Commentary: [triggering Save Lives ver.] is a new work born in response to the global pandemic, continuing the original [triggering] performance. A visualized representation of COVID-19 has been added to the conventional geometric motifs of [triggering], further enhancing the original interplay between sound and image. The work aims to create a stark contrast between “synesthesia,” the original theme of triggering, and the “chaos” brought about by the ongoing pandemic. “triggering Save Lives ver.” is an updated version of the AV work “triggering” series, which has been performed since 2014, and was created amid the global pandemic. By adding visualized representations of COVID-19 to the synchronization of sound with conventional geometric motifs and color patterns, the work aims to move back and forth between “synesthesia,” the theme of triggering, and the “chaos” caused by the pandemic.

As part of the Agency for Cultural Affairs project “Media Arts Japan Promotion Initiative at Airports and Other Locations,” this work was exhibited in the “ETERNAL ~ A Thousand Seconds of Stillness” exhibition held at Haneda Airport. This work was created inspired by the production approach of “Kirin Mon Mandala,” designed by Habotaba Shoryu and Yoji. The technique of monshō ue, in which monogram designs have long been created in the Edo period by combining perfect circles, as practiced by monshō ue artist Mr. Habotaba, was applied by Seiichi Sega through waveforms drawn using physical simulation. By finding natural beauty and harmony in the simple lines formed by the combination of variously sized perfect circles, and overlaying them onto landscapes that appear to have arisen by chance, such as waves and terrain, the work expresses the “moment of composition” in beauty. In response to Kyoka’s sound image, in which ripples are composed as a visualization of sound along the x, y, and z axes, a vast space surrounded by a three-screen display was created.

A video work for a sound installation space by sound artist Corey Fuller of New York ambient label 12K. This was the third collaboration following Fragments on a large screen in Shinjuku and Colure in Ikebukuro. It was a special project created as part of the creator event “Rooms” held at Yoyogi National Gymnasium, where a simple space was set up with two screens placed at right angles in an area of about 10m x 20m. A 30-minute clip made by editing landscape footage gathered through fieldwork in Japan and Iceland was prepared in two versions with different effects applied to the same edit, and these were slowly overlapped at the installation venue in a cycle of parameters generated by TouchDesigner. The result is a one-time-only visual experience born from chance on the spot.

Teaser movie for MUTEK.JP, a global event for electronic music and digital art. While preserving the tone of the artwork developed in Montreal, the home of MUTEK, the teaser for MUTEK.JP extends that world and renders it in 3D. Within a three-dimensional space, it experiments with effects in which objects merge with one another or, conversely, are subtracted from one another.

A permanent art installation created for GLOBAL RING in the new Ikebukuro West Gate Park. In collaboration with Corey Fuller, a sound artist from the New York ambient label 12k, it creates an atmosphere of refined stillness in the circular park area amid the bustle of Ikebukuro. As a work in a public space where people pass through, it is based on the concept that the individual cycles of various things—each person, natural phenomena, and more—intersect and interfere with one another to create the “present.” The title, “Colure,” given by Corey, refers to a meridian in astronomy. At the same time, the word’s sound also resembles “Color,” meaning hue. Like phenomena born from the movements of celestial bodies, it creates sound and color through the movement of multiple concentric circles that, while harmonious, remain unsynchronized as they overlap.

“Running water never stops and never remains the same. Bubbles floating in the pools, now vanishing, now forming, never stay long. People and their dwellings in this world are likewise...” Calligrapher Mariko Kinoshita selected and inscribed a passage from Kamo no Chomei’s Hojoki, then divided the calligraphy into square pieces herself. Based on these segmented cells, video artist Shinichi Yamamoto assigned a time axis, and musician Corey Fuller further created a video work built from sound that deconstructed and reconstructed the words of Hojoki. In the video production method, using a technique Yamamoto often employs, he creates a system (equation) that randomly offsets the timing of the segmented characters, substitutes the cell materials into it, and, inspired by the unexpected and accidental patterns that emerge, feeds them back in again and edits them frame by frame to give them a time axis. This time, in the musical process as well, in addition to instruments such as the piano, an attempt was made to record footage of Kinoshita reciting Hojoki, deconstruct it, and use it as audio source material. With Kinoshita’s concepts of emptiness and dependent origination in her calligraphic practice, Corey Fuller’s richly quiet ambient textures, and Shinichi Yamamoto’s meta perspective when viewing landscapes in his works, each artist’s worldview is brought together in collaboration, with Hojoki as the point of intersection. The central theme is the “universal” that is felt even while always observing the “ever-changing.” After being presented on four outdoor screens in Shinjuku as part of the Shinjuku Creators Festa, the project has continued to evolve as an ongoing collaboration, including the development of an immersive installation version at Haneda Airport as part of the Agency for Cultural Affairs’ “Media Art × Cultural Resources: Distributed Museum” initiative.

