世界で最も歴史の長いメディアアートの国際コンペティション Prix Ars Electronica 2025にて、evalaが Isao Tomita Special Prize（冨田勲特別賞）を、日本人で初めて受賞しました。

2024年12月よりNTTインターコミュニケーション・センター [ICC] にて開催した個展「evala　現われる場　消滅する像」での新作《ebb tide》と、evalaのこれまでの活動が評価されました。

審査員コメント：

サウンドインスタレーション《ebb tide》で、日本のサウンドアーティスト evala は、聴くというシンプルな行為がいかに変容的な体験になり得るかを示しています。彼は来場者を、意図的に視覚要素を最小限に抑えた構造物に座るよう促し、音に没入させます。この作品には、決まったリスニングスポットも、始まりも終わりもありません。音楽の伝統的な定義に逆らい、新たな感覚体験を提供することで、evalaは、視覚中心の世界において聴覚を研ぎ澄ませるという長年にわたる彼の探求を示しています。それは、立ち止まって今に集中することの重要性を強調しています。この精神は、彼のシリーズタイトル「See by Your Ears（耳で視る）」に完璧に凝縮されています。

この作品は、東京のNTTインターコミュニケーション・センター [ICC]で開催された彼の個展で発表されたいくつかのインスタレーションの一つで、サウンドアート展としては前例のない数の来場者を集めました。審査員は、この作品がサウンドアートを多くの人々に開かれたものにした点に大きな価値を見出しており、これは冨田勲が斬新な音楽やサウンドを広く一般に届けるというビジョンと合致するものです。

冨田勲はサラウンドおよび空間音楽への関心と情熱で知られていました。彼の名を冠した賞が、複数のオーディオチャンネルと空間を使うことで初めて生まれる聴覚体験の創造に専念するアーティストに贈られることは、彼の偉大な功績に対する何よりの証しとなります。

*この文章はGeminiによって翻訳されました。

Press Conference: The Winners of the Golden Nica 2025

「Isao Tomita Special Prize (冨田勲特別賞)」とは：

20世紀を代表する作曲家の冨田勲は、シンセサイザー音楽の開拓者であり、生涯に渡りサラウンド（立体音響）への飽くなき探求を続けました。Isao Tomita Special Prizeは、冨田勲とそのクリエイティブ・スピリットを記念して、TOMITA information Hubとアルス・エレクトロニカが共同で授与する賞です。
Prix Ars Electronicaのデジタルミュージック&サウンドアート部門のゴールデン・ニカ賞と並行して選出され、デジタル音楽とサウンドアートにおいて、芸術的、技術的な挑戦を続け、革新的でユニークな音楽で人々に刺激を与えるアーティストと作品に贈られます。

Photo: Ryohei Tomita
Photo courtesy: NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]

Prix Ars Electronica 2025 Isao Tomita Special Prize
Evala has been awarded the Isao Tomita Special Prize at Prix Ars Electronica 2025, the world’s longest-running international competition for media art. The award recognizes his new work, “ebb tide,” presented at his solo exhibition “evala: Emerging Site / Disappearing Sight” held at NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC] in 2024, as well as his ongoing artistic activities to date. He is the first Japanese artist to receive this honor.

Jury Statements：

In his sound installation ebb tide, Japanese sound artist evala demonstrates that the simple act of listening can be a transformative experience. He invites visitors to sit on a structure with intentionally minimal visual elements and allows them to be absorbed by the sound. The piece has no designated listening spot, no beginning, and no end. By defying traditional definitions of music and offering a new sensory experience, evala reflects his long-standing dedication to elevating auditory senses in our vision-centric world—emphasizing the importance of slowing down and being present. This ethos is perfectly captured in his series title See by Your Ears. 

This piece was one of several installations presented at his solo exhibition at NTT InterCommunication Center in Tokyo, which drew an unprecedented number of visitors for a sound art exhibition. The jury found great value in how it democratized sound art, aligning with Tomita’s vision of bringing novel music and sound to the general public. 

Isao Tomita was known for his interest and passion in surround and spatial music. It stands as a testament to his legacy to give an award bearing his name to an artist dedicated to creating auditory experiences that are only possible through multiple audio channels and space.

About “Isao Tomita Special Prize”：
Isao Tomita, a leading 20th-century composer, was a pioneer of synthesizer music who relentlessly pursued surround sound (spatial audio) throughout his life. The Isao Tomita Special Prize is jointly presented by TOMITA information Hub and Ars Electronica to commemorate Tomita and his creative spirit. It’s awarded to artists and works in the Digital Music & Sound Art field that continue to push artistic and technological boundaries, inspiring people with innovative and unique music. This prize is awarded every two years, in parallel with the Golden Nica award for the Digital Music & Sound Art category.

