We attempt to restore landscapes of Gion festival that originated in the mid 9th century, which has evolved to take its current form by the mid 14th century and continued until today with minor interruptions. During the festival, 32 Yama and Hoko (floats) representing each local neighborhood parade in the city center, including Shijo Street and Shinmachi Street. Yamahoko parade of Gion Festival becomes a symbolic landscape of Kyoto during the festival period in summer. Basically Yamahokos of similar scale have been enshrined over the centuries. With so rich in culture, the yama and hoko floats are often called “moving museum.” The Gion Festival was inscribed in 2009 on the Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, UNESCO. With full of various cultural assets, both tangible and intangible, the Festival presents not only a suitable but also challenging example for us to explore possibilities of the digital documentation in various temporal and spatial dimensions.
Science and Technology (MEXT) undertook a research entitled "Survey review related to technologies and systems required for research towards building a Digital Museum". Virtual Kyoto was chosen as the platform for this activity. Various tangible and intangible cultural heritage sites of the historical city of Kyoto, including in particular the Gion Festival were identified as primary targets for the Digital Museum, and entitled "Space-Time Walk in Kyoto". The above proposal was approved and adopted, with Professor Tanaka Hiromi, Ritsumeikan University. Following this, the "Research on developing a demonstration experiment system for building a digital museum" project, which also was adopted in cooperation with the University of Tokyo.
Furthermore, in alliance with the (Foundation) Association for the Preservation of Gion Festival Funaboko, a study focusing specifically on the Funaboko was conducted, and various resources such as the decorative ornaments and materials, acoustics of the festival music etc. were converted to digital archives using cutting edge information technology.
M. Keiji YANO est professeur à l'Université Ritsumeikan de Kyôto.
Conférence en anglais. Cette conférence s'inscrit dans l'axe de recherche II du GEO: Mémoires et discours, traditions et innovations.
Organisation: GEO, Département d’études japonaises, Centre européen d’études japonaises d’Alsace?
Contact: Sandra Schaal