The expressions of media art always traverse many genres and bring about new fusions. This zone showcases a number of interactive art and game works which are device-based. Their unique and often surprising features are as entertaining as they are provocative and intriguing. Visitors to the exhibition are invited to engage with these works which present a new vision of art and gaming, and experience their technical sophistication.

Tea-serving Robot (Edo Period)
The Japanese fascination for robots lies in its long history of karakuri ningyo. (Karakuri referring to a mechanical device to trick, tease or take by surprise; ningyo loosely translated as puppet, doll or effigy.) This mechanical doll is a modern replica of an ancient Japanese robot, which carries your tea when placed on the tray, and serves it with a bow.

Allegory of Media Art, 2005
TSUSHIMA Takahiro
Tsushima’s installation reproduces the pictorial space of 17th-century Dutch artist Vermeer’s famous painting, through 3D modeling. The viewer is invited to experience the pictorial space with a special stereoscopic system. Tsushima uses technological devices to extend the the illusion of a habitable and participatory 3-dimensional space within the flat surface of the artwork.

Through The Looking Glass, 2004
KAKEHI Yasuaki, NAEMURA Takeshi
In this interactive artwork, the viewer plays air hockey with his / her own reflection.
Common sense dictates that a mirror clearly and accurately reflects any object placed before it – an assumption that underlies all our interactions with mirrors in daily life. However, this work subverts such expectations and a different world is reflected in the mirror, recalling the surrealistic worlds that exist ‘through the looking glass’ in fairy-tales and fiction. It is also a metaphor for the growing sophistication of technologies of mediation and representation, which have now moved beyond mere transmission or reflection of information to intelligent processing, interpretation and alteration of the data fed into them.