About

Ryuta Aoki | 青木竜太

Artist / Artistic Director
VOLOCITEE Inc. Founder & CEO
METACITY Co-Founder & Artistic Director
Mucha Kucha Inc. Co-Founder & Executive Director
The TEA-ROOM Co-Founder & Artistic Director
ArtHackDay.jp Founder & Artistic Director
 
Portfolio: English | Japanese

Profile

Ryuta Aoki is a Japanese artist, artistic director, conceptual designer, system architect, software engineer, entrepreneur, and social sculptor based in Tokyo. He explores “societies as they could be” through an installation-centred practice at the intersection of art, science, and technology. From concept design to the process architecture for artistic research and development, he steers projects through to exhibitions and conferences where knowledge and aesthetics converge. Grounded in a Japanese view of nature embodied by chanoyu, the tea ceremony, his work absorbs emerging techno-scientific perspectives on life and humanity, seeking forms of practice that intervene directly in ecological and social realities beyond the gallery.
Selected exhibitions include the Kitakyushu Future Creation Art Festival (Japan, 2020); the Chiba City Festival of Arts (Japan, 2021); “2121 Futures In-Sight” at 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT (Japan, 2021); “Trusting the Unseen” (Thailand, 2023); and “AI・Human・Multiverse” (Korea, 2023).
In 2024, Aoki became the inaugural artist recipient of the Ethereum Foundation’s Artist Scholarship and, in the same year, the first Japanese participant in the residency programme at the Asia Culture Center (ACC) in Gwangju. The following year he joined the first cohort of the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ Art & Tech Creators Global Network, a fellowship programme aimed at enhancing the international presence of Japanese media art.
His honours include the Public Prize at the WIRED Creative Hack Award 2021 and the Social Impact Prize (Minister of Education Award) at the 25th Japan Media Arts Festival 2022—the first time the distinction was awarded to a Japanese team.

Artist Statement

I take Joseph Beuys’s concept of social sculpture—the idea that society is a malleable material that art can reshape—as my point of departure. My practice fuses that principle with a science-fiction gaze and contemporary technology, recasting social sculpture as a future-oriented experiment.
The materials I work with fall into three interdependent strata. Informational materials—data, algorithms, and distributed protocols—encode speculative blueprints. Environmental materials—soil, moss, light, and wind—manifest autonomous generative processes. Social materials—collective thought, action, and communal relationships—supply kinetic energy and feedback. Each project blends these strata in shifting ratios: information inscribes the space, environment mutates over time, and social participation drives the cycle outward. My aim is to establish a loop in which information shapes the environment, the environment rewrites information, and people are drawn so deeply into that exchange that it begins to work on the psyche itself.
To trigger this loop, I dislocate existing technologies from their primary uses and place them in contexts they were never meant for. By redesigning human-centred tools into vessels open to multispecies agency, I introduce micro-distortions into social structures, institutions, and cognitive biases, thereby broadening the field of the possible.
The true body of the work is the ongoing process—the discussions, collaborations, ecological changes, and social transformations that unfold before and after each exhibition—while any displayed object is merely a crystallised snapshot. I value the fleeting appearance of a provisional, as-yet-unseen society and the sharing of its evolution; by foregrounding that moment I seek to affirm that creative agency is universally latent and that narrowing the creativity divide is itself a sculptural act upon society. That conviction is why I pursue social sculpture, and why I regard such moments as deserving the name art.

Awards / Fellowships / Residencies

(A = Awards / F = Fellowship / S = Scholarship / R = Residency / H = Honorary Mention)
2025FWAN: Art & Tech Creators Global Network (Agency for Cultural Affairs, New York, USA)
2024SDevcon 7 Scholars Program Artists and Writers Cohort (Ethereum Foundation, Bangkok, Thailand)
RACC CREATORS Residency 2024 (Asia Culture Center, Gwangju, South Korea)
FCuratorial Research Program (Lithuanian Culture Institute, Vilnius / Kaunas, Lithuania)
2022A25th Japan Media Arts Festival, Art Division, Social Impact Prize —Bio Sculpture
2021AWIRED Creative Hack Award 2021, Public Prize —Bio Sculpture
HWIRED Creative Hack Award 2021, Finalist —Artificial Moons
2015HGreat TEDx Stage Design —TEDxKids@Chiyoda
2012HBest Practice of TEDx —TEDxKids@Chiyoda
HBest Stage Design of TEDx —TEDxKids@Chiyoda

