 Good evening. My name is Fabio Gigi. I'm the chair of the Japan Research Center here at SOWAS and it is great to see so many of you here in the Brunei Gallery Lecture Theatre tonight. Co-hosting the event with me is Dr. Sato Nasuzuki, lecturer in Japanese and modern Japanese history here at SOWAS. Good evening. It is a pleasure to be here and to see so many of you and we would like to welcome our special guest, Ms. Hiroko Morohashi and Mr. Eiji Morohashi. We are here tonight to... Oh, it stops here. Do you have the rest of the dialogue? No, I thought you had it. I must have left it in the office. Well, never mind. Well, being creative, that would be one solution. But we also have ChatGPT. So ChatGPT, can you write an opening monologue for an event on creativity in AI or a dialogue rather for a female and the male presenter, please? Okay, it's a bit spooky here, isn't it? It's a bit spooky, yes. Shall we do that? Yeah, let's do that. Okay. So, good evening everyone and welcome to our event on AI and creativity. I'm thrilled to see so many of you joining us tonight. Yes, absolutely. It's fantastic to have such a diverse group of individuals here to explore the intersection of artificial intelligence and creativity. So my name is Sarah. I didn't know that. We must decolonize ChatGPT, right? And I'll be one of your presenters for this evening. I have a background in computer science. I didn't know that. Me either. And a passion for the arts. That's true. So this topic is particularly exciting for me. And I am David, apparently. Hi, David. I come from a design and engineering background. And I've been fascinated by the ways in which AI is revolutionizing creative industries. So together, we'll be guiding you through a journey into the world of art, AI-driven creativity, if that's possible. Discussing its potential, its challenges and its impact on various fields, from music and art to literature and beyond. We'll be exploring questions like, how can AI enhance human creativity? What are the ethical considerations when using AI in creative processes? And perhaps, most importantly, what does the future of creativity look like in a world increasingly shaped by artificial intelligence? So get ready to dive deep into this fascinating topic with us tonight. We have a lineup of speakers and presentations that promise to be both enlightening and thought-provoking. Not bad, but it lacks a little something, a little esprit, a little wit perhaps. Yeah, let's see whether we can do a little bit better than this, right? So, chat GPT, can you write a witty opening dialogue for male and female presenter or female and male presenter? Let's see. No, that's the old one. Chat GPT is playing out. It doesn't like what we're trying to do. Yeah, exactly. Let's see whether this works. OK, so witty. Yeah, let's do this. Let's see what's the wit. Oh, here it comes. Here it comes. Slowly, opening. Shall we go on? OK, let's have a try on this. Hey, have you heard about this new AI technology? Yeah, I have. It's like having a super smart friend in your pocket, right? Exactly. But you know, sometimes I wonder if it's secretly plotting to take over the world. Oh, come on, don't be paranoid. It's more likely just trying to find the best pizza place nearby. Ha, good point. But imagine if it could actually order the pizza for us too. Now that's the future I can get behind. AI, please bring us the Jesus pizza in time. Well, not quite bit heavy on the pizza versus world domination irony. But as these two examples show, generative AI can be quite useful in an emergency, but can it create something really new? So tonight, therefore, we will explore the connection between art, business and creativity, where where does the inspiration come from? How does creativity manifest itself? To create is to bring something into existence that wasn't there before, whether in business, art, even in academia. Our first speaker tonight straddles these divides with applause. He's a professor at the School of Economics and Management at the University of Hyogo in Japan. He's an accomplished business guru. And he's also an amateur artist. He is the reason why we are here tonight. Please welcome to the stage Masanawa Kawakami, special visiting professor at the Japan Research Center here at SOAS. Thanks for having me. Yeah, hi, everyone. Yeah, I'm very pleased to meet you and I'm very pleased to come back here at SOAS. I am Masanawa Kawakami, a professor of the University of Hyogo. And I specialize in business model. Business model is so called a framework for making money. Yeah, since last year, yeah, I'm also a special visiting professor at SOAS. So from here, I would like to talk about the importance of creativity and art, especially in the business area. It is said in USA that the MFA is a new MBA. Since this web article appeared in the Harvard Business Review in twenty two or eight. Art has been considered important for business. Yes, MFA is a master of fine art, you know. And this trend has intensified in recent years. Why? Yes, it's the advent of creativity and it's huge popularity. In an age when it's easy to get answers, if you ask, what do you think is most valuable? The solution itself is no longer worthwhile because we can easily access the answer. What matter is awareness of the issues? How can we pressure our awareness of issues? How? Yes, I believe that the artist's mind or artist's is at heart of this. This could be described as modern entrepreneurship. If you incorporate artist's into your own business, your business will become more creative. So the key takeaway from today's talks is knowing what we artist's mind is like and understanding that it's very similar to entrepreneurship. In just speeches by special people, including my dear friend, Hiroko Morohashi from Morohashi Museum of Art, Modern Art in Japan, and after all, world-renowned artist, Pijikook. Thank you all, thank you. So our next speaker has grown up with art around her, especially the three-list paintings by Dali that her father collected. So she has since collected more titles than we can imagine, and she told us earlier that she has roughly 23 different business cards. She's a member of the Board of the United Sports Foundation, chairperson of the advisory board of Zebio Holdings and also counsellor at the Morohashi Museum of Modern Art. Please welcome to the stage Mrs. Hiroko Morohashi. Do you do this? Okay. Hi everybody, my name is Hiroko Morohashi. Today, I'm going to speak in Japanese. Don't worry, we have a great interpreter, though. Hello everyone, I'm Hiroko Morohashi, and I'm here to introduce you to today's talk. Today, I'm going to talk to you from the board of the advisory board of Zebio Holdings and the chairperson of the board of the advisory board. Hello again, everyone. Today, I will be speaking from the position of the counsellor of Morohashi Museum of Modern Art and the advisory chairman of Zebio Holdings. First of all, I would like to express my gratitude for everyone to be here today, which is the kick-off event for the summer school, which is going to begin this later this year in the collaboration between, so us, University of London and Morohashi Museum of Modern Art. Today, I would like to start this speech by talking a little bit about my father. My father is my father, and this is my father over here. My father was born in 1934 in Fukushima Prefecture, Iwaki