View Project
【MIRROR WORLD】
GEMINI Laboratory a co-creation project & community for mirror worlds, begins.
Nowadays, people have been spending more and more time in the digital realm. In proportion, all kinds of things, services, and people are being stored, exchanged, and used as data. It would be no surprise if this trend accelerates further, blurring the boundaries between the digital and physical realms, fantasy and reality, past and future, creator and user, and many others.
GEMINI Laboratory is a co-creation project aiming to capture such a world and co-create with artists, creators, companies, and users. We will prototype ideas that attempt to connect and synchronize the digital and the physical and endeavor to implement them in a democratic society.
This event will showcase the entirety of GEMINI Laboratory and the prototypes it created with artists for the first time. Cutting-edge players from diverse fields, including tech, art, and academia, will take the stage. They will discuss the possibilities of mirror worlds born from the borderless synergy between the real and the virtual without being limited to the visual. We will open the doors to the next co-creative action.
GEMINI Laboratory powered by TOPPAN
Gemini is a co-creation project & community for mirror worlds, consisting of three units.
We will hold salons and events online and offline to create venues where everyone can participate and contribute to mirror worlds, transcending restrictions and disparities. We aim to create a co-creation space transcending realms to realize mirror worlds that offer fulfilling experiences.
Mirror worlds tend to be visual. We aim to expand them to all five senses, broadening the possibilities. To this end, we will actively collaborate with external parties to develop prototypes that bring surprises and open doors to new possibilities.
We drive businesses and the future to ensure the generated ideas and prototypes provide a high-definition, safe, and creative experience that leaves room for creativity. We aim to democratize the mirror world.
Kevin Kelly is Senior Maverick at Wired magazine. He co-founded Wired in 1993 and served as its Executive Editor for its first 7 years. His most recent book is “The Inevitable,” which is a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. His other books include the best-selling “New Rules for the New Economy,” the classic “Out of Control, and his summary theory of technology in “What Technology Wants.” From 1984-1990 Kelly was publisher and editor of the Whole Earth Catalogs. He co-founded the Hackers’ Conference, and was involved with the launch of the WELL, a pioneering online service started in 1985. He also founded the popular Cool Tools website in 2003.
Mitsuhiro Takemura is a media aesthete and the president of Takemura-Juku. He has held professorships at Nihon University College of Art, Kyoto University of Art and Design, the University of Tokyo Graduate School, and Sapporo City University. Takemura has been lecturing on counterculture and media theory since the 1980s and is studying digital social environments, including virtual reality, the dawn of the Internet, modern social media, and AI. He has been leading Takemura-Juku since 2013. Takemura also won the 19th Telecom Social Science Award for his book, "The Future of Memory, Cultural Economy of Digital Archives" (University of Tokyo Press). In 2017, Takemura was appointed as a fellow of the Center for the Study of Digital Life (NYC). He is also the author of "The Future of Memory, Cultural Economy of Digital Archives" (Diamond Inc.), "Berlin, City, Future" (Ota Publishing), and a new book, "The Privacy Paradox: The Data Surveillance Society and the Reinvention of 'I'" (blkswn publishers Inc.). He currently lives in Berlin.
Keisuke Toyoda was born in Chiba, Japan, in 1972. He worked at Tadao Ando Architects & Associates from 1996 to 2000 and SHoP Architects ( New York) from 2002 to 2006. In 2007, he co-founded NOIZ with Jia-Shuan Tsai in Tokyo and Taipei. Kosuke Sakai joined them in 2016. In 2020, he established an office in Warsaw (Europe). Toyota also established gluon, a cross-regional platform with Mitsuhiro Kaneda, in 2017 with the theme "Architecture/Urban x Tech x Business." Toyota was the advisor for planning the venues of the 2025 Osaka-Kansai International Exposition (2017-2018). He is also the vice president of the Architectural Informatics Association (2020 to present), founding director of Metaverse Japan (2022 to present), and a specially appointed professor of the Institute of Industrial Science at The University of Tokyo (2021 to present).
Tomoya is a Business Design Lead at IDEO Play Lab (San Francisco), where he applies the principles of play to strategy design. He is constantly looking out for hidden connections between seemingly unrelated fields and strives to turn them into viable and impactful innovation—be it new business models, experiences, or brand strategies. Prior to IDEO, he was at a Tokyo-based space startup, where he worked on the commercialization of lunar exploration missions.Tomoya spent his early years in the USA, Japan and Switzerland. He holds a degree in Astronomy from Brown University. He is also a freelance science writer by night.
Born in Aichi, lived in Hakodate, Kakegawa, and Biei before spending time in the U.S. and Canada. Majored in art, visual communication, and architecture. After working for a design architectural design firm, he joined TOPPAN. While involved in spatial design, product design, and design marketing, he planned a spatial simulator utilizing a game engine. Currently, he has established GEMINI Laboratory and aims to create a new business and community related to mirror world. He has a strong interest in space and science fiction, and in the past participated in HAKUTO, the first private-sector lunar exploration project, as a pro bono. He is currently participating in SPACETIDE, which supports the creation of space businesses. His research interests include the real and digital worlds of mirror worlds and space, and the blurred boundary surfaces and ambiguities between earth and space.