Selected Exhibitions

2024AI · Human · Multiverse, National Asia Culture Center, South Korea
Trusting the Unseen, Ethereum Foundation, Thailand
Reframing Exhibition, DESIGNART 2024, Japan
202225th Japan Media Arts Festival Award Winning Works Exhibition, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
20212121 Futures In-Sight, 21_21 DESIGN SIGHT, Japan
Ars Electronica 2021 Garden Tokyo, Online
Chiba City Festival of Arts, Japan
ART for SDGs: Kitakyushu Art Festival Imagining Our Future, Kitakyushu City, Japan
2020The Exhibition of Multi-Layered City Makuhari, Chiba City, Japan
Next World ExhiVision x 23rd Japan Media Arts Festival, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
Japan Media Arts Distributed Museum, Agency for Cultural Affairs, Japan
2019MUTEK.jp 2019, Japan

Installation Works

2025Phantom Realities
2024Simulated Consensus
SOTOROJI #3 (The TEA-ROOM)
SOTOROJI #2 (The TEA-ROOM
2022Bio Sculpture —Scene of a Future Boutique (Hiroya Tanaka Laboratory + METACITY)
2021New Rousseau Machine —Kyoto Mounting Edition (METACITY)
Bio Sculpture —Scene of a Future Portable Lab (Hiroya Tanaka Laboratory + METACITY)
New Rousseau Machine (METACITY)
Hello, Error! #1 (The TEA-ROOM)
SOTOROJI #1 (The TEA-ROOM)
UCHIROJI #0 (The TEA-ROOM)
ANH-01 (ALTERNATIVE MACHINE)
Bio Sculpture (Hiroya Tanaka Laboratory + METACITY)
2020Artificial Moons (The TEA-ROOM + METACITY)
VOID SYSTEM (The TEA-ROOM)
SOTOROJI #0 (The TEA-ROOM)
2019ANH-00 (ALTERNATIVE MACHINE)

Research & Development

(D = In-house Development / R = Collaborative Research)
2020 – 2021RNew Rousseau Machine R&D (MIT Media Lab City Science Group + METACITY)
2019 – 2022RBio Sculpture R&D (Keio University SFC Hiroya Tanaka Lab + METACITY)
2019 – 2022RAcoustic Niche Hypothesis R&D (ISID + ALIFE Lab)
2019 – 2020DSoftware for android Alter 3 (ALTERNATIVE MACHINE)
2018 – 2021RResearch on Flourishing Mind (JT + ALTERNATIVE MACHINE)
2018RPrototype House Becomes Family (LIFULL + VUILD + ALTERNATIVE MACHINE)
2017 – 2020DALIFE Engine – generative dynamics engine (ALTERNATIVE MACHINE)
2017 – 2018RCitizen-cooperative distributed logistics (DENSO + ALTERNATIVE MACHINE)
2006 – 2011DSoftware for multi-core Cell BE / SpursEngine (Fixstars)
2002 – 2006DDigital TV / STB middleware (Zentek Technology Japan)
2000 – 2002DBusiness-card management cloud service (Hash System)

Curatorial Projects

(E = Exhibition / P = Performance / C = Concept Design)
2024EReframing – Official Exhibition of DESIGNART 2024 (DESIGNART | 18–27 Oct)
2022CBasic concept design for the international festival & ecosystem that will succeed the Japan Media Arts Festival (Agency for Cultural Affairs | Sep – Mar 2023)
2021EExhibition: Jack into the NoösphereChiba City Festival of Arts (Chiba City | Jul – Aug)
2020EThe Exhibition of Multi-Layered City Makuhari (Chiba City | Dec – Jan 2021)
EJapan Media Arts Distributed Museum – airport editions: Centrair / Naha / Fukuoka (Agency for Cultural Affairs | Feb–Mar)
2018EALIFE Art Award Exhibition “Being There” (ALIFE 2018 | Jul)
PShipboard Tea Ceremony (Mar)
EArt Hack Day Exhibition 2018 “Being There” (Miraikan | Mar)
2016EArt Hack Day Exhibition 2016 “Technology as Organism” (Nov)
PGlowing Tea Ceremony (Sanrio Puroland | Oct)
PSound Tea Ceremony (TAICOCLUB | Jun)
2015E3331α Art Hack Day Exhibition 2015 (3331 Arts Chiyoda | Sep)
2014EArt Hack Night 2014 (Loftwork | Sep)
E3331α Art Hack Day Exhibition 2014 (3331 Arts Chiyoda | Sep)
2012EExhibition: Design to Change the World —Trans Arts Tokyo (3331 Arts Chiyoda | Sep – Oct)

