Mika Tajima

Mika Tajima
Born	1975 Los Angeles, California
Nationality	American
Education	Bryn Mawr College, Columbia University School of the Arts
Website	http://mikatajima.com/

Mika Tajima (born 1975 in Los Angeles, California) is a New York-based artist who employs sculpture, painting, media installation, and performance in her conceptual practice.^[1]

Education

Tajima earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Fine Arts and East Asian Studies from Bryn Mawr College in 1997, and a Master of Fine Arts graduate degree from the Columbia University School of the Arts in 2003. That year she was also a Post-Graduate Apprentice at The Fabric Workshop and Museum in Philadelphia.^[2]

Work

Tajima's practice materializes techniques developed to shape the physicality, productivity, and desires of the human body. Her work relates performance, control, and freedom to the embodied experience of architectonic and computational life.^[3]

Her early installations and collaborative work explored performance in relation to the built environment.^[4]^[5] Using the music recording studio, film production set, industrial factory, data centers, and office work environment as production sites, Tajima examined how these spaces shape our activities and bodies.^[6] In each project, the performing subject confronts determined situations and seeks new possibilities through modes of non-performance and autonomy.^[7]

Her other work draws on technologies used to control and affect the human body and mind. This includes techniques that shape psychological desires and our experience of space and time.^[8] “From architectural systems to ergonomic design to psychographic data, her works operate in the space between the transient and the tangible, and highlight the complex networks of power and submission that we experience in relationship to our physical bodies and virtual selves.”^[9]

Through a residency at the Fabric Workshop, Tajima developed her Negative Entropy woven portrait series in which she focused on mechanical textile production, in particular the development of the Jacquard loom, as a technology linked to these early modes of industry, but also one that developed into our current age of computing and information management.^[10] Meridian (2016), was developed using sentiment analysis and prediction technology, where the light sculpture responds in real time to the collective mood of a population expressed on live Twitter feeds from a particular geographic region, such as Istanbul.^[11]^[12] Her exhibitions include Disassociate (2007), The Double (2008), and Negative Entropy (2014).^[13]^[14]

Collaboration

In 2003, she co-founded New Humans, a collaborative group including then-artists Eric Tsai and her now-husband Howie Chen to make works involving sound, installation, and performance actions.^[15] "New Humans" is a moniker for Tajima's projects with other musicians, artists and designers.^[16] Collaborators for New Humans performances and projects include Vito Acconci, Charles Atlas, Judith Butler, John Smith and C. Spencer Yeh, among others.^[17]^[18]^[19]

Awards

In 2007 she received an Artadia Award.^[20]

References

^ "Mika Tajima — Art21". Art21. Retrieved 2018-03-09.
^ "Mika Tajima - Artists + Projects - 11R Gallery". 11rgallery.com. 2016-12-02. Archived from the original on 2020-05-20.
^ "Mika Tajima :: Foundation for Contemporary Arts". www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
^ "Mika Tajima: The Double, Press Release" (PDF). The Kitchen. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
^ "MIKA TAJIMA: THE DOUBLE". The Bass Museum of Art. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
^ Maerkle, Andrew. "Alienation Through Beautification, Engagement After Alienation". ART iT. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
^ "Mika Tajima :: Foundation for Contemporary Arts". www.foundationforcontemporaryarts.org. Retrieved 2019-05-09.
^ "Mika Tajima". 11th Gwangju Biennale 2016. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
^ Norton, Margot. "Mika Tajima: Æther" (PDF). Borusan Contemporary. Borusan Contemporary. Retrieved 21 March 2018.
^ Lyon, Matthew (October 20, 2015). Total Body Conditioning: Mika Tajima. Black Dog Publishing. ISBN 978-1908966971.
^ "Japanese artist's work inspired by abstract material at Bosporus Gallery". DailySabah. 2 March 2018. Retrieved 9 March 2018.
^ Uncu, Erman Ata (8 March 2018). "Perili Köşk'te teknolojik hayalet avı". Hürriyet (in Turkish). Retrieved 9 March 2018.
^ Smith, Roberta (2014-03-27). "Mika Tajima: 'Negative Entropy'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2018-03-09.
^ "Artist Mika Tajima on Shaping the Human Body Through Sculpture". Artspace. Retrieved 2018-03-09.
^ "Mika Tajima by Kareem Estefan - BOMB Magazine". bombmagazine.org. Retrieved 2018-03-09.
^ "New Humans official". New Humans official. New Humans. Retrieved 24 March 2018.
^ "SFMOMA'S LIVE-ART PROGRAM PRESENTSTODAY IS NOT A DRESS REHEARSAL, BY NEW HUMANS". SFMOMA. Retrieved 2018-04-30.
^ "Charles Atlas & Mika Tajima: The Pedestrians at South London Gallery, London •Mousse Magazine". moussemagazine.it (in Italian). Retrieved 2018-04-30.
^ Huldisch, Henriette; Momin, Shamim M. (2008-03-28). Whitney Biennial 2008. New Haven, Conn.: The Whitney Museum of American Art. ISBN 9780300136890.
^ "Mika Tajima". Artadia. Retrieved 2019-06-11.