"Repeatedly the unimaginable form, color, and way of moving of the flora and fauna of the natural world give me ideas for my work in computer graphics. With the creation of the earth and the historical accumulation of time, many bewitching forms and patterns of movement, rules and principles have come into being. Even in the most primitive period in the process of evolution, the forms of life, seen from archeological point of view, offer extremely interesting material for modeling. Early life forms are specially interesting because in their still undifferentiated condition, the direction of later complex evolution is not yet decided.

With its ability to capture the details of delicate forms and power to minutely represent very complex physical object, high definition computer graphics lure us to express this kind of substantiality. It is possible to increase the richness of representation of the surface or "skin", of a physical object, or "form", by combining a number of techniques like texture and pattern mapping and normal vector mapping to create a sense of bumpiness, or depth of surface. High definition technology can enhance the possible effects using computer graphic images. We must therefore experiment and attempt things with high definition graphics. Which are difficult with standard technology, and thus discover what is possible.

In my view, high definition computer graphics is especially suited to representing a viscous sphere of density or a "metaball". With high definition technology, it will be possible to see images which could not be done with standard technology such as the appearance and growth of the increasingly dense space of a curved surface. With high definition imaging it will be possible to pursue interesting ideas in either moving or still images. The ease of moving with unrestricted freedom back and forth between still images and moving images, will allow one's personal inspiration to be constantly renewed. One will be free to choose to express a feeling of substance by paying attention to the minute details of form and color in a still image or to express variation and change by focusing on the rhythm of movement on the axis of time in moving images. Personally I would like to be able to physically feel the new always fresh images which will be possible from within the pursuit of new high definition computer graphic images. I want to describe warm subtropical water, as a purified object existing in a realm of overflowing brilliance".

Yoichiro Kawaguchi

 

 

One of the world's outstanding computer graphics artists, Yoichiro Kawaguchi was born in Kagoshima, Japan, in 1952. He graduated from the Kyushu Art Technical Institute and finished the graduate course at Tokyo Educational College. At present he is associate professor at Nippon Electronics College's Art and Science Laboratory. His main interest is devoted to the interaction of science and the arts and the development of new artistic methods and techniques in computer graphics based upon morphological and ecological laws of Nature.

Text originally published in ArtFutura's 1990 catalog.