ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS! is a collaborative art and music project led by
,
in which people from diverse backgrounds work together to revive obsolete
electronic appliances as new electronic musical instruments,
gradually forming an orchestra.


The project currently operates laboratories in six cities across Japan—
Tokyo, Hitachi, Kyoto, Nagoya, Akita, and Fukuoka—as well as online.
As a participatory art initiative, it continues creative activities
with nearly one hundred members.


To date, a wide range of household appliances—including CRT televisions,
electric fans, ventilation fans, video cameras, air conditioners, and telephones—
have been transformed into musical instruments.


In 2017, the project realized a unique festival titled
Electromagnetic Bon Dance,
a strange and joyful ritual where people dance to festival music
played on old electronic appliances.


Since 2018, ELECTRONICOS FANTASTICOS! has expanded its activities beyond Japan,
and in 2019 formed a multinational band to perform at
Ars Electronica,
the world’s largest media art festival.


By creatively reinterpreting the original functions of electronic devices as instruments,
the project imagines new forms of “electromagnetic folk music”
born from outdated technologies,
and continues to weave an ever-evolving fantasy of music, ritual, and community.


Hisashi Wada

Artist / Musician


Born in 1987, Wada recalls believing from an early age that somewhere there must exist
a place where a music festival awaited—
a place marked by a towering structure resembling a giant crab’s leg
embedded with CRT televisions.


When a friend later told him that such a place did not exist on Earth,
he realized that he would have to create it himself.


While still a student, Wada began working across the fields of music and visual art.
In 2009, he formed Open Reel Ensemble,
a music group that performs using vintage open-reel tape recorders.


At the same time, his performance work Braun Tube Jazz Band,
in which CRT televisions are played as instruments,
received the Excellence Award in the Art Division
at the 13th Japan Media Arts Festival.


He has since presented performanc