A city-wandering XR project in which rhythm pieces provided by musicians at BPM 120 are combined like in music software such as Ableton Live and GarageBand, allowing visuals and music to be freely performed in space. A concept that visualizes the very structure of electronic music, techno, and dance music in spatial form. A work in which users interactively mix sound kits created by Intercity-Express in AR. By unifying all tracks at BPM 120, users build music by mixing kick drums, sequences, sound effects, vocals, and more within AR space, while a DJ and spatial VJ performance unfolds over an expanded Shibuya landscape. Presented in conjunction with MUTEK.JP, the festival of electronic music and digital art, as the second installment of “INVISIBLE ART IN PUBLIC,” an XR art exhibition set across the entire Shibuya district and operated by the “Shibuya Entertainment Tech Promotion Project.”

In 2013, Shinichi Yamamoto worked on “The Movements,” a data visualization piece based on scientific data. This work is a spherical image piece created as a permanent program for “Geo-Cosmos,” the spherical display at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. http://www.omnibusjp.com/supersymmetry/research/project_3.html Then, in 2015, two years after “The Movements,” he began production on the 3D fulldome work “The Man from the 9 Dimensions,” which was released in 2016 and screened at Dome Theater Gaia at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. He was responsible for visualizing scientific concepts related to superstring theory in theoretical physics, as well as for the film’s visual direction. http://www.omnibusjp.com/supersymmetry/research/project_7.html In the media art scene, science and art have been drawing closer together, and visualization of data and waveforms has been actively pursued. Building on the two works mentioned above, which focused on data visualization and the visualization of scientific concepts, this work is a philosophical concept visualization piece (※) that visualizes, from an artistic perspective, the concepts and ideas that arise when considering the origins of nature, the universe, and all things. The work has a total running time of 30 minutes, and each track has its own theme, such as “reversal of perspective,” “invalidating position,” “elementary particle,” and “time.” Overall, however, the main theme of the entire work is the shape of the trajectory traced by time, expressed through the concept featured in Track 04, “Emerging Design”: the accumulation of moments. Since 2016, he has collaborated on the concept with science curator Dimitris Kontopoulos, and together with Intercity-Express (Tetsuji Ohno), with whom he has continued to collaborate on sound design, they created the work in eight tracks. For high-resolution 3D visualization, Seiichi Sega (superSymmetry) also took part, contributing not only computer-generated imagery based on physical calculations but also interactive performances using TouchDesigner. ※ Philosophical concept visualization: In this context, “philosophy” refers to the knowledge, experiences, and view of life gained through pursuing the nature and principles underlying all things. - Premiere screening at MUTEK.JP: Since the main venue for MUTEK.JP in 2017 was the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, we planned and presented a version optimized for the museum’s Dome Theater Gaia 3D dome system, allowing audiences to experience the audiovisual performance in the best possible way, fully taking advantage of the dome’s specifications.

This work has been entered in “Shinjuku Creators Festa 2018”. It originated from the abstract image captured from people walking in Shinjuku, visualizing the image freely and flexibly. The city of Shinjuku itself, the buildings and people - they all seem to be heading in a certain direction, growing and developing. Though we are not quite sure what to make of these forms, we are simply struck by the beauty of their silhouette. Seeing that it shares a common concept with a chemical reaction formula called “reaction diffusion”, we have incorporated into this piece of work a spontaneously created cycle pattern using Houdini and TouchDesigner. Three different patterns of the work were presented on “Digital Signage EST VISION by LUMINE EST”. This work was entered in “Shinjuku Creators Festa 2018.” Based on an image abstracted from people walking in Shinjuku, it is a freely visualized piece. The city of Shinjuku, its buildings, and its people all seem to be growing toward somewhere, but it is impossible to say what exactly the formed shapes are; they are simply beautiful as silhouettes. Because this idea was very close to the long-established chemical reaction formula known as “reaction diffusion,” we used Houdini and TouchDesigner together to incorporate spontaneously generated periodic patterns into the expression. Three different versions of the video were presented on “Digital Signage EST VISION by LUMINE EST”.

Introduced at Shinjuku Creators Festa 2018. Noesis, a VR work by the same creator that was released around the same time, was used. We localized one track from Noesis to fit the screen specifications of Unica Vision in Shinjuku, a large outdoor screen. Unica Vision consists of three screens, all aligned and equipped with LEDs. Geographic Tide expresses the movement of rivers and the upheaval and subsidence of landforms. It all has a regular rhythm and is linked with ambient sound. Using all three screens, Geographic Tide presents a high-resolution 6K motion graphic. Introduced at Shinjuku Creators Festa 2018. One track from Noesis, released around the same time, was localized for Shinjuku and presented on Unica Vision, a large three-screen LED display. The movement of rivers and the upheaval and subsidence of landforms are visually programmed, giving a sense of regularity within a flow of random motion and linking it with ambient sound. It is a high-resolution 6K motion graphic displayed across all three screens.