City. My father, Morohashi Tezo, was born in 1934 in Fukushima Prefecture in Iwaki City. He struggled financially greatly when he was growing up and when he was young. He graduated from university, even despite the financial hardships. And after following graduation, he has taken up a position in a fabric retailer in Tokyo. And after gaining experiences, he returned to Iwaki City in Fukushima Prefecture where he was born. And in 1962, he has set up a menswear business. This is the first store. I was born in the second floor and with my brother there today. And this is the first store, as you can see. And the ground floor was set up as the store place and it was a very small space. The store was also set up, but at the time, it was a new clothing store which was a high-tech product. He purchased this and opened a new clothing store without being pushed into the industry. Following a lot of his suppliers going out of business, he has thought that he might need to follow the same fate. However, he had the genius of coming up with a credit payment, which was very rare at the time, to when there was a sales of menswear. And this has become, gone on to success. And he's followed up his first store by opening up a series of other stores. At the time, Japan was going through the rapid economic growth and this has pushed the number of stores to grow. But the markets' taste and the demands were changing and the demands for formal wear were decreasing. Therefore, he has shifted his focus onto the casual wear which led on for him to start selling sportswear as well. At the time, his company was sometimes called a chameleon company because his interest has shifted so many times. Unfortunately, in 2003, I was 68 years old and I was in an accident. But my father liked to change anyway. I was told that if I had to change every day in the world, I would have to deal with it and if I didn't, I wouldn't be able to grow. Unfortunately, he passed away in 2003 at the age of 68 due to an accident. But he was somebody who favored change and ever since I was small, I was always told that the world changes constantly, nothing stays the same. You have to be evolving at the same time otherwise growth will never come. Today, Zivio Holdings has grown on to become a holdings company which operates more than approximately 900 stores in Japan as well as other Asia regions, as 50 stores in Asia, which sells the sports goods. But it is not the case that Zivio Holdings has grown on to become a holdings company which operates more than approximately 900 stores which sells the sports goods. But the company is not limited to the retail business. It is involved in various aspects of sports markets. For example, in media, league operations, arena operations and sports marketing is a big part of the business as well. Morohashi Museum of Modern Art was set up with my father's intention that he wanted more people to view the masterpieces of Western modern art. And really be moved by these collections which he has collected over 10 years. And the museum was set up in 1992 in Bandai Asahi National Park in Fukushima Prefecture. My father was very interested in the work of surrealism and he was very fond of the art of Salvador Dali, which is the name of a Spanish artist. My father was very much interested in surrealism ever since he was young, especially in Salvador Dali's work. And he felt the great pull towards his work that was born out of Spain. And these collections were first built on his first collections, which had really formed the bedrock of the museum. I will explain a little bit of an example. It started from around 330 prints and paintings by Dali as well as which spans and other impressionist and surrealist paintings which are around 40 works of them. As well as we have great pieces from Pamela Jane Crick who is present here with us today. The museum building is based on my father's image of a stable in the Middle Ages. He wanted to really give back to where he was born, his motherland as well as the local community through business as well as art. And he made sure that from this building the windows would look out to the Mount Bandai and the beautiful landscapes behind it. My father used to be an art director. And when I was in elementary school, I used to draw by myself. That's how I got to know him. I didn't think he would become a painter, but as time went by, I got to know the art of the world. My father liked art a lot. Even before he started collecting, I saw him painting at home quite a lot when I was small as well. I don't believe he was aiming to become a professional artist, but when he visited many museums across the world as much as the time allowed. In 1975, at the age of 41, my father met with Salvador Dali at the Dali Museum in Spain. And the works of Salvador Dali were nothing more than a dream and a dream of a dream. My father, when he was my, in 1975, when my father was 41, he came across Salvador Dali's work in Dali Museum in Figures in Spain. And the works that he has seen were nothing that unlike anything he was familiar with, for example realism that was depicted by the Impressionists. A lot of Dali's works were based on dreams and illusion and they seemed to be breaking a lot of the common sense that was captured in the previous artworks and he was greatly interested in Dali's realism from that point on was and he started collecting his prints and paintings. In 1991, Dali's exhibition was held in Tokyo. As part of that, there were 37 sculptures which were submitted by Paris Struthen's foundations and when he saw them he was moved even further even more than when he saw the paintings and prints. After the exhibitions he had an opportunity, there was a very opportunity event that he managed to acquire those collections and that led on for him to have this dream of setting up the Dali Museum. The decade following on, he has went on to many auctions across the world to collect Dali's work and so many more museums in the West as well as trying to find the land for the museums as well as designing the building itself. That led for him to become his passion work and I have accompanied him at the auctions in London and New York to witness how much how he came to acquire some of the works that he has loved. Both in business and this museum building, my father really exercised different ways to achieve his dreams and goals. It wasn't set in one path and he had a very diverse mindset. He had great creative mindset to create from nothing to the first point, first step and that wasn't so much about him to get the praise. It was more about he wanted to give the pleasure to people and also to surprise people to provide that kind of interest, sparked interests. As for myself, I graduated from a university in America and following on I have gained a position at a trading company in Japan and then I have joined the Zevio Holdings and I was involved in business, it's business for 20 years. From 2011, the great Japan earthquake has led me to change my work into being more involved in the CSR work through the foundations that we have set up to really develop children who are the future through sports. Throughout my life, I have been involved in both corporate and non-profit organizations, but I believe the roots are the same for both of us. Throughout my life, I have been involved in both corporate and non-profit organizations, but I believe