earticle

한국어

Today, traditional culture is being re-interpreted and re-presented through digital exhibitions, a process that extends beyond technical experimentation to entail cultural meanings and political implications. This study analyzes the modes of representing Japanese ukiyo-e in the digital exhibition Moving Ukiyo-e Exhibition from the perspective of cultural translation. The exhibition selectively chose and omitted certain images to construct a “showable tradition”, which was staged across nine themed rooms : Great View(眺), Japan Blue(藍), Beautiful(麗), Colorful(彩), Interest(遊), Glorious(錦), Waterfall(瀧), Heroes(豪),and Elegance(雅). These spaces were categorized into immersive, illusory, and symbolic experiential modes of display, employing techniques such as immersive screens, holograms, and projection mapping to sensorially reconfigure tradition. As a result, tradition was transformed into cultural-political effects of national branding, personal consumption, and global circulation. At the same time, however, its historical contexts were simplified and fixed as consumer-oriented spectacles. The significance of this study lies in identifying the digital re-presentation of tradition as a cultural-political project mediated by cultural translation, and in revealing how tradition in the digital environment tends toward branding, commodification, and globalization. Future curatorial practices concerning tradition must be accompanied not only by aesthetic judgments of “what to show” and “how to show,” but also by ethical and political considerations. The case of the Moving Ukiyo-e Exhibition provides a critical foundation for such discussions and serves as a starting point for further studies at the intersection of tradition, digital media, and cultural politics.