The MobNauts travel by bus to a number of host institutions (including media centers and others) across Japan, with the aim to exchange and collaborate with organizers, local artists and other individuals they meet during the approximately three weeks. Under consideration of its own orientation, as well as local characteristic features, each host institution plans and carries out programs together with the MobLab Committee and the MobNauts.
IAMAS
Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences
+ International Academi of Media Arts and Sciences
Ogaki
Central technical operations concerning the entire MobLab project - archive system development and implementation, conversion of the bus, etc. - take place at IAMAS, where the MobNauts gather to camp before the kick-off. The Center for Media Culture (CMC) and other IAMAS venues host workshops, the MobLab pre-launch party and seeing-off ceremony, as well as the first MobLab presentation, and an event that takes place with a live Ogaki-Berlin Network connection - all involving IAMAS students and other media art-related professionals and students from the Chukyo area. An educational institution located - different from the other host venues - in the environment of a provincial town, IAMAS appeals to students across Japan and Germany to participate actively, rather than aiming to attract a large number of visitors to events at the Institute.
Computer terminals will be set up inside ICC for the entire period of the MobLab project. For the MobLab event on October 21, the bus will stop at Tokyo Opera City, and presentations summarizing the processes of the MobNauts' projects to that day, as well as talk sessions and live performances with the organizers, MobNauts, and special guests take place at the 5F lobby. On the following day, ICC is the point of departure for a tour around greater Tokyo (leading to places in central Tokyo, and the Yokohama Triennale), and the place for brainstorming about ways to utilize the contexts and structures of the metropolitan region.
１Parked in the open square on the first floor of Sendai Mediatheque (smt), the MobLab bus turns into a public atelier and relay station. Visitors can follow the journey up to the arrival at Sendai, and browse through a catalog of finished works and creation processes on monitors and screens, while the MobNauts produce new works in collaboration with smt visitors. Due to the "open" nature of the square, workshops will evolve naturally on the spot. During the stay at smt, various events with live Network connections to Berlin are planned.
The final stop on the MobLab journey, YCAM serves as a collecting point for results and summaries as presented one by one on the MobLab Website, as well as a platform for research into new prospects arising out of those. MobLab is an amalgamation of continuous processes, which involves the possibility to interlink projects and/or carry them to the next step/node. Events at YCAM will include presentations, mini live performances, workshops, discussions and others with organizers, hosts, MobNauts, and guests invited through YCAM.