Joined TOPPAN after working in space planning and design, global marketing, and launching new businesses at a construction company.As part of his planning and design activities at Anonymous, she has exhibited at Maison&Objet “Signature” five times and developed products at ligne roset. Based on her experience living as a nomad in places such as the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, She is interested in the richness that nature and the environment bring to life, and his heart is shaken by the fusion of different cultures.FX International Design Awards "Public Space Schemes" Selected finalist,GD Award etc.. Japan Fashion Color Association Expert of "Products & Interiors" committee.
Yasushi Sakai was born in 1985. He used to work at Nikken Sekkei/Digital Design Lab and is currently a doctoral student and research assistant at MIT Media Lab. He explores the relationship between people and technology and is researching "the machines we call cities." Sakai is involved in the development of systems that support collective consensus building in architecture and cities, referencing decentralized version control systems and new democratic processes. His track record includes exhibitions at the Cooper Hewitt Museum (New York, USA, 2018) and Siggraph (Canada, 2018). He won an award at the WIRED Common Ground Challenge (2021) and a Jury Selection award at the Japan Media Arts Festival (2014).
SUNAKI is a collaborative group led by the architect Toshikatsu Kiuchi and the designer/programmer Taichi Sunayama. It plans, designs, and produces projects centered on architecture and art. SUNAKI stands out for its thematic approach that crosses the digital and the physical from the perspective of information and materials. It comprehensively handles everything, including installation production, architectural design, exhibition planning, venue composition, web space design, and database construction. In the TOKYO ART BOOK FAIR 2020 and 2021, one of Asia's largest book fairs, SUNAKI proposed an art book fair format that could only be done online, as the actual venues were suspended or reduced due to COVID-19. In the Japan Pavilion "Chain of Behavior: Trajectory of Elements" at the 17th International Architecture Exhibition at the Venice Biennale, which featured the dismantling, movement, and partial reconstruction of Japanese postwar houses, SUNAKI created an installation focusing on the loss of material and information caused during dismantling and relocation, conducting 3D scanning and database construction to preserve building component information. Their collaborative project, Shinkenchiku Shodoshima House, covers everything from planning to renovation design, seeking new architectural possibilities by approaching architecture as an ever-changing document rather than a permanent monument.
exonemo is an art unit that uses anger, laughter, and text editors to tackle various media with a hacking motif. Kensuke Sembo and Yae Akaiwa started their activities on the Internet in 1996. Since 2000, exonemo has expanded its activities to include installation, live performances, event production, and community organization. It has been involved in numerous experimental projects that flexibly cross the digital and the analog as well as the networked and the real world, exposing the relationship between technology and its users and bringing a humorous angle and new perspective to its works. In 2006, exonemo's "The Road Movie" won the Golden Nica Award in the Net Vision category at Ars Electronica. Exonemo organized IDPW in 2012 and worked on The Internet Yami-Ichi. It then relocated to New York City in 2015.
Cooperation：NowHere
NFT Advisor: toshi / wildmouse
Yamaguchi spent his late 20s managing a publicly traded company and his early 30s studying engineering at MIT. In 2014, he launched Psychic VR Lab aiming to "unleash the superpowers of all mankind," and incorporated it in May 2016, the first year of VR. In 2017, he launched the XR Creative Platform STYLY service, and in 2018, the NEWVIEW project, an experimental project to design "super experiences" in 3D space. He also announced the Real Metaverse concept at the end of 2021. Yamaguchi aims to create an era in which we clad ourselves in space.
Kensho Tambara is a writer and curator born in Tokyo in 1992. He graduated from Harvard University's Department of Art History. He carried out his writing activities in Boston and focused on performances about the rites of passage and rituals of contemporary communities, returning to Japan in 2017 to work as a writer and curator in the country. Focusing on site-specific works and exhibitions, Tambara aims to induce a change in the viewer's gaze. He curates exhibitions at galleries and other venues while working as a writer. Tambara is also the founder of the art space Shinokubo Ugo and the representative director of the Open Art Consortium, a general incorporated association. Since 2009, Tambara has been the Program Director of Sono-aida "#NewYurakucho." His major exhibitions include "Mirai to Geijutsu/Future and Art" (2019, Mori Art Museum, under the name "Another Farm"), "ENCOUNTERS" (2020, ANB Tokyo, curator and artist), "Dream Play Sequence" (2021, BiBiBi & JURULi restaurant in Toyama Prefectural Museum of Art, curator), and Meta Fair #01 (2022, Sono-aida #NewYurakucho, organizer and curator).