Conference / Event Direction

(C = Conference / S = Symposium / A = Award)
2024SCreative Futurists Initiative (University of Tokyo | 22 Feb)
2020SThe Exhibition of Multi-Layered City Makuhari (DOMMUNE | 30 Dec)
2019CMETACITY CONFERENCE 2019 (Makuhari Messe | 18 – 19 Jan)
2018CInternational Conference ALIFE 2018 (Miraikan | 23 Jul)
AALIFE Art Award 2018 (Miraikan | 14 May – 25 Jul)
2017SGenerative Ethics and Society  (University of Tokyo | 13 May)
2016CCOI 2021 Conference (Youth Education National Olympics Memorial Youth Center | 29 – 30 Jan)
2014CTEDxKids@Chiyoda 2014 (3331 Arts Chiyoda | 30 Nov)
2013CTEDxKids@Chiyoda 2013 (3331 Arts Chiyoda | 4 Nov)
2012CTEDxKids@Chiyoda 2012 (3331 Arts Chiyoda | 28 Oct)
2011CTEDxKids@Tokyo 2011 (CARATO71 | 1 Oct)
2010CTEDxTokyo yz 2010 Theater (Timeout Cafe | 17 Nov)

Workshop Facilitation / Programme Design

(H = Hackthon / I = Ideathon / S = Sci-Fi Prototyping / E = Education)

Spatial Producing & Operation

2018 – 2021Nausicaä House – Co-working hub (Shibuya, Tokyo
2016 – 2017Life Space UX Showroom, Sony Building Ginza (Chuo-ku, Tokyo)
2015 – 20173331α Studio – production & event space (Chiyoda, Tokyo)

Selected Publications & Papers

(S = Scientific Paper / B = Book / A = Article)

Selected Media Appearances

(T = TV / R = Radio / Y = Youtube)
2022YJapan Media Arts Festival: The 25th Japan Media Arts Festival
2021TBS Fuji: Esprit Japon: The Theme of Ryuta Aoki (Also broadcast in NZ / AU / FR)
RBayFM: Bay Morning Glory
2020YDOMMUNE: The Exhibition of Multi-Layered City Makuhari
RBayFM: Bay Morning Glory
TBS Fuji: Communicating Cultural Resources! Media Arts at the Gateway to the Sky
TMBC every1: ART×TRIP (Korean Broadcaster)
2017YDOMMUNE: Art Hack Day — A Future of Technology x Art
2015TNippon TV: SENSORS
RJ-WAVE: THE HANGOUT
2012RTokyo FM: blue ocean

Selected Interviews & Work Features

(M = Magazine / P = Paper / B = Book / C = Catalog / V = Video / W = Web)

Selected Invited Talks / Lectures / Workshops

(T = Talk / L = Lecture / W = Workshop / R = Research)

Jury & Advisory Roles

(J = Jury / A = Advisor)
2024JThe U-15 Science Fiction Contest Yoi Kono Anon Press Award 2023
2023AThe exhibition Invisibles in the Neo City hosted by Tokyo Metropolitan Government
AThe exhibition Does My Body Become My Mind? hosted by Tokyo Metropolitan Government
2018JNHK Educational Emergent Cafe Start-up Venture Contest
JALIFE Art Award 2018 sponsored by International Society for Artificial Life
2016JChackathon@Roppongi & Azabu sponsored by Minato ward in Tokyo
2014JDisaster Response and Prevention Hackathon Race for Resilience hosted by World Bank
JTEDxSaku Speaker Audition
2013JThe Great East Japan Earthquake Restoration Support WA WA Project Start-up contest