Encouragement Prize
Gyorol
Web
Artist : BOKU Masayoshi representing the Gyorol production team
(Japan)
This website content links a mobile phone to the internet in real time, and proposes a new use for communication technology in the form of fishing. The user can catch fish in virtual water located at the website. The caught fishes can even be named and kept in a water tank, where they are observed. We expect this idea will be expanded in many different forms.

BOKU Masayoshi representing the Gyorol production team
Born in Tokyo, 1967. President of Bascule Inc. and Creative director. Obsessed with the question “what are the best forms of web content?”, his daily life is that of a chronic workaholic.
Ten days before the deadline of the art exhibition, I was beginning to regret my participation. The entry I had spent around two months working on with outside help was complete, but I had decided to discard it. With the words “Well, this is not it,” I had made up my mind, and started working on this one. I am very pleased to receive this great prize, despite this being an experimental work, and I am glad that I took the decision I did. I will derive much encouragement from this prize for my future work.
Though this is meant to be an experimental work, the design and explanation is so cheap that it hinders understanding of the technology and innovation attempted, which almost led to it failing to be selected. However, of all the entries linked to mobile phone technology, this is the only substantiated experiment that does not require a specific display device, and which provides for a rich interactive experience through a mobile phone. Beyond the basic idea of the combination of PC and mobile phone, this work has the wide ranging potential to produce new interactive experiences in Digital Signage, a field in which considerable development is expected in the near future. In the final screening session, this work was praised for the possibilities it suggested for the eventual provision of new and unconventional media experiences.
What makes you create a work?
I have thoughtlessly undertaken to join an art exhibition held at Yokohama ZAIM without regard for my own ability.
What tools do you use the most at present?
Thunderbird.
What do you place greatest value on in your work?
As it is content for a new genre, my greatest concern was that it could be understood quickly.
What personal concept runs through your creative activities?
To provide a place where both the creator and the player/audience can be centre stage.
When you create a work, in what way do you think of a presentation using technologies or media as a means to communicate?
I would like to utilize the capacity of the internet that to publicize work as soon as an idea becomes reality; Gyorol was typical of this. Also, it is rather a common ambition, but I would like to make something internationally recognizable one day.
Could you name a person, a work, or an event that you have been most influenced by?
Being born as the eldest of two twins.
What kind of work would you like to create in the future?
I think I will continue to seek for an ultimate form of web contents for the time being. Also, though it is not my work, I would like to begin to have fun with EC.
What is the meaning or importance of creating for you?
To make decisions.
![2008 [12th] Japan Media Arts Festival Award-winning Works 2008 [12th] Japan Media Arts Festival Award-winning Works](/english/festival/images/h1_jusyousakuhin-en2008.gif)






