Inter-Cultural Computing: ZENetic Computer
ZENetic is an interface that evokes self-awakening through essential aspects of Zen Buddhist culture. Through esoteric riddles, ZENetic teases particular cognitive responses from users, as reflections of their inner, subliminal consciousness. With stories portrayed in ink painting, haiku, and kimono, ZENetic conveys the rich allegorical interaction characteristic of Eastern philosophy.

Life Enhancement
People of many different nationalities, cultures, and customs live in the world. With a new method of inter-cultural computing that uses advanced interaction technologies, we can offer a totally new and personal experience through which people can feel and understand different cultures. Based on this approach, everybody can gain cross-cultural understanding that leads to a real understanding of "symbiosis." This real understanding of different cultures is very important for peace throughout the world.

Vision
From this beginning, we will extend our cross-cultural translation system on the network to encourage interchanges in cultural anthropology, art, literature, philosophy, psychology, and sociology.

Goals
To develop new theories, models, and methods, that may shed new light on how a given culture may be translated into a format that would enable users from different cultural origins to access the deeper significance of the translated culture.

Innovations
ZENetic applies some aspects of Buddhist philosophy as a model in computational science. Our motivation derives from the more than 2,000 years of innovative Buddhist tradition. Methods of interaction between Zen master and pupil, developed to sharpen the understanding of human consciousness, provide a rich base for interactive modeling -- a field still unexplored in the Western scientific tradition.

Presentation
Wednesday, 11 August
1:45 - 3:30 pm
Room 404AB

Contacts
Seigow Matsuoka
Editorial Engineering Laboratory, Tezukayama Gakuin University

Naoko Tosa
PRESTO, JST, Entertainment Computing Lab Kyoto, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
naoko@mit.edu

Contributors
Peter Davis
Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute

Toshinori Kondo
Jazz Trumpeter

Jordan Gilliland
Entertainment Computing Lab Kyoto, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Brad Ellis
Entertainment Computing Lab Kyoto, Harvard University

Henry Thomas
Christian Warocquier
France Télécom R et D, Studio Créatif