The KMD Forum 2023 "CRYSTALVISIONS," an open house event hosted by the Graduate School of Media Design (KMD), was held over the course of two days on Sunday, September 17 and Monday, September 18. The event was held in the 3rd floor exhibition room of the Tokyo Metropolitan Industrial Trade Center Hamamatsuchō-kan located in Tokyo Port City Takeshiba. The Research Center regularly conducts parts of its activities at this location.
In addition to interactive exhibits of ongoing projects, talk sessions were organized, such as "Bio Future", where Mr. Alexander Reeder of ArtandProgram and Mr. Hideo Iwasaki of Waseda University held a discussion on how to solve social issues through bio design, as well as "KMD IMPACT TALK - Alumni perspectives", where KMD alumni shared on the appeal of KMD and their career paths. Both sessions were moderated by KMD faculty member Matthew Waldman. KMD also held an admission information session during the event that was livestreamed on YouTube.
The iU (Professional University of Information and Management for Innovation) exhibition was also held at the same venue, in addition to the "Minna-no-nosekai, Neurodiversity Exhibition 2023", which was held in the Port Hall on the 1st floor and featured some exhibits of research conducted at KMD. On the 1st floor stage, there was a kick-off gig of the "Brain Body Jockey Project", one of the projects KMD is working on, in which EYE VDJ MASA, an artist with ALS (amyotrophic lateral sclerosis), used brain waves to operate a robotic arm to put a novel spin on a DJ performance.
The event was a great success with approximately 1,800 visitors on the 3rd floor and 10,000 visitors on the 1st floor over the course of both days, thus providing a valuable opportunity for KMD to communicate its ongoing projects to the community at large and obtain feedback from a wide range of people about how they might improve future initiatives.