Daito ManabeJP
Direct from Japan, multimedia artist, programmer, and DJ Daito Manabe, one of the most avant-garde representatives of digital art, returns to MUTEK MX. Manabe’s work in design, art, and entertainment takes a fresh approach to everyday materials and phenomena. However, his ultimate goal is not simply rich, high-definition realism through the recognition and recombination of these familiar elemental building blocks. Rather, his practice relies on careful observation to discover and elucidate the essential potentialities inherent in the human body, data, programming, computers, and other phenomena, thereby probing the interrelations and boundaries that delineate analog and digital, real and virtual.
A prolific collaborator, he has worked closely with a diverse roster of artists including Ryuichi Sakamoto, Björk, OK Go, Nosaj Thing, Squarepusher, Andrea Battistoni, Mansai Nomura, Perfume, and sakanaction. He has also collaborated with the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics in Manchester and the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN), the largest particle physics laboratory in the world. He has received numerous awards for his multidisciplinary contributions to advertising, design and art. Among his recognitions are the Ars Electronica Distinction Award, the Titanium Grand Prix of the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, the D&AD Black Pencil and the Japan Media Arts Festival Grand Prize.
Pioneer. Veteran. Visionary: the great Daito Manabe has been at the forefront of some of the most epic moments in the history of MUTEK (in Mexico and the rest of the International Network). His multidisciplinary approach and vision as an artist-scientist has given us performances with absolute harmony between human sensitivity, digital art and machines, with experiences that transcend reality and immerse us in a unique world, created by Daito, his laboratory and collaborators. We still remember Pulse at Teatro de la Ciudad in Edition 10, the Latin American premiere of Dissonant Imaginary in Edition 16, and hosting it for our 20th anniversary edition in October feels like an honor.