Photo: Ryuichi Maruo
Photo courtesy: NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC]

evala
“ebb tide” (2024)

ebb tide is a large-scale sound installation by Japanese sound artist evala, and the latest work in his See by Your Ears project. Since 2017, evala has been developing this project both in Japan and internationally, aiming to create entirely new auditory experiences. See by Your Ears seeks to awaken the inherent, dormant potential of hearing and create new perceptual experiences through his unique “Spatial Composition,” using a sound system that does not rely on existing formats. 

Upon entering the ebb tide exhibition space—spanning approximately 400 square meters—visitors are enveloped by both an immersive tide of sound and a disorienting darkness. As their eyes gradually adjust, faint light begins to reveal the contours of form. At the center of the room, a ripple-like, distorted structure made of sound-absorbing material is installed. It stands alone and looks like a reef on a dark seashore. Visitors carefully feel their way onto this structure. Its surface has various slopes, so it’s not very comfortable and actually keeps their bodies in a state of slight, constant tension. They slowly adapt to this irregular terrain, finding ways to sit or lie down as sound begins to envelop them. In the deep expanse of darkness, a haze of faint white light drifts gently. Little else meets the eye. 

This 10.8.4.4.4-channel, immersive three-dimensional sound installation is composed of sounds produced by various sound apparatus and environmental recordings that evala has collected from personally meaningful locations around the world. Its intention is not to tell a story that unfolds with time, but to provide an experience of putting oneself in a sound space and to open the imagination of each audience through this.   

The meticulously constructed three-dimensional sound possesses a remarkably high resolution, yet it envelops the body from all directions with resonances and movements that defy physical reality. The sound, at once hyper-realistic and surreal, instantly awakens dormant sensations within the listener and begins to dissolve the boundaries of perception. Accompanied by a sound like a sudden, sharp intake of breath, one might feel at times as if their entire body is diving into a small wind chime; at other times, like being instantly teleported to a crumbling rocky mountain by the sea; or perhaps like floating in an infinite, zero-gravity expanse. The body, enveloped by sound, becomes a medium, allowing one to experience the sensation of the world transforming, as if journeying back and forth between dream and reality.   

The title of the work, ebb tide, is derived from the lore that human biorhythms, including life and death, are connected to the ebb and flow of the tides. For evala, this work is also a requiem for the departed, expressing profound reverence for the unbroken continuity of life. 

Through focused, attentive listening, images begin to emerge. These then reside within each listener in a multitude of forms. Rather than imposing meaning or information from the outside, and instead by awakening the dormant auditory perception that humans possess, the project seeks to boldly yet delicately draw out the diverse and unique stories that well up from within each individual. That is what evala aims to achieve with the See by Your Ears project. 

[Credit]

Concept, Direction, Composition,
and All sound production: evala

Space design: Keisuke Toyoda (NOIZ), Masashi Hirai (NOIZ)
Lighting design: Megumi Yamashita (RYU), Over Cage (RYU)
Sound system design: ZAK
Sound system engineer: Tetsuya Yamamoto (resonate with)
Sound system tuner: Takeo Watanabe (arte)

Technical direction: Yuya Ito (arsaffix)
Technical staff: Kosaku Namikawa, Hiroshi Kanechiku, Haruhiko Goto, Shimpei Ueda (Scientific Tsukuba), Naruki Numazawa (Scientific Tsukuba), Kazuhiro Imanaka (Scientific Tsukuba)
Construction and display: TOKYO STUDIO CO., LTD.

Equipment Cooperation: Yamaha Music Japan Co., Ltd., SHIZUKA Inc., Synthax Japan Inc., ACOUSTIC FIELD INC., SPACE CREATORS ALLIANCE Inc. ACOUSTIC REINFORCEMENT TECHNOLOGY Co., SHOUT-inc.
Material Cooperation: Techno Foam Japan Co., Ltd., atosaki sound
Special Thanks to: Yasushi Utsunomia, Jiro Kubo, Koji Ishida, 2bit, Satomi Shimizu

*This work was created for the exhibition “evala: Emerging Site / Disappearing Sight” in 2024, commissioned by NTT InterCommunication Center [ICC].

Curator: Minoru Hatanaka (ICC), Yasuko Yubisui(ICC)
Curatorial team: Tomoya Kashimada (ICC), Emiko Akasaka (ICC), Aira Miyawaki (ICC)
Producer: Yoshino Nagamura (SbYE)

>>About “ebb tide“