Born in 1987 in Tokyo, where he continues to live, Ei Wada graduated from the Department of Information Design at Tama Art University in Tokyo 2010. He started his career as an artist in both music and art while studying at university. Fusing reel-to-reel tape recorders, CRT televisions and other old electronic appliances with state-of-the-art technologies, he produces performances and installations that generate new musical instruments and playing techniques.
He has given many live performances in and outside of Japan, both solo and also under the name of “Open Reel Ensemble,” the music group he launched in 2009: Ars Electronica, Sónar and over 20 other cities including Issey Miyake’s Paris Collection, where he performed for 11 consecutive times.
The exhibitions he took part in include “ICC Kids Program 2017” (NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC], Tokyo), “KENPOKU ART 2016”, “TAKAMATSU MEDIA ART FESTIVAL” (2015) and many others. In 2015, he launched “ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS!”, a new project that reincarnates retired consumer electronics as electromagnetic folk instruments, invents new ways to play music, co-creates orchestras and festivals with diverse people. He received the 13th Japan Media Arts Festival Art Division Excellence Award in 2010, WIRED Audi INNOVATION AWARD 2016, and the 68th The New Face Award from the Ministry of Education in the Art Encouragement Prizes in 2018.
I, who remain obsessed with the electromagnetic supernatural creatures that inhabit cathode-ray tube static, would like once again to express my gratitude for this opportunity to lay eggs. For my contribution to the exhibition, I will endeavor to create not only the tangible but also, by planting seeds around the world, the intangible that can form over the passage of time. Today, when we are unable to make physical journeys, the artwork concept continues to travel to distant lands. And sounds continue now to be laid. Be sure to witness the beginning of this story at the exhibition. “Cluck, cluck, cluck,” go the sounds of the eggs being laid!!!
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Comment as a Selected Finalist
I’m grateful for having been given this opportunity to deliver new work, resulting from “I,” the artists, as a phenomenon obsessed with electromagnetic monsters that live in the static on cathode-ray tubes!!! I will eagerly produce something new! Poko, poko, poko, poko (sound of eggs being laid)!!!!