1. Project Overview
This project aims to systematically organize and structure the creative activities of media artist Daito Manabe from 2004 to 2025. It reconstructs not only the artworks and projects but also the source code, design documents, and creative documentation (primary sources) into a continuously updated "Artist OS" (Operating System).
Since Daito Manabe is an active artist continuing to produce work at the forefront, this OS will function not merely as a preservation of the past, but as a "living cultural infrastructure" that continues to be updated for the present and future.
2. Significance of Primary Sources
2.1 Extremely Rare Continuity of Materials
One major feature of this project is that the following materials have been systematically preserved over a long period:
- Primary sources regarding projects since 2004
- Source Code
- Technical Design Documents (Architecture, Specs, Schematics)
- Experiment Logs (Tests, Validations, Prototyping)
2.2 Archiving "Implemented Thinking" Not Just Works
With finished works alone, critical information such as "what technical trials were made," "why specific algorithms were chosen," and "what ideas were unimplemented" is lost. Manabe Daito OS records and sorts this by including actual code and design documents, making it possible to trace how thought was converted into implementation.
3. Significance as an Active Artist
Unlike traditional archives that assume a retrospective organization after an artist's career, this project assumes that new works, experiments, and judgments are continuously being born. Therefore, Manabe Daito OS is designed not as a device to preserve the past, but as a foundation to update the present and generate the future.
4. Optimization & Development
The OS functions as a creative support environment for the artist himself. By allowing immediate reference to past judgments, comparison of constraints, and objectification of technical habits, the creative activity itself is optimized. Furthermore, it serves as an exploratory device that induces future creation by visualizing connections between works that were not previously linked.
5. Social Significance
Manabe Daito OS presents a next-generation cultural inheritance model: shifting from "Preserving Works" to "Preserving the Process of Thought and Implementation". This serves as a versatile model case applicable to other artists, researchers, and cultural institutions.
6. Why Daito Manabe? (Differentiation)
6.1 Cross-disciplinary consistency over 20 years
A rare case where a single individual has consistently crossed multiple domains—music, imagery, performance, installation, research, AI, and software implementation—since 2004. The continuity of thought and judgment is preserved within a single subject, which is essential for structuring the "History of Thought" into an OS.
6.2 Existence of Source Code & Design Docs
It is common in media art for works to remain while implementation code is lost. In Daito Manabe's case, actual running code, traces of technical trial and error, and records of unimplemented ideas remain, allowing verification of how thought was translated into technology.
7. Outputs & Policy
- Normalized Database: Metadata, tech elements, conditions.
- Primary Source Archive: Indexing of source code, design docs, logs.
- Search/Compare Interface: For education, research, and curation.
13. Conclusion
Manabe Daito OS is a cultural operating system incorporating a time axis, integrating over 20 years of past materials, ongoing creative activities, and future exploration into a single structure. It is a new attempt to implement cultural resources as "living knowledge" in society without dividing archiving, education, research, and creation.