1 Wearing Media. Technology, Popular Culture and Art in Japanese Daily Life Machiko Kusahara Waseda University Familiar phenomena in our daily life often refect cultural issues that are inherited through history. Behind contemporary urban lifestyle, or even products of the latest technologies, one could discover traces of centuries- old ideas and habits that people are not necessarily aware of. Tat is also the case with Japanese popular culture. In this short article that covers a part of my talk at the symposium, a few interactive pieces of media art and practices that are related to wearable technologies will be introduced and juxtaposed to wearable media in popular culture today and in the past. Hopefully they will provide us with some hints to better understand contemporary Japanese media culture. Wearable / portable media art In recent years, works by Japanese artists have been widely shown in the feld of media art. Not only works by artists such as Toshio Iwai, Kazuhiko Hachiya or Maywa Denki, but also a wide variety of works by a younger generation are shown internationally. 1 Tese works are often entertaining and funny rather than pursuing artistic content or being serious, exploring new possibilities that the latest technologies have brought to us. Appreciating new technologies and using them for entertainment purposes is an important part of Japanese culture that has a long history. 2 Playful use of technology is particularly seen in works and projects experimenting with virtual reality. Virtual reality is a very challenging feld in media technology research and development. Te ultimate goal of virtual reality is to create a virtual environment in which all kinds of stimuli are synthesized in an interactive manner in real time. While audiovisual input/output systems are highly developed with a wide variety of applications, it is more difcult to realize applications for the other senses. Various feedback systems have been developed to realize the tactile sensation needed for applications such as medical devices or driving simulators. Wearable or portable systems have been researched to enable bodily contact with a virtual world. A work by Kanako Matsuo and her fellow graduate students at the University of ElectroCommunication entitled “Mushi-How” (“Ants in the Pants”) is an interesting example of such a practice. 3 Using arrays of tiny actuators inside a “shirt sleeve” and a horizontal screen that displays ants gathering and disappearing under the sleeve as the participant rests his/her arm on the screen, the system creates the physical sensation of insects crawling on one’s arm. Te main part of the system is packed inside a small green plastic cage that the user wears on his/her shoulder, a typical gear for kids when they catch butterfies or glass hoppers. (Tese baskets are available from any 100-yen shop – the Japanese equivalent of a 99-cent store.) Supported by realistic computer generated ants and accurate real time interaction, it produces an amazingly convincing and “horrifying” experience. “Mushi-How” was the winner of the 16 th International Collegiate Virtual Reality Contest (IVRC). 4 Wearable technologies allow us to experience bodily interaction with a virtual environment. Remarkable downsizing of devices made it possible to develop entertaining virtual reality projects like this piece. 5