corr: asking your inputs about the Bunkacho project, the National Center for Media Arts

[Mark Roberts]

Thanks, Aaron, for a great set of requirements.

On Jun 12, 2009, at 6:19 AM, Aaron Gerow wrote:

> 1) Do not build anything until a clear plan has been made for how  
> the facility should be used. This plan should be made not by  
> government bureaucrats, but by researchers, fans, and industry  
> figures in equal numbers. Personally, I think it is important that  
> the center should be a research and exhibition center first (the  
> NFC's problem is that it is a preservation facility first, leaving  
> research as an after thought).

This does seem like the top issue. Question: to what extent are these  
concerns addressed in the current plan?

The general planning document is here:

	http://www.bunka.go.jp/bunkashingikai/kondankaitou/madiageijutsu/pdf/houkokusho_H210428.pdf

Skimming this quickly, it appears that the planning committee includes  
seven participants and four observers: two representing "general"  
media studies (Hamano Yasuki of Todai and Hayashi Kazuo of Pia),  
experimental film director Ando Kohei to represent eiga/eizo,  
animation writer Yoshikawa Taku to represent anime, Chiho Saito to  
represent manga, Nakaya Hide of NHK to represent media art, Ishihara  
Tsunekazu, CEO of the Pokémon Company to represent computer games, and  
four observers drawn from government, industry, the NFC (Okajima  
Hisashi) and NMWA (Kôno Masamichi). It's probably no surprise that the  
majority of the planners are coming from the content industry.

Curiously, the planning document begins by invoking the success of  
"Okuribito" in the very first paragraph, but it's unclear to what  
extent cinema is going to be a focal point of this institution. While  
mentioned periodically in the plan, it's usually in passing, as part  
of a list with other media (e.g. "... cinema, manga, anime, media art,  
etc.  ...").. Actually, the mention of Takita's "Okuribito" makes one  
wonder: is there going to be a special department in this new media  
center for all the hentai anime and eroge, kind of like the infamous  
"l'Enfer" of the Bibliothèque Nationale in France, "interdite aux  
moins de 16 ans"? When the planning document mentions the NFC as an  
example of another similar institution in Japan, there is the claim  
that it currently supports researchers, with no critical assessment of  
its level or rapport with the research community. Again, this is all  
from just skimming the document, and somebody who understands all of  
this better can give a much better summary.

More here:

	http://www.bunka.go.jp/bunkashingikai/kondankaitou/madiageijutsu/index.html

I see that in the minutes of the planning meetings, starting from 平成 
20年9月8日, there is some discussion of researchers and research  
needs, though there's too much detail for me to try and process.  
Mostly it seems to be about manga, and there are some observations  
that due to the ephemeral nature of media art, there may not be any  
media researchers 50 or 100 years from now. The only mention I found  
of the situation in Japan is from one of the observers, the  
photographer Matsumoto Norihiko, who mentions that institutions in  
Europe and America take research and the training of researchers more  
seriously.

The end of the planning document includes a facade sketch and floor  
plan of the new building, designed by Ando Tadao. Am I the only one  
who finds it a pretty staid design to generate enthusiasm about new  
media? In general, if it provides the right services, I wouldn't care  
if it looked like Hirohito's bunker, but the general public is going  
to have a different sense of this. A closer examination of the floor  
plan is a bit worrisome. The building has five floors and an  
underground parking zone. 1F and 2F are almost entirely exhibition  
space. The third floor has a long, skinny-looking theater, meeting/ 
learning space, and a tiny-looking library. The fourth floor is also  
an exhibition space, but without windows, presumably for paper-based  
materials that are light sensitive. The fifth floor has two large  
storage areas and what appears to be an office space. Just looking at  
the plan of this building, it seems that the brief to the architect  
was to create an exhibition space for the general public. Unless I'm  
misreading the plan, it looks like there is no space for what I would  
consider a serious library for researchers. The storage areas are two  
floors away from the library, so the circulation of materials from a  
closed stack is either a pain or simply wasn't part of the brief. The  
whole thing feels much more like a museum than a library.

Overall, then, it's not clear what, exactly, this project will provide  
for film researchers, and given that the currently-existing NFC seems  
to lack adequate support for such a mission, one can't help but wonder  
if a newly-minted institution would end up getting the support it  
really needs either.

M