The following is an edited excerpt from an interview between Sputniko! and Biodesigned Editor and bioethicist Alex Pearlman. It is part of a series titled “Biodesigned: In Conversation.”
Hiromi Ozaki, known as Sputniko!, is a Japanese and British artist known for film and multimedia installation works, many of which explore the social and ethical implications of emerging technologies.
Biodesigned.
In your videos you’ve managed to not only explain the science, but also sneak in a lot of your own commentary and highlight ethical and social issues. What advice do you give to aspiring artists and scientists who want to contextualize their work?
Sputniko!
My style is pop and music video-based, and I put my work on YouTube so it’s very social media-oriented. I think that has a lot to do with my background growing up in Tokyo. Japanese pop culture is full of robots, science fiction, and anime. I also graduated from Royal College of Art in 2010, and that’s when YouTube and Twitter culture were really coming out. As a student, we were often talking about designing for debate and discussion. I do appreciate work that is museum-oriented, but I personally felt like if I wanted to create a discussion, then why not use these amazing online tools. It's completely free to use YouTube, Twitter, and Facebook—why not put my works out there and throw it in the discussion space on social media.
A lot of my work talks about gender and feminism. In Japan, where I grew up, it feels like they’re in many ways 50 years behind the United States. Especially in 2010, the media’s portrayal of women was that they are cute, and even more attractive if they’re not too intelligent. So with my work, I tried to infiltrate and hack pop culture, and sneak into this world, where I’ll hopefully reach some young women who are also frustrated like me.
B.
It’s applicable everywhere, right? Those themes of feminism and women in STEM are universal for a lot of young women. So what is next for you?
S.
Actually, I just founded a new egg freezing bank in Japan. This technology, even though it’s still new and has issues to be solved, is a really interesting step for women. It makes me think about the history of contraceptive pills and abortion, because fertility really affects women and their rights and their careers.
We’re living in 2020, and there are so many technologies. We can go to the moon, we can do gene editing, we can do blockchain and change the economy, but somehow the fertility limit for women hasn’t changed since ancient times. And I thought, why? Going back to STEM disciplines, there were not enough women in technology and science, so those fields didn’t really cater to women’s problems and issues, not even menstruation. That’s the reason why I created the menstruation machine. I felt like, there are humans on the Moon, men on the moon, there’s gene editing—why am I bleeding every month in pain, isn’t this easy to solve? Egg freezing is an interesting step because as a 34-year-old woman, I felt like, well, there’s so many things I want to work on, but if I want a child, do I need to start thinking about this? Do I need to find a partner? Do I really want a child? I don’t even know. That was really affecting my thinking and my career, but I felt like my male colleagues were not thinking about this at all.
B.
Well they don’t need to be. It’s not a biological necessity. As a bioethicist, this is something that I’ve thought about a lot and have written about extensively. Reproductive timelines evolve at the same time that science is advancing, but politics isn’t. So the rules and laws and policies around reproduction haven’t changed either and haven’t caught up with the technology, so that’s an even further consideration.
S.
Exactly. In Japan, sperm banks and egg banks are not allowed, but egg freezing has been legal since 2013. Egg freezing is still banned in China and Singapore. I think Asian Confucianism and Asian family values are really affecting the regulations for reproduction, because the power of the patriarchy is very strong in Asia. My egg freezing bank in Japan will hopefully change the taboo around this.
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Born in 1985, Sputniko! is a Japanese/British artist based in Tokyo. Sputniko! is known for her film and multi-media installation works which explore the social and ethical implications of emerging technologies. She is currently an Associate Professor of Design at Tokyo University of Arts.
She has recently presented her works in exhibitions such as the 2016 Setouchi Art Trienniale (where she created her first permanent art pavilion at the Benesse Art Site on Teshima), Milan International Design Triennale Broken Nature (2019), Future and Arts at the Mori Art Museum (2019). To date, she has had pieces included in the permanent collections of museums such as the V&A and the 21st Century Museum of Contemporary Art, Kanazawa.
Cite This Source
Sputniko! “On Pop Culture and Fertility.” Biodesigned: Issue 3, 17 September, 2020. Accessed [month, day, year].
