96th metaPhorest Seminar

This metaPhorest seminar will be a budding interim report by young members of metaPhorest. The presentations are basically in Japanese. Please feel free to come.

Thursday, 11 October 2024, 19:00-20:40

Seminar Room 3, 3F, Waseda University Research Institute for Advanced Biomedical Sciences (TWIns)

① Tomoki Matsumura, ‘A new relationship between humans and Daphnia magna built through Daphnia swimming’.

The project ‘Imitating Daphnia by swimming’, which attempted to imitate Daphnia magna swimming with high-viscosity lotion, will be introduced. The new project ‘All-Japan Daphnia Swimming Championships’ will also be explained.

Tomoki Matsumura

Born in 1997. He has been swimming since childhood and won the Japanese Championships and competed in the World Championships in fin swimming in 2018. Due to her interest in life and art, she joined metaPhorest in 2020. Based on his swimming experience, he aims to develop and research Daphnia swimming and to examine the world of living organisms (Daphnia) through performance.

② Kentaro Aki: ‘Research on the production of bio-art that reconsiders the relationship with moss plants from the perspective of “moss clothing”’.

A year after joining metaPhorest, newcomer Kentaro Aki became interested in moss in Japanese culture, focusing in particular on the ‘moss robe’ in waka poems from the Kamakura period (1185-1333). He is exploring a new sense of distance between moss and people by making a monk's robe using only moss and actually wearing it.

Kentaro Aki

Born in 2001. First-year student at the Graduate School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Biotechnology, Waseda University, in the Hideo Iwasaki Laboratory, and a member of metaPhorest since 2022. Interested in the temporal evolution of moss plants in Japanese culture. Focusing on the imagery of moss plants in waka poetry, he is attempting to create art that redefines the relationship between moss plants and the Japanese people.