──First of all, I'd like you to tell me about your first encounter with computers.

For that I'd have to go back to my days as a student, which is quite a long time ago. I first got in touch with one of those "H68" one-board microcomputers made by Hitachi.

──I heard that you were building amplifiers in junior high school. Does this work with electronics have anything to do with the fact that you began to focus on computers later?

I guess there exists some kind of connection. There never was fear or anything that kept me from playing with electricity, and sometimes I was even doing such things as open the back of a TV set and poke about in it with a screwdriver. If I think about it now I was doing pretty dangerous things. I damaged virtually everything that was there to damage.

──Do you think your interest in mechanics comes also from the SF stories and mangas you grew up with?

I definitely can't deny that. You see, my generation is the generation of "Tetsujin 28go" and "Astroboy." I was also watching such films as "Star Trek."

──At university you were in the sculpturing department, but you made also 8 mm videos, didn't you?

That Hitachi microcomputer I mentioned before came with something like a video board, which was very unique at the time. But it allowed only very basic operations, such as movements by pixels for example. I found that too simple and boring, so what I did is, I shot the monitor with 8 mm film in multiple exposures, using different colorations each time. It was really interesting, and it looked like a kaleidoscope!

──What was the occasion that initially made you begin to work with the microcomputer?

It was the time when the so-called synthesizer had surfaced, and I was in a situation where I got in touch with it from the beginning. Among my friends was a composer, and I bought a used one from him for very little money. It was an interesting thing, with VCF and VCA, and all that other easy to understand analogue stuff. I was particularly interested also in those basic ideas behind the synthesizer, and while playing around with it I thought it might be interesting to control it via the microcomputer.

──Considering also the fact that you like Brian Eno, it looks like you entered the business from the musical side.

Well, that's again a question of the timing. When Brian Eno first appeared on the scene, I happened to be there, too. What struck me most at the time was that whole "ambient" philosophy. I got so curious about Eno's ideas that I ended up listening a lot to his music.

──After graduating from university you entered a video production company. Did you do there things like programming for videos?

"Computer graphics" at that time meant not more than to shoot with a computer-controlled camera. Do you remember the scene from "2001: A Space Odyssey" where they come from Jupiter and enter the Star Gate? The company I was in had the equipment that scene was made with. The trick is to keep the camera shutter open while moving the camera over objects such as sheets with little holes, and shoot using various filters. What you can see then on the film are the traces of those movements. Once an image is finished that way, you reel back the film and make another sequence with slightly different movements. What you get is a very eventful movie. You have to consider, however, that it takes eight hours to finish a sequence of only ten seconds. It was hell of a lot of work, and it's just impossible without digital control.

──Later you changed to Pioneer LDC. What exactly were you doing there?

I made various experiments to find possibilities for combining Laser Disc and PC. Concretely speaking, I put together time sequences for a cooking program, or made things like games, etc. I also produced visuals for exhibitions and regular displays in museums.

──At that time, weren't you thinking about making your own works yet?

Oh, I was thinking about that a lot, but first of all, I didn't have time for such things. Also, my working environment at the time, such as computer specifications, didn't allow me to do my personal things on the side.

──Your first own creation is "Drop Dragon," which you made back in 1995, I think. Wasn't it a terrifically pioneering work at that time?

Yeah, probably, but I wasn't at all aware of that! The program I initially made for verification purposes, to inspect the accuracy of functions. By simply changing a few parameters I came across some surprising patterns, and that was so interesting that I went on with the creation of "Drop Dragon."

──When looking at your works I always see there some kind of mutability.

No matter what part you grab and look at, it's always the same, and somehow I feel that for such kinds of works it's impossible to make them begin at one point and end at another.

──For the titles of your works you chose terms like "Nirvana" or "Stupa." Where does that partiality for Buddhism come from?

Maybe it's not exactly a "partiality," but you're right, I borrowed some terms from Buddhism. For "Stupa," for example, which is part of "Cluster Works," I was imagining that those people in ancient times who built real stupas might have had the same kinds of requisites that I had. The title "Nirvana Engine"is a result of my idea that the scenery of light I created resembles the light people see in near-death experiences.

──Are such near-death experiences what you were having in mind from the beginning for "Nirvana Engine"?

Well, what I was thinking all the time during the making of "Nirvana Engine" is that the transformation of images was an extremely efficienct point. There's the so-called "gamma table" that's often used for adjusting the colours of a monitor. If you use that table in a way that's different from the normal one, it can result in image changes such as those you can see "Nirvana Engine." I believed that at the time such visuals didn't exist anywhere else, and amazed by the high efficiency I became immersed in it.

──Are the sounds included in "Cluster Works" your own creations, too?

The sounds I first produced were randomly generated, but somehow I spotted melodies here and there, and then I worked out my own interpretations of them. At first sight it might look like random numbers, but in fact it's kind of an organized chaos. First I create some basic random formulas with certain inclinations, and then I synthesize them at various occasions. When listening to the results, though, there's no chance to know whether things actually came out like that due to parameter changes or not. Once I'm at such a point it's impossible for myself to trace back the creation process, and if you asked me to do the same thing again, I simply can't. Even by looking at the source code, I have no idea what I did there.

──So, music really seems to be the central element of your work.

Yes, you're right. But, well, maybe not necessarily only "music," but generally things with a duration, media of time and space.

──Besides your own works you're also producing things like "T-Time" or "Expanded Book Tool Kit." Is your approach to such jobs different?

I know that it's a bad thing, but in the beginning I didn't make any difference. My ideas often originate from personal desires, such as the wish to read vertically written emails or bulletin boards. The first computers were machines where people first created the tools they wanted to use, and there were no such things as Excel or Photoshop. In this sense, in my head it's the same thing.

──What are you working on at the moment?

I'm working on a visual plug-in for iTunes. I think it's not that much different from "Nirvana Engine" or "Cluster Work," just that this one works with an iTunes plug-in.

──Sounds great, I'm looking forward to seeing that! So, what do your future plans look like?

For several years now I've been planning to do something with so-called 3D Stereo. Stereograms do still exist, but isn't it very tiring to look at them with the naked eye? Even if you put on glasses it's extremely difficult to see, so I've been wondering whether there's any way to work with the existing headgear and increase the resolution. To try and make stereograms with that is one thing I'm having in mind.