Kamogawa Talk Vol. 3

Kamogawa Talk is a series of talks jointly organized by Goethe-Institut Osaka Kyoto/Villa Kamogawa and Kyoto University Research Administration Office (KURA) to promote Japanese-German exchange among the younger generation and dialogue between academia, art and culture. Based on the concept of “Art meets academia”, the series aims to provide an opportunity for open exchange among researchers, students, creators, as well as a wide range of interested parties in a relaxed atmosphere.

The theme of the third event held online is “Light and Mind”. An artist Mr. Tobias Daemgen who is a 2017 Villa Kamogawa resident and Dr. Hiroki Yamamoto, Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University will be our guests for the discussion.

As a member of the artist collective RaumZeitPiraten (Pirates of Time and Space), Mr. Daemgen works with multimedia, including light, in a variety of works. In 2019, he created an installation of light on the fourth floor of the Otani Main Shrine, Kyoto, to confront the possibilities of light in religious spaces.

Dr. Yamamoto studies the relationship between the five senses and brain activity to scientifically analyze the human mind. Why do people want to express themselves? He will explain the relationship between the perception of light and sound and brain activity, which is hidden in art.

Dr. Keisuke Shinokita, Assistant Professor, Institute of Advanced Energy, Kyoto University will be invited as a commentator to join the discussion from the perspective of a researcher who deals with the relationship between light and matter from a physical perspective.

We will broadly consider how light affects the human mind and how we can understand objects through light, from the viewpoints of science and art.

*During the break, we will conduct a simple experiment using a piano and light. Please enjoy it as well.

Speakers

Tobias Daemgen (Artist)

© Tobias Daemgen

Studied communication design and media art at universities in Düsseldorf and Cologne. Member of the artist collective “RaumZeitPiraten” (Pirates of Time and Space), resident at Villa Kamogawa in 2017. He creates multimedia installations and interventions with a focus on “light.” The light installation (2019) created on the 4th floor of the Otani Main Shrine, First Muryodoh Hall, is a collaboration between architect Langner Teramoto Bettina (ARCHITEKTURRAEUME Architectural Design & Consulting) and Hiyoshiya, a Japanese umbrella manufacturer in Kyoto, Japan.

Hiroki Yamamoto (Assistant Professor, Graduate School of Human and Environmental Studies, Kyoto University)

Dr. Yamamoto obtained his PhD (Human and Environmental Studies) from Kyoto University in 2000. After working as a Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), he has been in his current position since 2000. He specializes in perceptual psychology, studying the mechanisms of human vision and tactile perception using psychophysical experiments and functional brain imaging, and promoting industrial applications of perceptual science through industry-academia collaboration. He also teaches color science and plastic psychology at an art university and is interested in the relationship between art, psychology, and brain science.

Commentator

Keisuke Shinokita (Assistant Professor, Institute of Advanced Energy, Kyoto University)

Dr. Shinokita obtained his D.Sc. (2013) degree from Kyoto University. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Groningen (2013-2015), a guest researcher at Max Born Institute (2015-2017), and a program-specific assistant professor at the institute of advanced energy (IAE) at Kyoto University (2017-2020). Since 2020, he has worked at IAE at Kyoto University as an assistant professor. His main topic is solid-state spectroscopy in atomically-thin semiconductors and their van der Waals heterostructures.

Registration

Pre-registration is required. (Free of charge)

https://forms.gle/ftaryFTn3jjFeoTU9

Contact

E-mail: aida(at)kura.kyoto-u.ac.jp