Environment Society formed around the goal of challenging institutional art structures by working collaboratively while abandoning traditional genre distinctions.
This goal is made clear in the text outlining their objectives for From Space to Environment in the Bijutsu Techō issue that served as a quasi-catalogue for the exhibition.
[1] Notable works in the exhibition included Takamatsu Jirō's Chairs and Table in Perspective (遠近法の椅子とテーブル, 1966), a sculptural set of chairs and table overlaid with a grid that are formed in extreme forced perspective, with the chairs near the front of the sculpture literally larger than those at the back;[5] Arata Isozaki's boldly-colored sculptural maquette for Fukuoka Sōgo Bank (建築空間(福岡相互銀行大分支店), 1966) suspended on the wall;[1] a site-specific installation on the wall of Ay-O's Finger Boxes (フィンガー・ボックス, 1963–66), which invite viewers to insert their fingers to experience different tactile sensations;[5] photographer Shōmei Tōmatsu's No.
24 (1966), an installation that invited viewers to place their feet on footprints to stand within an off-kilter enclosing white space;[1] and Yamaguchi's Port (港, 1966), a set of larger-than-human sized colored transparent acrylic J-shapes and cubes, positioned in different arrangements with lights inside that was shown again at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in 1967.
[7][8] However, it also occurred a mere five months after the Primary Structures exhibition in New York, and the Bijutsu Techō issue devoted to covering the exhibition included images from Primary Structures, so the use of industrial materials and fabrication processes, color and space, and larger-than-human scale sculptural elements and environments have also been understood as a response and challenge to the emerging movement of Minimalism in the US.
Sawaragi argues that this totalizing vision, allied with what he characterizes as an optimistic view of the possibilities of artistic collaborations with technology, uncritically and unwittingly sets the stage for avant-garde art to disempower visitors in an overwhelming spectacle that serves to legitimize an increasingly authoritarian state.
[8] Architectural historian Yasutaka Tsuji further critiques Sawaragi's argument by comparing the Japan Design Committee's (JDC) understanding of technology with that of Environment Society, inspired by the historical fact that From Space to Environment and the JDC's annual Good Design exhibition were held concurrently on the eight floor of the Matsuya Department Store in Ginza.