Tokyo 2020

Around this time, an anonymous group of activists orchestrated a series of public hacks in order to both expose the city’s efforts at public propaganda while also situating a critical dialogue with the mainstream media.

Ever since 2011, when Tokyo was selected by the Japanese Olympic Committee as Japan’s bidding city for the 2020 Olympics Games, the city has been immersed once again in the exciting and euphoric preparation for the world’s largest sporting event. Shortly afterward, the Tokyo government allocated $4.5 billion of public funds in order to launch a series of largescale urban development projects, including the spectacular and enormous Olympic stadium (designed by Zaha Hadid), the newly planned Olympic Village, the Tokyo Bay Zone revitalization, and other tourismrelated facilities upgrades.

The event has become an urban imaginary in and of itself, reshaping the built environment and the social life of the city. The municipal government’s publicity campaign, which broadcasts promotional videos throughout both public spaces and mass media, seeks to brand the city through images of a hypermodern, worldclass city. Everyday life is now saturated with harmonious visions of a sterile, conflictfree Tokyo. In 2020, the violence of the city lurks both in the physical landscape and the cyberworld it emits.