the roots are the same for both. We constantly need to question what kind of world we want to create and how we can contribute and make impact in the world and I believe to come out, come with great ideas for those and to come out with solutions, I think art mindset is extremely important. I don't believe that the current situation of Japanese management and resources development is really sufficient enough. The human resources that is required in Japan all across fields is that somebody who has come up with the idea of value creation, somebody who could move people's mindset and hearts and somebody who could really think about how the business and themselves could adopt into this ever-changing world. It is not, I think it is extremely important to have the flexible and free mindset that is not something that that individual is even aware of to break away from this preconception that we all have and live in. I believe that this mindset was cultivated and I definitely learned it from my father. He was somebody who constantly thought about how we could create from nothing, bring zero to one and to really explore the ways to surprise people. In order for everyone to really thrive and this society to become even richer and for everyone to truly thrive and join living in this world, I think it is extremely important to bring out new mindset through art, mindset art formations in this world which is the overload of data and information and the preconceived idea of agreement. This collaboration between SOAS and the Morohoshi Museum of Modern Art has been a great value for us and we are delighted with this partnership. We believe that it would provide the opportunity for people, opportunities for those people who want to be a part of this partnership. We believe that it would provide the opportunity for people, opportunities for those people who want initially interested in art and really this partnership would provide the opportunity for us to showcase what kind of power the art has and would provide the mindset that most people want aware of. Thank you very much. I hope that this partnership would become the success of both SOAS as well as the museum. I would like to thank all the staff at the University of London and SOAS, Professor Kawakami and Pamela Jane Clark and all the two all those who are present in this room today. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mrs Hirokomoro Hashi. Fabio, I have a confession to make. Really? What is it? You know my love for arts? Yes. Did you know that I love Zebio too? Zebio Sports Shop actually, 80% of my gym gear is from Zebio. Whenever I go back to Japan, I get tons. I hear they have a very big store in Hamamatsu. Yeah, exactly. And other 20% sports directs. But anyway, so next let us sort of invite you to the world of Japanese music, Shamisen and Japanese folk music. So Mr Josh Green is a protege of Mr Hibiki Ichikawa who is the Shamisen master based in London and Ms Akari Mochizuki. She's the only professional Enka singer in the UK. So Enka is the Japanese blues, but I think they're gonna do Japanese folk music, Mio. So let us have a round of applause. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to this brilliant gallery for a fantastic event tonight. My name is Akari Mochizuki. My nickname is Mochi. Mochi in Japanese means rice cake. So please remember me as Mochi. And this is Josh, who is the Tsugaru Shamisen player for tonight. We are going to give you the great example of Japanese folk music, Mio music, to give you a very good, you know, like energy for tonight. The first song we are going to play together is actually the medley. The first part is called Tsugaru Jon Karabushi, which is the most well-known Japanese folk song from Japan. Then I will join Josh after that for the song called Tawara Tsumuta, which means piling up the rice bale song from Aomori to count the number of rice bales in the household house. In the old time in Japan, the sign of wealth was measured by the number of rice bales. So it's like a counting song. In my sound, it's not going to end, but it will end. So please enjoy. Firstly, Tsugaru Jon Karabushi, then Tawara Tsumuta. I'm going to enjoy something a bit familiar with you because Josh is going to play the song called Electric, which is the original song composed by Hibiki Ichikawa, his teacher. He was influenced by UK rock music. So you will hear the sound of Japan, but sounds like UK rock. Hope you enjoy. The song is called Electric. Very much. That was the song called Electric, composed by Hibiki Ichikawa, Josh's teacher. Okay, now I would like to finish by joining Josh singing the song called Don Panbushi, which requires everybody's help to create this song together. Is anyone familiar with Japanese language? I'm sure most of you know about Japanese language, but this time I would like you to sing the chorus together. So it's a very, very big opportunity for you to show your ability. Okay, I would tell you exactly how it goes. Can you say Don? Yes. Can you say Pan? Can you say Don Don Pan Pan Don Pan Pan? Perfect. You're now fluent in Japanese. Great. So that is the chorus. Okay, so the tune goes. Can you play the chorus bit? Okay, that is the chorus. Okay, that's so simple. And the song has this chorus four times because I sing four verses, but the timing to join is quite clear because I will say very energetically, sort it like this, so you will not miss it. I hope you can join. If you're not confident, just let others sing the first verse. And then join from the second verse. This will be the final song from us. The song is called Don Pan Pusit. Opportunity to hear them later on tonight. You have already seen a glimpse of one of the works of our next speaker on our homepage. The time has written that her paintings have the unexpectedness of real life and the hallucinatory clarity of a dream. The Parisian journal Le Figaro has called her a virtuoso in the mischievous art of beguiling our perceptions and expectations. P.J. Crook is an English sculptor and a painter and has held exhibitions all over the world. She received an MBE for services to art from the late queen and will talk to us today about where do we draw inspiration and creativity from. Please give a big round of applause for P.J. Crook. Well, how do I follow that? It was fantastic. I thought I was back in Kyoto for a moment. It was brilliant. Well, being an artist is the only thing I know how to be. It is important to me as the air I breathe or the food I eat. For me, AI doesn't even come into my vocabulary really, which probably sounds very naive, but for an artist the whole creative process is quite magical. Often you don't know where the answers come from and sometimes I agonise over what to do in a painting if I have a problem. And yet from somewhere, somehow, an answer comes. And I don't know why that is, but it's one of those magical processes that an artist is privileged to enjoy. I'm going to show you a few of my works as time permits. I was born and grew up in Cheltenham, which is where I still live and where I brought my own family of two children up. So this painting is called Portrait of the Artist, Watching Her Two Children Grow. And you can see I'm looking through the doorway and looking back through time at my children at different stages in their lives. So in the foreground, you can see my son Nathan, who is an infant building with building