Technology forces us to consider the meaning of being human. The media art collective Dumb Type explores this and related topics with thought-provoking performances and installations in Japan and around the world.
In Kyoto next year, it will showcase its first brand-new performance work since 2002, but ahead of this an exhibition dedicated to the group, "Dumb Type Actions and Reflections" is currently showing at the Museum of Contemporary Art Tokyo (MoT). An expanded version of an exhibition held last year at France's Centre Pompidou-Metz, the retrospective includes extra works from the art group's career.
Dumb Type was formed by students at Kyoto City University of Arts in the 1980s to provide a non-verbal (hence "dumb") response — in the form of installation, performance, music, dance and more — to the onslaught of media imagery and information of contemporary society.