CG animation for the “Nemuru Ma Anime” segment included in U-NEXT Kids’ picture-book reading program “Nemuru Ma Ehon.” By weaving together the factory motifs that Masaya Ishikawa had explored in his previous works with the absurd ideas of Senpuukyaku Hoshiko, the piece was brought to life as a mysterious and charming visual work. The 3DCG production was handled by Hoshiko. Through repeated trial and error, the process by which “something” whose state keeps changing—such as being stretched or painted—is manufactured was visualized. In the latter half, frame-by-frame “faces” are given to the manufactured objects to endow them with emotion, retelling the factory line as a single story.

This is a documentary video of Masaya Ishikawa’s first solo exhibition, “Layers of Light,” held from Monday, February 8 to Sunday, February 21, 2021. Working as a graphic designer and visual expression researcher, Ishikawa developed an original three-dimensional image device in 2020 using the principles of light wavelengths. At the same time, as an artist, he has been creating works that explore new forms of expression by making the most of the device’s characteristics and constraints. With this new medium, which comes with significant limitations—“up to three layers” and “the color of each layer is fixed”—he has applied insights from cognitive science and animation to uncover several rich veins of expression and turn them into works of art. These are sculptural forms and animations made of light, with a vivid sense of three-dimensionality that can only truly be experienced by seeing them in person. This recording was made in the hope of conveying even a little of that texture.