Cultural / Context information for the jury

Japan, the host country of Tokyo2020 had got divided on whether to hold the games, even after the decision was made to hold it without an audience under a state of emergency by Covid. While the voices against to the Olympics spilled over into criticism of the athletes, supporters were not allowed into the stadiums and their voices of cheers were not heard by the athletes, despite it would be held in their home country. Visa, the worldwide sponsor of Tokyo2020, thought what if could do to make supporter’s "Voices" visible and turn it into power for the athletes. Then the project had come up to connect fans and athletes by delivering the “Voices” of support, via developing special voice app with “YOSEGAKI-ART（a Japanese cheering art）generator” using OK Google platform, and reflecting in a landmark digital screen in the terminal station during the games.

Tell the jury about the interactive / dynamic component of the work.

Firstly, we had developed a special voice app which would transform cheering voices into cheering arts. The program we had implemented could create “YOSEGAKI-ART” movie from your speech text and display it on your smartphone or OK Google smart audio device on the fly. The generated “YOSEGAKI-ART” had been reflected and updated during the games on the huge digital screen in Shibuya station one of the main terminals in Tokyo, so that on the spot you were able to see that your voice might have been a part of the YOSEGAKI-ART that everyone created together. It also delivered via Visa's Website, social posts, message T-shirts given to athletes. Under the situation, many fans had lost chances to make it to the stadium, but this made anyone possible to participate creating a moment together no matter where you were, just as shown in the tagline “Visa, everywhere you want to be.”