Since 2013, we have participated in a public art project called “Shinjuku Creators Festa.” Voice of Vision took part in this festival in 2018. Using classical electronic music as its motif, a motion graphic in the taste of techno-pop appears on the streets of Shinjuku and counts down toward something. This time, we collaborated experimentally with graphic creator Seiya Nakano and the artist duo Satoshi & Makoto, handling the visuals and music, respectively. Seiya Nakano is a technical director who has worked on many notable projects in Japan through projection mapping and large-scale visual installations. Satoshi & Makoto are artists who met at Kraftwerk’s Japan tour, and their releases on the Dutch label Safe Trip have attracted attention. The music is original, created by Satoshi & Makoto for this work using vintage synthesizers from the ’80s and ’90s, as well as meticulously simulated sound sources. Both the visuals and the sound were created using distinctive methods and vintage equipment, rather than the mainstream tools used today. With creative roots in old-school techno-pop from the ’80s, we enjoyed this collaboration with artists who could share that sensibility, as an homage to techno culture.

DOLLHOUSE is a piece of work we did with a rock band called Radical Hardcore Clique. We directed a VJ work using two layers of screens. These layers were made of high-luminance transparent displays, which we mounted on “MNGL,” a next-generation DJ booth. In the actual performance, we had the musicians stand right in the middle of the two screens. Based on graphics created by Shinichi Yamamoto, DOLLHOUSE created a world of a crazy and psychedelic club scene using interactive technologies. For instance, we used delay-mapped real-time 3D motion graphics, and also created physical simulation graphics based on the mathematical superformula. DOLLHOUSE was performed at [BRDG], a collaboration event of music and graphics, and at [ADIRECTOR vol.1-DOLLHOUSE], an event that advocates ENTER-TECH (entertainment + technology). [ADIRECTOR] took place from August 4 to August 27, 2018. They rented an entire four-story building facing the Harajuku crossing. The main organizer of the event was a masked unit from Avex Music called [2nd Function].

A motion graphic created as a teaser movie for MUTEK.JP Edition 3. As an announcement for a music and art event, we used “TouchDesigner,” which has become a common programming tool for audiovisual performances and media art installations, to generate graphic materials for the teaser as well. We created a generative program in which multilayered lines and colors, matching the flat graphic imagery, are delayed and unfold over time. By interactively controlling that program, we live-recorded the endlessly generated line patterns on a PC and cut them together into a clip. Since it is promoted mainly on social media, the design development emphasizes a square format, such as dividing the frame at 45°.

Space Shower TV program package design. Responsible for the package design from planning, focusing on the opening title and including bumper in/out and info base elements. By treating the circular element as a single sound and expressing how these elements trace paths and come together to form a variety of music. Developed a simple graphic style that suits artists of any genre.

A VR installation work based on the concept of a "sound space." Its aim is to recreate the spatial quality of music and, through an HMD, transport one’s own sight and hearing into that space. Music always possesses both space and time. The groove created by sounds and the "ma" between them is what gives rise to a "vast space." By immersing oneself in that vast space, the work seeks to create an experience of being more fully enveloped by the spatiality of music.

An audiovisual installation using multiple projectors and transparent screens. This art installation explores the theme of “parallel time” through the ever-changing scenery within the gallery space, where the looping images and the interference between the projected screens constantly create different moments and atmospheres. If time is a shared scale of measurement, then every event and phenomenon occurring along that timeline should exist simultaneously as layered strata, continuing to arise on various scales even in this very moment. In this work, finely cropped abstract images are projected simultaneously using multiple projectors, and are cast with a sense of depth onto transparent screens arranged in a three-dimensional layout. It expresses the idea that all states can coexist as generation and disappearance repeat themselves. This work was exhibited in an underground art space at Hilton Tokyo for “Shinjuku Creators Festa 2017.” An audiovisual installation using multiple projectors and transparent screens. Through the cycles of looping images and the interference of the projected screens, it constantly creates shifting moments, presenting an art installation themed around “parallel time” through the fleeting, once-in-a-lifetime scenery that transforms throughout the gallery space. If time is a single shared scale, then all events and phenomena occurring on that time axis (timeline) exist simultaneously as layered strata, continuing to occur on various scales even in this very moment. In this work, finely cropped abstract images are projected simultaneously by multiple projectors and cast with depth onto transparent screens arranged three-dimensionally in the space. It expresses the idea that generation and disappearance repeat endlessly, and that all states can exist at the same time. This work was exhibited in the underground art space at Hilton Tokyo as part of “Shinjuku Creators Festa 2017.”

An audiovisual live performance in the 3D full-dome theater at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation. Presented as part of the art event MUTEK.JP. By synchronizing music with the permanently installed 3D projector in the Dome Theater Gaia at the National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, and projecting additional imagery from a large brought-in projector in layered overlap, the work realized an interactive live performance in 3D. This experimental audiovisual piece explores the visualization of themes such as quantum mechanics and the mechanisms of decision-making found in the laws governing natural forms.

The two characters in conflict in the story are portrayed through symbolic motion graphics. A production concept in which discoveries emerge each time you watch, and the interpretation changes as the story unfolds.