Born in 1987, Kazuki Takakura uses technologies such as 3DCG, pixel animation, 3D printing, VR, and NFT to create works on the theme of rewriting the rules of contemporary art through Eastern thought and pursuing new values in digital data. Takakura mainly creates works based on the concept of Japanese Buddhism. He is a part-time lecturer at the Kyoto University of Arts and is currently developing the NFT series BUDDHA VERSE at OpenSea.
Ou Sugiyama is a producer in art and technology. In 2018, he was appointed as the Manager of "MORI Building DIGITAL ART MUSEUM: EPSON teamLab Borderless" and is currently in charge of planning for the museum and cultural transmission facility opening in 2023 at Mori Building New Territories Planning Department. He is also the director of Media Ambition Tokyo and the general director of the Signature Pavilion "Proof of Life" at Expo '2025 Osaka Kansai, Japan. His grandfathers are the Japanese-style painter Nei Sugiyama and the architect Yoshiro Taniguchi, and his uncle is Yukio Mishima.
Natsuyo Chinsho was born in Inner Mongolia and raised in Shanghai. She has been traveling back and forth between Japan and China since childhood. Since 2011, she has worked in the entertainment industry in Beijing, Shanghai, and Singapore. She specializes in UX design based on cultural background and trend analysis, launching Dig Dog LLC in 2017, a company specializing in branding. Chinsho has worked on many projects, from the entertainment business to product development. www.chinshonatsuyo.com
Keichiro Hirano was born in Gamagori City, Aichi Prefecture, in 1975 and is currently living in Kitakyushu City. He graduated from Kyoto University, Faculty of Law. In 1999, while still in school, he won the 120th Akutagawa Award for "L'Eclipse," which he submitted to the literary magazine Shincho. It became a bestseller with 400,000 copies sold. Since then, he has published numerous works in a variety of styles, changing from one work to the next. His works have been translated and launched in many countries. His books include the novels "Funeral," "Fill in the Blanks," "At the End of the Matinee," and "A Man," and his essays "How to Read Books: The Practice of Slow Reading," "How to Read Novels," "What am I? From an Individual to a Dividual," "The Direction of life Force - The Changing World and Dividualism," "Thinking Reed," and " What is Cool?" His latest book is "Honshin."
Kyoko Tominaga was born in 1986. Her major is social movement theory. After completing the master's and doctoral programs at the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology of the University of Tokyo, she was a research fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (PD) before assuming her current position in 2015. Her publications include "Social Movements and Youth," "The Subculturing of Social Movements," and "Introduction to 'Wagamama (Selfishness)' for Everyone."
Arina Tsukada is the editor-in-chief of Bound Baw, a media outlet that reports on worldwide art science. Tsukada launched the project "SYNAPSE" with young researchers in 2010 to connect science with different fields. Since 2012, Tsukada has been the art curator for Tokyo Electron's "solaé art gallery project" and has been in charge of media strategy for JST/RISTEX "Human and Information Ecosystem (HITE)" since 2016. Her recent publications include "ART SCIENCE is. - The Transformation of the World Led by Art Science" (BNN). She also co-authored "A World of Information - A Guidebook for Playing Between the Body and AI" (NTT Publishing) and edited Ai Hasegawa's book, "To be a Revolutionary in 20XX: A Lesson in Speculative Design" (BNN). Aside from these, Tsukada is a part-time lecturer at the Department of Art Science of Osaka University of Arts.http://boundbaw.com/
Mariko Nishimura graduated from International Christian University and started her career as an IT engineer at IBM Japan. She then worked as a field marketing manager at Adobe Systems and as a producer at Bascule before founding HEART CATCH, Inc. in 2014. As a "cross-border producer" connecting business, creativity, and technology, she has created projects for her own company, startups, corporations, and government agencies. Tsukada also established HEART CATCH LA in Los Angeles, USA, with projects set in the US underway. Executive Producer, Art Thinking Improbable Workshop; Member, Japan Open Innovation Award Expert Committee, Cabinet Office; Part-time Lecturer, Graduate School of Creative Innovation, Musashino Art University
This Discord channel will act as a communication channel between the speakers and the audience. During the live stream, anyone can enter comments through this channel. The channel will be joined by speakers, guests, and moderators. We will also collect in-depth comments and provide additional information that the speakers were unable to discuss on stage. We look forward to a fruitful live feed powered by your comments!
*This Discord server will be operated as a community server for GEMINI Laboratory after the event.
*Your comments and accumulated discussions will be an asset to future community activities.
*The GEMINI Laboratory Community is an open mirror world community driven by its slogan, "Co-creating the Mirror World." Realizing the borderless conjunction where the physical and digital connect requires a place where everyone can participate and contribute to the mirror world beyond the constraints and disparities, as well as co-creation activities among players capable of jumping over boundaries. The GEMINI Laboratory Community will conduct meet-up events and prototyping activities to create a mirror world where everyone can enjoy the abundance originally only found in the real world.
*More information about the GEMINI Laboratory Community and how to enter it will be announced during the event.
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