October 10–13, 2023 | Held in Kyoto, Japan, and Online
The 4th Kyoto Conference on Arts, Media and Culture (KAMC2023) was held with The 14th Asian Conference on Media, Communication & Film (MediAsia2023) and saw a doubling of numbers since last year, with more than 260 delegates from over 35 countries!
Art and Media Creation in the Era of Artificial Intelligence
Keynote Presentation: Michael Menchaca
While AI is not yet universally integrated, it is undeniably ubiquitously deliberated. Conversations surrounding AI abound in popular media, government, industry, education, academia, and even in the home. While continued conversation might appear repetitive, the discussion remains as important as ever. A particular area of concern is the ease with which media can now be created, with AI potentially replacing all phases of creation, from pre- to post-production. Already, contemporary pre-production may consist solely of generating narrative prompts to produce media content more than prescribed design. What does this mean for print, visuals, animation, music, video, and for art creation itself? What are appropriate guidelines and measures to ensure the integrity of content and the vision and ownership of the creator? Is AI generation sufficient for mastery and originality? This session will explore the confluence of technology, media, and artificial intelligence, providing some food for thought and leaving time for discussion.
Consumer Connections in the Age of AI: Unleashing Potential, Navigating Challenges
Keynote Presentation: Jennifer Cutler
As technologies evolve, so too do the ways brands and consumers interact. This presentation examines the nexus between AI technologies and consumer dynamics and delves into advances in predicting and influencing consumer behaviour. Other topics that will be discussed include the opportunities and challenges facing marketers, advertisers, and content creators aiming to foster deeper, more intuitive connections with audiences in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.
International News Coverage and the Role of Independent Media
Featured Panel Presentation: Virgil Hawkins, Namie Kawabata Wilson, Delio Wilson Zandamela
As globalisation accelerates, the world has witnessed a great expansion in the movement of people, money, goods and services, and changes in communications technologies and allowed information to move unfettered throughout the world. Oddly, this has not brought the world closer together in terms of news coverage of the world. Recent decades have seen not an expanding but a shrinking presence of foreign correspondents and a decrease in the levels of world news coverage in many countries. Changing geopolitical interests and collapsing news business models help to explain this state of affairs. At the same time, advances in communication technologies have opened unprecedented opportunities for low-budget independent media outlets and spread both their coverage of, and distribution to the outside world. While in the vast majority of cases they cannot serve as a substitute for on-the-ground newsgathering, it would appear that they do have a role to play in propping up an industry in decline, and contributing to our knowledge about the outside world. This panel will focus the news media from this perspective.
To Whom Do the Senkaku (Ch. Diaoyu) Islands Belong and Why Should We Care?
Keynote Presentation: Brian Victoria
As the mass media reminds us daily, the danger of war breaking out between China and the US and its allies is becoming ever more likely. Chief among US allies is Japan, now engaged in a major military buildup. Among other things, Japan justifies its military buildup on the basis of China’s allegedly unlawful incursions in the East and South China Seas, not to mention the possibility of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. In particular, Japan charges China with repeated naval incursions into its territorial waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands, the uninhabited islands which Japan claims as its sovereign territory. However, Japan never explains the background of their takeover of the islands in 1895. This presentation will explore the little-known historical background to Japan’s acquisition of the Senkaku Islands together with their role in Japan’s possible, if not likely, participation in a potential war between the US and China.
Democratising Research at the Intersection of Creative Methods and Everyday Creativity
Featured Interview: Helen Johnson
This session builds on Helen Johnson’s work with the participatory arts-based research method, ‘collaborative poetics,’ and the AHRC Everyday Creativity Research Network to call for an academic model that is more inclusive, meaningful and impactful than that which currently predominates. Arts-based research offers a way of understanding and representing ourselves and our world that is emotive, engaging, accessible and interdisciplinary. More radically, it holds the potential for a transdisciplinarity, which expands the research landscape through mechanisms such as embodiment, fluidity, liminality, subjectivity and multi-linear or non-verbal texts. Yet much research in this field reinforces social scientists’ privileged position at the top of the knowledge hierarchy. Participatory methods enable us to challenge this dominance, with research that is democratic, community-focused, relevant, meaningful and impactful, and which mirrors arts practice by valuing process alongside ‘product.’
Both arts-based and participatory research are becoming increasingly common, responding to calls from funders, publishers and others for impactful, innovative research that is embedded in communities, and to the growing movement for decolonisation of the Academy. Too often this work remains tokenistic however. Clearly, it is just too easy to fall into the trap of consciously or unconsciously reproducing elitist academic and artistic frameworks and hierarchies (which retain our own privilege). This talk considers whether and how everyday creativity, with its focus on intrinsic value, community-based action, grassroots leadership and culturally-rooted practice might enable us to redress these limitations, finally wrenching research out of the possessive grasp of the white/Western/male-dominated Academy into the hands of diverse, global communities to create work that is truly transformative for all.
