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“We live in a world where many different senses of value intermingle, and the ways that people can communicate are becoming more diverse. However, if these mechanisms of communication are open to manipulation, the meaning and effect of a communication can be transformed into something not intended by the parties involved.”

　This exhibition presents interactive, hands-on works on the theme of communication with a particular focus on the new works of Mashimo Takehisa, an artist active in the field of media art. These interactive works are designed so that the act of a viewer touching the work leads to the construction of a relationship with other viewers. As such, the works generate new communication between individuals—sometimes at the private level, and sometimes at the public level. Through the process of viewers’ acts developing into unique communications, we gain the opportunity to reconsider the potential and the is-sues that lurk behind present-day communication systems.

　We can communicate with people all around the world through a range of technologies. However, the communication that takes place via such systems requires relationships to be constructed within the limited framework of each particular means of information transmission. Consequently, new ways of behavior are needed to suit the system, and this constraint is bound to have a large influence on how the ways that we think and the values that we hold are formed. In the not too distant future, communication is likely to be intermediated by our brainwaves, pulses, blood flow, and other bodily information that was not originally used for the transmission of information. It is also likely to involve amounts of information so large as to exceed our comprehension, as intimated by the phrase “big data.” Within this sort of complex system, we face the question of how to judge and interpret the values of things.

　This exhibition aims to use the hands-on experi-ence of interactive works to approach the essence of the issues and potential inherent in communication that is mediated by systems.