NTT East will be holding the “Digital x Hokusai [急章] Part 2” exhibition, “Authentic Artists – The Path of Creativity and Innovation,” at the NTT InterCommunication Center (ICC) until Sunday, March 30th next year.

The exhibition will focus on four ceiling paintings and decorative dolls from the Higashimachi and Kamimachi festival floats, which NTT ArtTechnology has digitized in high definition in collaboration with Ars Techne.
The “Digital x Hokusai” exhibition started in 2019, and this will be the fifth. As with the previous “Digital x Hokusai [Quick Chapter] Part 1,” this time the focus is on Hokusai’s activities in Obuse, Nagano, a town he frequented in his later years.
“Hokusai’s work in Obuse is unique in its creative endeavors, not seen in other periods. We decided that it was too rich to cover in a single exhibition,” says NTT ArtTechnology president Manabu Kunieda, explaining the significance of holding the second exhibition.

Hokusai’s work in Obuse also supervised the decorative dolls, but it is said to be the only three-dimensional work that Hokusai was involved in.
NTT ArtTechnology and ArtTechne have digitized many of Hokusai’s works, but this is their first attempt at digitizing a three-dimensional work.
The exhibition displays the main bodies of the Higashimachi and Kamimachi festival floats in 3D data. The 3D floating giga viewer allows visitors to view the floats from various angles and in detail. The 3D viewer also allows visitors to view the floats from various perspectives, as if they were jumping out of the water in three dimensions, using a controller at hand.

上町祭屋台　３Ｄデジタルデータ( Festival Float 3D Digital Data)

The two floats are in the collection of the Hokusai Museum in Obuse Town. Since the Hokusai Museum opened in 1976, the float had never been moved, but last year, the Nagano Prefectural Museum of Art held the exhibition “Katsushika Hokusai and the Three Shinano Regions – Obuse, Suwa, Matsumoto” and moved the float for the first time in 47 years.
To move it, the float was dismantled at the Hokusai Museum and reassembled at the Nagano Prefectural Museum of Art.
“The float hadn’t been moved for nearly 50 years, so there was no one who knew how to dismantle or assemble it. The Hokusai Museum asked us to keep a record of the dismantling and reassembly process for future maintenance, so we asked a local cable company to record the entire process,” says President Kunieda.
It was also a unique opportunity for 3D digitization. At the Hokusai Museum, the float was displayed in the smallest possible space, which was insufficient for 3D photography. On the other hand, the Nagano Prefectural Museum of Art had enough space for photography.
“If we missed this opportunity, we may not be able to digitize the artifacts for decades, so we carried out the 3D photography on a day when the Nagano Prefectural Museum of Art was closed,” said President Kunieda.

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