Art and Media Creation in the Era of Artificial Intelligence
Keynote Presentation: Michael Menchaca
While AI is not yet universally integrated, it is undeniably ubiquitously deliberated. Conversations surrounding AI abound in popular media, government, industry, education, academia, and even in the home. While continued conversation might appear repetitive, the discussion remains as important as ever. A particular area of concern is the ease with which media can now be created, with AI potentially replacing all phases of creation, from pre- to post-production. Already, contemporary pre-production may consist solely of generating narrative prompts to produce media content more than prescribed design. What does this mean for print, visuals, animation, music, video, and for art creation itself? What are appropriate guidelines and measures to ensure the integrity of content and the vision and ownership of the creator? Is AI generation sufficient for mastery and originality? This session will explore the confluence of technology, media, and artificial intelligence, providing some food for thought and leaving time for discussion.
Consumer Connections in the Age of AI: Unleashing Potential, Navigating Challenges
Keynote Presentation: Jennifer Cutler
As technologies evolve, so too do the ways brands and consumers interact. This presentation examines the nexus between AI technologies and consumer dynamics and delves into advances in predicting and influencing consumer behaviour. Other topics that will be discussed include the opportunities and challenges facing marketers, advertisers, and content creators aiming to foster deeper, more intuitive connections with audiences in today’s rapidly evolving digital landscape.
International News Coverage and the Role of Independent Media
Featured Panel Presentation: Virgil Hawkins, Namie Kawabata Wilson, Delio Wilson Zandamela
As globalisation accelerates, the world has witnessed a great expansion in the movement of people, money, goods and services, and changes in communications technologies and allowed information to move unfettered throughout the world. Oddly, this has not brought the world closer together in terms of news coverage of the world. Recent decades have seen not an expanding but a shrinking presence of foreign correspondents and a decrease in the levels of world news coverage in many countries. Changing geopolitical interests and collapsing news business models help to explain this state of affairs. At the same time, advances in communication technologies have opened unprecedented opportunities for low-budget independent media outlets and spread both their coverage of, and distribution to the outside world. While in the vast majority of cases they cannot serve as a substitute for on-the-ground newsgathering, it would appear that they do have a role to play in propping up an industry in decline, and contributing to our knowledge about the outside world. This panel will focus the news media from this perspective.
To Whom Do the Senkaku (Ch. Diaoyu) Islands Belong and Why Should We Care?
Keynote Presentation: Brian Victoria
As the mass media reminds us daily, the danger of war breaking out between China and the US and its allies is becoming ever more likely. Chief among US allies is Japan, now engaged in a major military buildup. Among other things, Japan justifies its military buildup on the basis of China’s allegedly unlawful incursions in the East and South China Seas, not to mention the possibility of a Chinese attack on Taiwan. In particular, Japan charges China with repeated naval incursions into its territorial waters surrounding the Senkaku Islands, the uninhabited islands which Japan claims as its sovereign territory. However, Japan never explains the background of their takeover of the islands in 1895. This presentation will explore the little-known historical background to Japan’s acquisition of the Senkaku Islands together with their role in Japan’s possible, if not likely, participation in a potential war between the US and China.
Democratising Research at the Intersection of Creative Methods and Everyday Creativity
Featured Interview: Helen Johnson
This session builds on Helen Johnson’s work with the participatory arts-based research method, ‘collaborative poetics,’ and the AHRC Everyday Creativity Research Network to call for an academic model that is more inclusive, meaningful and impactful than that which currently predominates. Arts-based research offers a way of understanding and representing ourselves and our world that is emotive, engaging, accessible and interdisciplinary. More radically, it holds the potential for a transdisciplinarity, which expands the research landscape through mechanisms such as embodiment, fluidity, liminality, subjectivity and multi-linear or non-verbal texts. Yet much research in this field reinforces social scientists’ privileged position at the top of the knowledge hierarchy. Participatory methods enable us to challenge this dominance, with research that is democratic, community-focused, relevant, meaningful and impactful, and which mirrors arts practice by valuing process alongside ‘product.’
Both arts-based and participatory research are becoming increasingly common, responding to calls from funders, publishers and others for impactful, innovative research that is embedded in communities, and to the growing movement for decolonisation of the Academy. Too often this work remains tokenistic however. Clearly, it is just too easy to fall into the trap of consciously or unconsciously reproducing elitist academic and artistic frameworks and hierarchies (which retain our own privilege). This talk considers whether and how everyday creativity, with its focus on intrinsic value, community-based action, grassroots leadership and culturally-rooted practice might enable us to redress these limitations, finally wrenching research out of the possessive grasp of the white/Western/male-dominated Academy into the hands of diverse, global communities to create work that is truly transformative for all.
Art and Media Creation in the Era of Artificial IntelligenceKeynote Presentation: Michael Menchaca
Consumer Connections in the Age of AI: Unleashing Potential, Navigating ChallengesKeynote Presentation: Jennifer Cutler
International News Coverage and the Role of Independent MediaFeatured Panel Presentation: Virgil Hawkins, Namie Kawabata Wilson, Delio Wilson Zandamela
To Whom Do the Senkaku (Ch. Diaoyu) Islands Belong and Why Should We Care?Keynote Presentation: Brian Victoria
Democratising Research at the Intersection of Creative Methods and Everyday CreativityFeatured Interview: Helen Johnson
