YOHAKU | Between Craft, Art, and Technology

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Blending performance art and informative presentation, JAPAN HOUSE Los Angeles and HOUSE of HOSOO presented the debut of Masataka Hosoo’s immersive “Yohaku,” an unprecedented musical experience that fuses music, art, and craft.

Yohaku – a Japanese term for “blank space” or “space left empty” – is frequently used in Japanese art and design. (Learn more about the Japanese concept of space or “ma” in art, design, and more by reading our article here.) In textile design, yohaku can refer to the blank spaces in a design before the color is added. Over the generations, Kyoto’s textile makers have preserved designs, or zuan, without added colors to allow future generations to innovate designs with their own contemporary aesthetics. Yohaku, therefore, contains the potential for creativity.

For this very special event, we were joined by Masataka Hosoo, Creative Director of HOSOO, one of the oldest and most prestigious textile brands in Kyoto. HOSOO has a history of over 300 years and specializes in textiles woven from pre-dyed silk threads known as Nishijin-ori, after the district in Kyoto where such textiles have been made for 1,200 years.

Using a blend of spoken word, live electronic music and projection, Hosoo, who is also an MIT Media Lab Fellow, explored yohaku in his company’s innovative textile designs and as a metaphor for the current state of Japanese craft. He also discussed ways that new digital tools and platforms, including AI-generated patterns and NFT’s, can offer new creative opportunities for designers, and how digital archives can help preserve traditional culture.

His presentation was followed by a Q&A with the audience.

 

*To watch the video in full screen, please click on the image above, then click on the YouTube icon on the lower right-hand corner. 

About the Speaker

Masataka Hosoo was born in 1978 into the long-established, family-run Nishijin company, HOSOO and is currently a managing director of HOSOO and an MIT Media Lab Fellow. After graduating from university, he joined a major jewelry company and was active in music. After leaving the jewelry company, he studied in Florence, Italy before joining HOSOO in 2008. From there, Masataka Hosoo sought to utilize Nishijin weaving technology and materials to create textiles that cater towards international markets and for the world’s top fashion houses. He has also been actively collaborating with several artists. ...  Read more.

In 2012, he jointly started the “GO ON” project with members who are the current generation and heads of traditional Japanese crafts companies in Kyoto. In 2014, Hosoo was selected by the Nikkei business magazine as one of the “Top 100 Japanese Leaders.” In 2016, he became a Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab Directors Fellow, where he undertook the development of innovative textiles by combining Nishijin textiles with the latest technologies.

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