CV: Machiko Kusahara



Machiko Kusahara is an internationally recognized curator in media art and is an Associate Professor of Media Research in Kobe University Graduate School of Science and Technology.
With her background both in art, science and technology, she has been teaching computer graphics, multimedia and media study since 1985. She has been invited to teach regulary at both IAMAS and IMI, Japan's major schools of media art, since the beginning. She has been an active researcher and writer on the subject of new media since 1984.

Kusahara gives lectures internationally. In 2000, she was invited to speak at Alien Intelligence Symposium at Kiasma (Helsinki, Finland), Growing Things (Banff Center, Canada), UCLA, Medi@terra (Athens, Greece), and WRO2000(Wroclaw, Poland), while giving papers and panels at ALIFE VII (Portland), and ISEA (Paris). She also gave presentations and chaired sessions in conferences in Japan. In 1999, she gave papers at CAA Conference in Los Angeles and ISEA 99 in Sao Paulo. During the same year she was invited to speak at UCLA, University of Oregon, Annecy International Animation Film Festival in France, SynWorld symposium in Vienna, Japan Animation Symposium in Seatre, EastWest Symposium in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and chaired a session at Prix Ars Electronica Artists Forum. She has given presentations at SIGGRAPH Art Sketch, ACM Multimedia and other academic conferences as well. More public lectures and presentations are given in Japan.

Her writing is published internationally, including Springer Verlag publications, the widely read Asahi Newspaper , as well as InterCommunication Magazine, Weekly ASCII, SuperDesigning magazines, etc. She is also a co-author and editor of widely used textbooks in multimedia and art in Japan. Her article appears on high profile international journals such as KUNSTFORUM(Bd.151, September 2000) , ART Asia Pacific (Issue 27,2000), or LEONARDO Electronic Almanac( Nov.1999).
She has published "Computer Graphics Anthology" (1989, Bunkensha Publishing Co.) and "Computer Graphics Access" (1992, Bunkensha Publishing Co.) which altogether cover the history of computer graphics with seventeen laserdiscs and two textbooks. She co-authored many publications including "The Robot in the Garden" (edited by Ken Goldberg, MIT Press, 2000) , "art@science" (edited by Christa Sommerer and Laurent Mignonneau, Springer, 1997), Iwanami Lecture Series on Multimedia and Information (Iwanami, 2000) among others such as "Hyper Image Museum" (CD-ROM, 1994, F2 Publishing), "Aesthetic of A-Life" (Yosensha, 1994), "Techno-culture Matrix" (NTT Publishing, 1994), "Art as Living System" (System/Control/Information, 1996), "Historical Perspective of Art and Technology - Japanese Culture Revived in Digital Era" ARTE NO SECULO - A HUMANIZACAO DAS TECNOLOGIAS( Edition UNESP, 1997), "Collisions of Meanings and Free Associacion Paradigms" (Annual InterCommunication 95), "Signed by Artist" (Cyberarts97, Springer ,1997), "Flora and Fauna: Japanese Games and Traditional Culture"(FleshFactor, Springer 1997). Her essays in Japanese are regulary published on InterCommunication and other art/media journals.

Kusahara has curated exhibitions internationally since 1983. The venues include Sidney's Art Gallery of New South Wales, Tokyo's Sony Building, NHK Gallery, NTT/ICC, Shibuya WAVE, among others. The SIGGRAPH Traveling Art Show in 1985 marked her debut as a curator in media art. Since then she has been commissioned for planning and exhibitions of World Design Exposition (1989), Metropolitan Museum of Photography (1988-95).

She has been jury member for SIGGRPH Artsite (2001), LIFE3.0(2000), SFMOMA Webby Award(2000), UNESCO Web Prize (1999 and 2000) Interactive Media Festival (1994-95), Ars Electronica (1997-99), MILIA, and Japan's MMCA and Ministry of Culture's Media Art Festival, among many others.

She is also a board member of NTT/ICC, Virtual Realitiy Society of Japan,Japan Society of Image Arts and Sciences, 3D Forum, and a committee member of MMCA, Ministry of Culture's Art Council, Tokyo Museum of Photography, Ministry of Science and Technology's Japan Science and Technology Corporation, etc.

Her recent research is around the notion of life and reality in digital era in relation to the traditional concept on these issues in each society on one hand; on the othe hand a research on creative use of technology on the Internet is a theme she works at the university with her colleagues and students from engineering background.