Loading details…
Loading details…
Artist
http://dumbtype.com/ Founded in 1984, the artist collective Dumb Type is based in Kyoto, Japan. Members are trained in varied disciplines, including visual arts, theatre, dance, architecture, music composition and computer programming. Their work ranges across such diverse media as art exhibitions, performances, audiovisuals and publications. Dumb Type is known for portraying a dark, cynical, and humorous world in which technology is a way of life--if not necessarily a welcome one. In a 1990 interview in High Performance, the late Teiji Furuhashi, one of Dumb Type's founding members, described their work as political in nature. "Something Japanese theater never does. Japanese audiences don't want to see that. They want to avoid it. They just want entertainment. Yes, I think we should always have a political view. We should represent that this is Japan." Notable in a country plagued by political apathy, the group has played the unpopular role of AIDS activist, organizing symposiums and other events, motivated in part by the fact that Furuhashi died of AIDS in 1995. While based in Kyoto, Japan's ancient capital, Dumb Type is oriented more to the global than the local, the contemporary over the traditional. Dumb Type members claim that Japanese art movements have had little influence on their work. Furuhashi explained that the core group--Furuhashi, Toru Koyamada, Yukihiro Hozumi, Shiro Takatani, Takayuki Fujimoto and Hiromasa Tomari--began working together in 1982, while stil