We would like to present to you a series of photographs documenting the launch exhibition of Kyoto STEAM, short for “Science”, “Technology”, “Engineering”, “Art”, and “Mathematics”, an international arts and science festival that took place in Kyoto ahead of its full edition in 2022.
Held at the Kyoto City KYOCERA Museum of Art (京都市京セラ美術館), one of Japan’s oldest public art museums. Originally opened in 1933, formerly the Kyoto Enthronement Memorial Museum of Art and later the Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, KYOCERA has undergone numerous transitions, weathered crises and natural disasters, survived even the war period, performed its duty as the host to important exhibitions and festivals, including the first Kyoto Biennale in 1972, and eventually reopened in 2020 after a three-year renovation.
Artists are not oracles. Rather than attempting to predict what the future will look like for every one of us, the exhibition invites us to synthesise our classical and romantic understanding of the world by genuinely integrating art and science, disciplines that were never put at odds in ancient times, as Robert Pirsig suggests in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance. By exploring the potential of both, where art is no longer dismissed as “useless”, and technology is no longer merely another fancy gadget worn on the wrist, the exhibition opens up alternative possibilities.
As technology continues to advance, it raises questions about how values and traditions might be preserved in future contexts, re-examines ideas such as waste recycling and the cashless society, and questions how the very structure and meaning of life might be reconsidered. VR and AR are extensively used, while textiles and abandoned public spaces are reimagined through 3D printing. Materials like brass and glass are reinterpreted to produce striking psychedelic visual illusions. The exhibition also addresses the ethical and moral issues raised by advances in medical science, while considering how digital technology may reshape not only our physical existence but our mental lives as well.
Technically a warm-up, the exhibition is nevertheless a fascinating end-product of collaborations between artists, corporations, and research institutes. With a wealth of intriguing ideas on display, there is every reason to look forward to the real deal when things kick off in 2022.