bricks and my daughter Henrietta in a tutu when she took dancing lessons and in her first school uniform. And Nathan playing the violin as he learned to do, but wearing a sailor's outfit. Now Nathan never had a sailor's outfit, but my father did and told me stories of his sailor's outfit. So it seemed apt to put Nathan into that. So with a painting, you can change time or circumstance. In the mirror, it's hard to see, but there's actually a picture of me playing the piano and that's wishful thinking because unfortunately I don't play the piano, but and it's also got my parents singing. So I can include anyone at any time in my works. And the wonderful thing is that I'm in control. So this painting is in the permanent collection of the Wilson, Cheltenham Art Gallery Museum. And you can see here it's on permanent exhibition and it's amidst a group of paintings. And that group, it's called Well-known People of Cheltenham. And at the top right, there's an Angelica Kaufman of one of the founders of the museum. And below that Dorothea Beale, who founded the Ladies' College. And there's a jockey from the race course and lots of other people who are associated with Cheltenham. So I'm quite honoured to be there with my children and my parents. Actually, I'm the only one who's still alive, which is a bit worrying, but and again. So it's a bit odd that this isn't stage, that this isn't what was supposed to happen. So these again are paintings painted out of anxiety. My two children were away on holiday independently. Henrietta had gone to Florence and Rome with my sister. And Nathan was on a French exchange. And I was so worried about them that I found that I needed to send a guardian angel in through the window just to protect them, although they were quite a lot older than this at the time. It's a game playing with time. And in the other painting, the second, I'm actually, which I called the Terrible Twins, I'm actually holding reins on each so that they can't go too far or get into danger. So again, you can make things happen when you're creative that perhaps don't happen for other people. These two paintings formed part of a collection that we're going to New York for my first New York show there. And when my dealer, Lee, saw them, she said, oh, PJ, I just found these too disturbing. Would you mind if we didn't have them in the exhibition? And so I replied, well, they're just as much part of me as any of my other work. If you don't have them in the show, you don't have any of the other works. And probably rather naively, I put the phone down in a half. Luckily, she phoned back shortly afterwards and said, I can see your point of view. We will include them. So the show went ahead. And for my third exhibition with Gallery Alain Blondel in Paris, I decided to use a theme of newspapers. I like painting canvases full of newspapers, which I see a bit like history paintings, because they're looking at the news on one particular day across the world. And this painting was luckily bought by a nice German couple. But things did not bode well for a good exhibition in Paris, because Paris had gone into recession. There were bomb scares, metro strikes, and the Parisians were out demonstrating as they do so well. So I didn't have a lot of hope that it would be a great success. This was another work in the exhibition, which I called Deadline. And another aspect of my creativity is that people like publishers often use my paintings as images within books or on book covers. And this painting, Deadline, has been used in several art books and on other books, on media, etc. This is a little book, a French book by a company called Leon, who published the most delightful art books, but they teach other subjects. And this one was on writing, but you can see they've used Deadline again. But it looks a little paler here. So in the exhibition, I had a variety of paintings, and I had to think of different ways of using newspapers, because the gallery had asked for a subject and I hadn't had one, so I thought, newspapers. So on the first one, the red door, my mum used to put newspapers on the floor for us to come in with our muddy boots when we were children, my sister and I. So I thought I'll put a newspaper on the floor to absorb the rainwater. And in the second one, the exhibition before, I'd done a lot of drawings out of my hotel window, and so I decided to make one of those into a painting. And in it, I would put a paper aeroplane, because as a child, my father would make paper aeroplanes for my sister and I. So that has the paper aeroplane. And in the third one, the green door, there's a newspaper through the letterbox. And over here, we have a tradition, I don't know whether it's a strong now, of schoolboys delivering papers, doing their paper round in the morning, and putting the newspapers through people's letterbox. There's also, you can see, a shadow. And I like to have an element of mystery in the paintings. So with that shadow, I mean, it could be you, it could be me, or it could be someone quite ominous, or someone quite good. But I'd like the viewer to come to it with their own interpretation. Reading in bed was inspired by my parents, who used to read in bed on a Sunday morning, and whilst they were having their breakfast in bed. So it's a sort of combination. It's inspired by my parents, but it probably looks slightly more like Richard, my husband's parents. And as you can see, the clutter of papers, but the nice cup of tea to go with it. Again, because it was the subject of newspapers, I've got a painted fleet on a painted sea. And the boats again, inspired by the boats my father would make out of newspaper. You know, a thing that is so disposable that most people see as rubbish, but he could create these wonderful constructions for us. And in the top one, in the corner, there's a child in a paper hat because he also made us newspaper hats. And that's on an undulating surface. And so is the painting below. So they almost look corrugated, although they're made out of wood and covered in canvas. But having corrugated surface stretches me to paint in a slightly different way. And when you walk past one of the corrugated paintings, you get the illusion of movement because the ripples distort the subject matter of the painting. So the second one is actually based on the personal column that used to be in newspapers. I think it still is, but it was how people looked for a soulmate. You know, now it's internet dating, but at one time you looked in the newspaper to try and find someone who you might be compatible with. So here you have the couple embracing in the corner. So it's obviously been successful. I don't usually paint still lifes, but I'd asked Richard to get me some pots from the local garden centre. And when he brought them home, he just laid them on the rug. And I noticed the newspapers were Chinese newspapers. So this sparked my imagination. And they also looked so decorative on the rug that for once I made a still life painting. But I put in it little figurines that had been given by my father-in-law, a little Japanese figure statuette at the back, some chopsticks, a little pagoda, and a little Japanese doll in the foreground, and a fan betruding as well. So it became quite Japanese, although they were Chinese newspapers. I often look at the world outside and one of the things we all notice are rough sleepers, the poor