much benefiting from contemporary society. The technology of modern artificial intelligence influences cyborgs, robots, and “BodySuit”. As a result, this brought with it larger possibilities for the cyborg and “BodySuit”. In this respect, one could say that this "Extended body" reflects the culture of Japan, where Cosplay was born and grew up. This idea brought a new possibility for aspects of our technology as well as our aesthetics. While one interacts with these systems, it is an important aspect of this project to create a new language and perception. In addition, it is reconfirmed that our identity does not install only in our own body: realizing the work with “Extended Body”, one may find that there is no borderline of the body and can be expanded, and then one may ask if such an identity really exist. In other words, the Transformation that man fundamentally desires, is getting over the wall of identity to enhance infinitely. The performance itself is able to develop further through the new possibility of this "Extended body.
