At the Source (Code): Obscenity and Modularity in Rokudenashiko’s Media Activism

This chapter examines how art practices in the 2010s are developing alternative modes of reflection on media. Focusing on the example of the artist Rokudenashiko, who was arrested for obscenity, the chapter specifically looks at ways in which Rokudenashiko circumvented the male-dominated space in which media theorization has largely taken place in Japan—the space of hihyō. By using humor to work through issues of the commodified female body, and the restrictive national role assigned to it, Rokudenashiko hit a nerve that provoked a state reaction. Rokudenashiko operates at the fringes of Japan’s media system, perturbing it and using its shrapnel to construct an alternative space. Referencing McKenzie Wark’s concept of “low theory,” the chapter maps and theorizes one attempt to connect reflections on media models and gender roles to everydayness in ways that appear whimsical but are decidedly oppositional.