people that in our cities and other places have to sleep out in the elements. And I know that sometimes they cover themselves when they're asleep on a park bench or in the doorway with old newspapers for the warmth. And so this painting I called The Dreamer, that you can see the newspapers are well wrapped around this figure. The British love fish and chips. And at one time, we were allowed to have them wrapped on the outer side with newspapers. And the newspapers were to keep the fish and chips warm. Health and safety would not allow that now, but it did then. And Big City, the other one. A man's coming up from the subway. I love the idea of people coming out of the ground. And there's a man reading a newspaper in the foreground, but also at the back of the railings, there's a little newspaper kiosk with a very similar man also reading a newspaper. I don't know whether they're really the same man or two different men, but I like to think of the two figures who are looking over the balcony or the railing as perhaps being detectives looking for a villainy. The rugby painting, a scrum, was actually based on the Gloucester rugby team, which is quite close to where I live, Cheltenham, about eight miles away. And I was taken there by a filmmaker who made films for HTV because he was doing, wanted to make a little film for my next London exhibition. But he really specialised in sports, so I made a rugby painting. And so he took me there and by floodlight I actually drew very quickly in my sketchbook and then made this painting. This wasn't actually in the exhibition. Alan had the bookshop as well and he had this because he didn't have a newspaper in, had this actually in his bookshop. And this, the second painting is a polo match on Marge Arbol. And here he took me to a swimming pool, but there wasn't a polo match going on. So he, this is where AI would help. He actually had pieces of film showing a polo match and then shots of me drawing and he would be going like this in the water, so we had the sound effects as well. So this painting did actually sell from the exhibition. So that was two works that had sold. In the window of the gallery was a painting called Cinema, very based on my sort of early memories of cinema. Alain Blondel was rather, thought it perhaps not quite sophisticated enough for a French cinema because there were people drinking coke. But I like to think that the man in the front row, this is how it relates to the newspaper, is writing a review for his paper of the film that they are watching. Well, when this was in the window, Richard happens to visit the gallery because they had run out of books on my work, so he was delivering some more. And whilst he was there, he spotted two Japanese men at a distance who stopped and looked at the window and pointed as if there was some sort of recognition. Anyway, they made their way to the gallery window and as Richard left the gallery, he saw them enter into it and walk around, but he didn't know what had happened. Anyway, about, he was going to meet our son Nathan, but about two hours later, he returned and much to his surprise, he walked all around the exhibition and he couldn't believe his eyes because next to each painting was a red spot and a red spot signifies that that painting has sold and it wasn't just one or two or three, it was the whole exhibition. And the news of this actually went round, all the galleries in Paris and all the galleries in London that people said to me, ah yes, you know, it's really good to sell your whole exhibition, but if you've gone to Japan, you'll never see those works again. But lo and behold, in the year 2000, a letter came trundling through our fax machine and it was from a man called Teizoy Marahashi and he said, I am the man who bought the whole of your exhibition in Paris in 1995 and I have built a museum. And he said, I particularly specialise in surrealism, I've got a lot of Salvador Dali's, De Chirico, etc. But I'd like to invite you to come to Japan to visit the museum because I'm going to put on an exhibition of your work and I'd like you to come with your husband and give a lecture. And this was my introduction to the wonderful Marahashi family. It was just beyond compare. So here in the exhibition you can see these installation shots. So there is deadline, the painting we saw in the Paris Gallery and on book covers. And in other words, the Sunday painting with my parents in bed and the window, it was just so thrilling. I'd never been to Japan before or experienced such a beautiful culture that was so unlike my own. It was the start of a new beginning really because one thing leads to another and about three or four years later I got an email and it said, we've just bought one of your paintings at auction, it's a newspaper work, which we very much like and we'd like to buy another and it was from a firm in Saudi Arabia. So Richard sent four images of very big paintings and they bought them all. Then they contacted me to say, we see you've been in Japan. Would you like to go back there to study the people and the culture to do a series of five large commissions? So this one, Gekko and Mako, was the first of those commissions that I made. But it was so wonderful to be back in Japan. And this, the second one I've used is in Kyoto or based on Kyoto, but I've used a large yellow Toyota taxi. And the reason I've used a large yellow Toyota taxi is that the company in Saudi Arabia was celebrating their 50th anniversary, but it had been founded by the father of the president 50 years previously by importing four or five Toyota cars into Saudi Arabia. And they found they were so wonderful, they didn't rust or perish like other cars did due to the salt in the sand. So it somehow seemed like serendipity that I was back in Japan, but for another person. And the really interesting thing is that the Saudi Arabia government was so pleased with these Toyota cars. It became a policy for Bedouin to come in from the desert with their camels and exchange them for a Toyota car. So you can see how that company became so successful. And this is the wonderful fish market that was in Tokyo. And we had to get up very early to go and observe this. The auctions of the fish, particularly the tuners, in which someone inscribed probably the weight and the quality of each fish in what looked like red paint. But it was very, very exciting. And it led on to me being approached by a group of Japanese people who were desperately trying to save that fish market because it was going to be moved. And so they asked if they could use this painting on the cover of a book they were producing. They also used it on the endpapers. And they also asked me to write a chapter in the book on why the fish market should be saved. Unfortunately, I don't think it worked because I think it was moved, much like the fish market here in London. The White Heron Festival, which we saw in Asakusa, was so beautiful. Japanese festivals are so moving. And the players in the processions are geisha and university students. I think the White Heron is actually a symbol for good fortune. This second one, or third painting, is the Festival of the Ages. And I did draw drawings and photographs I'd taken in Kyoto for this. And you can see the barrels of sake in the background. And it was so picturesque and colourful. Anyway, MJ, who was the man, Muhammad Jameel, who'd commissioned