"What are silk screen prints doing in a show of media art?"
This was the first question thrown at curator Tomoe Moriyama at the opening-day press conference for "Cyber Arts Japan," currently showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo. It came from a man wearing a bright pink hat who proceeded to hurl one hard-ball question after another. The curator did an admirable job of trying to bat away challenges to the show's legitimacy and even the term "media art," but the call had already been made.
The attending artists whose works are shown at "Cyber Arts Japan" knew he wasn't just posturing. "Media art" is a slippery term that can be used to promote creators as well as confine them to a curatorial ghetto. And let's not go near that overused and cringe-worthy prefix: "cyber."