The Japan Media Arts Festival Executive Committee (Agency for Cultural Affairs / The National Art Center, Tokyo / CG-A RTS Society) has selected 24 award-winning works, one Special Achievement Prize winner, and 147 Recommended Works by the Jury this year. Those works were chosen from among 2,146 entries in the Art, Entertainment, Animation and Manga Divisions from 44 countries and regions in the world.

The Grand Prize winner in the Art Division is the interactive work Oups!, which allows everybody to enjoy its humorous graphics and entertaining reactions. The Grand Prize winner in the Entertainment Division is TENORI-ON, an electronic musical instrument that plays sounds and lights. It was developed and commercialized by media artist IWAI Toshio in cooperation with a company. The winner in the Animation Division is The House of Small Cubes, a story of an old man who lives on his own in a submerging town. The Grand Prize in the Manga Division went to PIANO NO MORI, in which a freewheeling talented boy grows up aspiring to be a pianist.

The Special Achievement Prize was awarded to NAKAYA Fujiko, who has been at the forefront of the times as an artist since the 1970s and has supported media arts from the ground up by organizing a video gallery and exhibitions that invite public participation.

This year, jumping the barrier between art and entertainment, many works dealing with the physical aspects of human beings, including hearing and touch as well as vision, received awards. An exhibition of these award-winning works will be held from February 4 to February 15, 2008 at The National Art Center Tokyo.

2008 [12th] Japan Media Arts Festival Exhibition Information Time: 10:00 - 18:00, Wednesday, February 4 - Sunday, February 15 Open until 20:00 on Fridays (The Center will be closed on Tuesday, February 10) Venue:   Special Exhibition Gallery 2E, The National Art Center, Tokyo (Tokyo) Admission:   Free URL:   http://plaza.bunka.go.jp/ Organizer:   The Japan Media Arts Festival Executive Committee (Agency for Cultural Affairs /The National Art Center, Tokyo / CG-A RTS Society) Contact:   The Japan Media Arts Festival Secretariat Office, CG-ARTS Society Free dial:   0120-454536
* The press preview will be held at 14:00, Tuesday, February 3, and the presentation ceremony will be held at 18:00on the same day. * Images of the Grand Prize-winning works are available for download at: http://www.cgarts.or.jp/outline/press/2008/081209_image.html