me to go to Japan, was so impressed with the schedule we'd worked out for our Japanese visit that he said, would you like to come to Saudi Arabia to study the people and the culture here for a series of ten commissions. They were all big. But I'm not going to show you them all. But I'm showing you this one because this is the souk, or the carpet seller, but he presented this to the chairman of Toyota. So these things seem to be very cyclical and go round and round. A bit later, the Marahashi Museum, particularly Eji, who is the director, commissioned me to do four more paintings. And this time of British wild animals. So the fox, the badger, the hare and an owl. And they actually were exhibited in my last exhibition there. And here you can see an installation shot of them in situ. Another work that they also bought more recently is an autobiographical piece. It's three dimensional. So the shoes around the frame are all shoes that I've worn at different times in my life. And the shoes in the centre of the frame, some are painted in just two dimensional, but other are actual parts of shoes or whole shoes. And on each of them, I have written where I was and when I wore these shoes. So they do form a journal of my life. And I use the crow because I felt that he echoed the sculptural qualities of the high heel shoes. So yes, Richard's just reminding me he doesn't think AI would have thought of that. So when I'm working in my studio, I often listen to the BBC radio for the news programmes. And in 2011, I was heartbroken and distressed when I heard of the tsunami in Japan and particularly in the Fukushima area. And so when I have a crisis or a problem or there's something I'm very worried about in life, I tend to paint it. So here I have a geisha looking through the shutters at a seascape that for me sort of represents the terrible turmoil of a tsunami. It's quite a big work. So it's about six foot wide, but it's also quite high. And you can see here that it actually, the kimono flows out of the painting rather like water might flow out of the painting onto the floor. And here I'm actually painting the kimono, which probably echoes the fact that for a while at college I'd studied textile design. And so all these things come in useful at one time or another. This painting was exhibited again in the Marahashi Museum of Modern Art. But it actually belongs to a man called Sir David McMurtry, who founded an engineering company, a very, very clever man called Renishaw. And Renishaw I think have factories in Japan as well. Another work that I painted at that time, thinking of the history of tsunamis that Japan has suffered. And here I've perhaps drawn inspiration from the wonderful Japanese art of anime. And so a lot of the fleeing characters to me feel like they might have been in an anime story. So they're all fleeing from the water. This was also in an exhibition at the Marahashi Museum, but lives in the collection of two friends in Gloucestershire, the Kotswold. It's quite small. It's only about so big and it's in a sort of box-like frame. Other mother's sons. Well, we entered into the Gulf War in the early 90s. And my son was sort of in his teens then. And Henrietta, my daughter's boyfriend, was probably 17 or so. And I thought how frightening it must be for mothers when their sons are conscripted into fighting forces, to fight these battles that they risk their lives in. You spend your life nurturing this infant into manhood and that suddenly he can be taken away to fight. So I made this painting called Other Mother's Sons. And it's also on a corrugated or undulating base made out of timber and then covered in canvas. And I tried to make the soldiers look as if they were from different nationalities and perhaps different regiments. And this painting now lives in the permanent collection of the Imperial War Museum in London. So this is one of those paintings that one of my dealers at the time called Robert was going to show my work at Art London, a big art fair that's held here each January. He said, PJ, I want you to paint something that will stop people in their step. And he had a catalogue or book of my work and he said something like that. And he pointed to a painting I'd made called The Writing of the Wall, which was of a man in a gas mask, which had been shown at the Royal Academy a few years earlier. And he said, could you, you know, something that will stop them in their step. So this was what I came up with. I thought this is terrible. We're entering into a new millennium and we're still as barbaric as ever fighting wars. So I decided I would use as a symbol for the new millennium, a baby, a newborn child, and I would give him a nurse or a mother. And she was inspired by religious icons of the Madonna. But I would also make it rather more frightening by putting a gas mask close to the baby. And you can see the child is on a drip and and outside there is terrible war going on. You can see lots of flames and I've used a black crow in the top triangle to as a symbol of something ominous and debauchery in the bottom three panels. Anyway, Richard arrived at the art fair with this huge painting. It's eight foot high by six foot wide. And Robert looked at it and he said, PJ, I just find that so disturbing. And he'd recently had a new baby. And I said to Richard, I don't think I can let him exhibit it because he's obviously finds it too disturbing. So on this occasion, I gave him a large corrugated newspaper work instead. But this went on to tour the country in an exhibition that was about children in war-torn countries called A Picture of Innocence. It was also exhibited at Gloucester City Museum in an exhibition called Conflict. And it went on to form the cover of a King Crimson album. And the interesting thing is when Robert Fripp was looking at it on his laptop, Toya, who is his wife, came in and said, Robert, we must have that painting. And so it actually lives in their collection in Persia. Now, this is my finishing piece. And it's really, I painted it during the pandemic. It was such a dire time for the whole of the globe. All of us everywhere were suffering. And as a humanity, we were trying to find an answer collectively. And thank goodness, very, very clever people developed vaccines which saved most of us, but not all. So I tried to think of a symbol of sort of strength. And I thought, oh, sumo wrestlers. But I also see it a bit like a symbol for what is happening here at SOAS, the coming together of two great forces. SOAS and the Morahashi Museum of Modern Art to form this incredible new court on art and creativity. So Fabio, I have another confession to make. Yes, what is it this time? I have eaten chips wrapped in newspapers. Have you? I think I'm too young for that. Thank you. Anyway, so last but not least, our final speaker is one of our own. Dr. Monica Henkel is a lecturer in the arts of Japan here at SOAS. She is also a curator. And this summer, the Dalish Picture Gallery in London will show the first UK exhibition on the Yoshida family of Japanese printmakers curated by Monica. She will talk about creativity and experience in the work of curation. Please give a round of applause for Monica Henkel. Well, thank you very much, Fabio and also Satu Nassan, for having me in this very illustrious group of speakers. And PJ, you said earlier that it was a hard act to follow the music. It is even harder for me to follow your wonderful talk. And I can most certainly say that I won't be able to show that compassion and insight that you showed us tonight, giving us this wonderful overview of your work. So thank you very much indeed. What I would like to talk about, and Satu Nassan briefly mentioned it, that I'm also curating exhibitions next to being an academic here. And when I was invited to give the talk, I thought, oh, what shall I talk about? And so I started with the more traditional sense what a curator would do. Of course, it comes from the Latin word curare, which means to take care of or to nurse or to look after. And these very traditional roles are connected with terms like custodial, which of course means that we preserve and oversee collections. But also navigatory or navigation is also an important part. A role that is focused on archiving and cataloging pieces of art so that audiences can readily access them. The third point is discerning. It is the responsibility of a curator to decide which artists and themes to include and feature and to describe it with Nick Waterloo using the eye of discernment for art that is placed under the guardianship of curators. But of course, we have a variety of fields where we can curate art. Usually we think of museums, but of course galleries, commercial galleries, it's a completely different type of curating that we encounter there. We have potential buyers that come and put a potential collectors, of course, that engage with these galleries. We have the internet looking at AI curated and constructed artwork. The internet is full of it. And of course we also have internet curators who curate the internet. But also producing lectures, all of us, is kind of creating the content that we bring closer to our students. I think that is also a kind of curatorship of the knowledge of our expert fields. And of course it's an evolving field curation and constantly changing. We have new discourses relating to curating and I've just put here a variety of terms together and topics that relate to all sorts of aspects curating as knowledge production, rethinking but also for example spectatorship. It evolves or who we would like to address for example. And also engaging with the viewers and the co-curators, or the public being co-curators that is a very popular theme to actually engage visitors with the exhibition very closely. We have of course new technologies that we can embed into these shows. And about the themes that have particular also here been quite strong and important at SOAS recently are topics like decolonization, restitution, or the inclusion of the global south. These are all aspects that we need to include when we want to curate and be up to date with the fields and the evolving aspects of curation. But today I also then went into chat GPT and I did ask Japanese art and generative AI and how do they intersect. And these were the kind of notions that were given when I put this into chat GPT. And so it came up with style transfer and it said generative models can be trained to learn the styles of Japanese art and master and apply them to new images. This can evolve transferring the brush stroke patterns, color palettes and composition techniques characteristic of Japanese art onto digital or traditional artworks. Another aspect that was mentioned is artistic creation. Artists and researchers have used generative AI to create original artworks inspired by Japanese themes, motifs and aesthetics. For instance a deep learning model can be trained on a data set of Japanese paintings or prints to generate new pieces that reflect the style and spirit of traditional Japanese art. Or character design, anime and manga characters are central to Japanese visual culture. Generative models can be employed to generate new character designs either by synthesizing features from existing characters or by creating entirely novel designs inspired by the conventions of anime and manga. Or even landscape generation. It said landscapes, the Japanese landscapes including serene gardens, majestic mountains or tranquil waterfalls have long been recurring motifs in Japanese art and generative models can be used to generate new landscapes that capture the essence of Japanese scenery incorporating elements such as cherry blossom, pagodas or torii gates. Another aspect is interactive art. Some artists and technologists have explored interactive installations that use generative AI to engage audiences with Japanese art themes. For example visitors might be able to manipulate jittered brushstrokes or contribute to the creation of collaborative artworks using generative algorithms. And last it's cultural preservation. AI can also be employed in cultural preservation efforts related to Japanese art. For instance researchers have developed algorithms for restoring damaged or deteriorated artworks based on historical records and stylistic analysis. So with these kind of possibilities rather exciting possibilities how AI can intersect and interact with Japanese art here in particular I think there is certainly new approaches that we can see but it's essential to approach these technologies with sensitivity to the cultural context and ethical considerations. Additionally collaboration between artists and technologists and cultural experts can enrich the development and application of generative AI in the realm of Japanese art as we can see here. I went a step further and I asked curating Japanese art with chat GPT and it came up with this list of topics that we can address when we are curating Japanese art. It is not exclusive for curating an exhibition on Japanese art of course we usually have some sort of historical context. We are selecting certain themes and motifs that we would like to focus on. We might dip into traditional art but also contemporary art depending what we choose generally as a topic. Regional variations and this has become really an important matter definitely when we are looking at Japanese art in particular looking at the arts of Okinawa or I hope many of you have already been to Japan House where there is this fantastic exhibition on I know art and culture. If you have not been there please go. It is these kind of artifacts and cultures that we do need to address as well. And of course Japan is closely related to craftsmanship high quality of craftsmanship and fascinating techniques that they applied. Also interdisciplinary connections are one of my field is Japanism so there is certainly yeah the movements of impressionism and art nouveau that were heavily influenced by Japan. But then of course with every exhibition we have also the engagement and education and all the programs that are being put together by the variety of departments in museums. The next deck I did because my field is Japanese woodblock prints okioe. I did ask chat GPT creating an exhibition on okioe and this is what it came up with and it even gave me a title. It said ephemera beauty a journey through okioe and it produced this wonderful exhibition layout. We have an introduction to okioe. Of course the floating world is addressed. It draws into nature's beauty portraits of elegance of course then touching on the portraits of partly the Kabuki actors that are so dominant but also the beauties the courtesans. But another important field within okioe are myth and legends every day life particularly of the townspeople that is being depicted in okioe is also one of the themes here influence and legacy of course relating closely also to genre painting that existed before okioe came about during the Edo period in the 17th century. But then also the interactiveness that has become so important in particular in recent years also as I already said including new technologies here creating your own okioe and of course we have a lot of fabulous okioe artists who live here in London. So yeah we can always engage them with exhibitions that be produced on okioe or we have a film screening on okioe. So when I will be showing the exhibition at the Dalish picture gallery and from June onwards we will have a video there that shows us how okioe in particular well it's not okioe but of course the shin hanga the prints that the Yoshida family produced how Yoshida Hiroshi the first of the family of print makers the first generation and one of his master carvers produced these wonderful prints and of course every show every exhibition every museum need a gift shop where you can buy all sorts of stuff so all this was very nicely incorporated in this layout here by Chad GPT found that really fascinating to experiment with that but then I went further and asked Night Cafe the app to generate a work based on the London skyline one in Yoshida Hiroshi style and on the right hand side you see a London skyline in okioe style and of course Chad GPT is a text-based app but it was really fascinating when I put exactly these words into the search engine there and it told me as an AI text-based model I'm unable to create visual images directly however I can provide you with a description of what a okioe image of London might look like and you can imagine it based on that description in the style of okioe which is the genre of Japanese art that flourished from the 17th through the 19th centuries particular during the other period okioe image of London might depict iconic landmarks and scenes of daily life in the city and here is a description of what such an image could include title London city of contrasts the image features the river temps winding its way through the bustling cityscape with wooden bridges spanning its breadth in the foreground we see a bustling street scene with merchants selling their wares from a small stalls pedestrians and traditional western attire mingled with those wearing more exotic garments hinting at the multicultural nature of London towering above the scene is the unmistakable silhouette of Big Ben its intricate details rendered in the distinctive okioe style nearby the houses of parliament and proudly their gothic architecture contrasting with the surrounding buildings to the right big glimpse the majestic dome of St. Paul's Cathedral rising above the rooftops its presence dominating the skyline in the distance the tower of London looms surrounded by a moat and battlements a symbol of the city's rich history on the river boats of all shapes and sizes navigate the busy waterway from elegant sailboats to bustling steamships fishermen cast their nets from wooden rowboats via ferris shuttle passengers across the river in the background the city spreads out in a patchwork of rooftops chimneys and spires disappearing into the misty horizon despite the hustle and bustle of urban life there is a sense of tranquility and harmony in the scene capturing the timeless beauty of London in the style of okioe and I found it really so fascinating that even though I only produce these two prompts in night cafe and then chat GPT really producing more or less in text version what then the the image app actually produced looking at these they are most definitely fascinating but I don't think we have to fear that they will overtake I hope okioe in popularity they are most definitely fascinating to look at and there are certain yeah certainly characteristics of okioe that are embedded in these two generated artworks but yeah it was fascinating for me to to experiment with these apps so so when we are heading into AI and creating art so as we have just seen with these examples AI can be a tool and a compliment to human effort in creating art rather than solely a threat I mean for me as an academic it is certainly a threat when I see students of course using chat GPT for their essays and reports so yeah that's that's another thing I won't be going into tonight but there I certainly see a threat but here are a few perspectives on how AI interacts without curation assistance it can analyze and can support a curator by analyzing large amounts of data suggesting connections between artworks providing insights into audience preferences and even identifying trends in art history this can save time and effort for creators allowing them to focus more on the creative and conceptual aspects of their work accessibility AI can enhance the accessibility of art by helping to organize and categorize collections creating virtual exhibitions and providing alternative ways for people to engage with artworks such as through augmented reality or virtual reality experiences that have become very popular this can make art more inclusive and reach broader audiences but of course we have challenges however these challenges and limitations to AI in art curation we certainly have to look at AI algorithms may have biases or limitations in understanding the cultural historical and emotional context of artworks which are crucial aspects of curation as we have just seen uh where PJ spoke so brilliantly about her works additionally there are ethical considerations regarding the use of AI in cultural heritage and the potential displacement of human curators and of course there can also be collaboration the most effective approach might be a collaboration between AI and human curators by combining the computational power of AI with human expertise we can achieve more nuance and insight for curations maybe that considers both objective data and subjective interpretations of art so we certainly have challenges but it is also definitely uh it can complement AI and the human and also creativity I mean often curation is seen as a management of creativity and I really like always this quote here by Jonathan Plucker on creativity what it means for curators but too much creativity can also hamper the narrative of an exhibition of a show but generally creativity and relationship to creating to exhibitions it is certainly a critical means to create and enhance value which is yeah meaningful and uh lasting so really to end I'm torn it certainly poses some challenges to traditional methods of art curation but generally I think AI also offers opportunities for innovation accessibility and collaboration thank you very much for your attention thank you very much Monica for a very thoughtful end to the first part of our evening I've tried some of the sake right now and it's amazing so I'm gonna go and get some all right okay you go ahead well it remains for me to say thank you very much for coming thank you the big thank you especially to our sponsors Xavier Holdings and the Morashi Museum of Mother Knot please join us outside for a platter of sushi and really exceptional sake I've kept that in my office for the last five days and it was very tempted at every turn so please take this as an opportunity to join us and to ask questions of the speakers outside thank you very much for coming